1. Voluntary Settlement and the Spirit of Independence
2006 CEFOM/21 Hokkaido University International Symposium
Cultural and Adaptive Bases of Human Sociality
Voluntary Settlement and the Spirit of Independence
Shinobu Kitayama
University of Michigan

2. The Mutual Constitution of Culture and Psyche *
Core cultural ideas
• What is good?
• What is moral?
• What is self?
Ecological, economic, historical factors
Practices and institutions reflecting and promoting the core ideas
• language
• educational
systems
• political
system
• media
• legal system
Daily experiences that personalize core ideas
• home
• school
• workplace
Psychological structures and processes
• agency/self
motivation
emotion
cognition
Action
Figure adapted from The Cultural Shaping of Psychological Reality, Kitayama and Markus (1994)
Collective
Reality
Socio-
psychological
processes
Individual
Psychological Tendencies

3. Collaborators Kitayama, S., Ishii, K., Imada, T., Takemura, K., &
Ramaswamy, J. (in press). Voluntary
settlement and the spirit of independence: Evidence from Japan’s “northern frontier”
Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology.

4. Religious freedom and personal wealth
“Religious freedom is my immediate goal, but my long-term plan is to go into real estate.”

5. Voluntary Settlement Hypothesis
Economically motivated voluntary settlement
in the frontier
Independent agency
1. Personal happiness
2. Personal choice
3. Belief in internally motivated action

6. Japanese Census Data (2005)
Divorce rate
National mean over 47 prefectures
1.96/1000 (SD=.28)
Hokkaido
2.5 (ranked 3rd)
The proportion of households with at least one grandchild
21% (SD=8.9)
10% (5th lowest)
Sapporo
Lowest (5%) among the 13 largest metropolitan areas (M=8%)
Proportion of old people (65+) living alone
10th highest among all the 47 prefectures
The nine prefectures ranked high are all in the southern island (Kyusyu)

7. Hokkdaido: Japan’s “Northern Frontier”

8. Population in Hokkaido
1873: ,000
1920: 2,360,000
2005: 5,860,000

9. Empirical strategy Three indicators of independent agency
Social norm
Personal choice
Lay conception of person
Systematic comparison among
Americans in the US
Hokkaido residents born in Hokkaido
Hokkaido residents born elsewhere in Japan
Mainland Japanese

10. Mechanisms of cultural maintenance and change
Americans
H-born J
Non-H-born J
Mainland J
Initial enculturation
Acculturation
Self-selection =
> = = =
> = =
>
Effect of length of stay can distinguish between acculturation and self-selection

11. Is independence socially sanctioned in Hokkaido?
Correlates of happiness
Socially disengaging positive emotions
Pride
Self-confidence
Feelings of superiority
Socially engaging positive emotions
Friendly feelings
Close feelings
Feelings of respect

12. Predicting happiness as a function of engaging and disengaging positive emotions (Kitayama, Mesquita, & Karasawa, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, in press)

14. Study 2. Personal choice Choice One inadvertent consequence of choice
Self-determination
Self-expression
Self-promotion
One inadvertent consequence of choice
Threat to personal self (“Am I stupid?”)
Self-justification to reduce this worry (dissonance)
Personal vs. Social Dissonance Process

15. Motivational Consequences of Choice
Personal worry
“Am I stupid?”
Interpersonal worry
“Will they think I am stupid?” OR
Self-justification
Affirmation of
self
Kitayama, Snibbe, Markus, & Suzuki (2004).
Psychological Science, 15,

16. Consequences of Choice Personal Dissonance
Independent Self
Choice
Personal worry
“Am I stupid?”
Interpersonal worry
“Will they think I am stupid?” OR
Self-justification
Affirmation of
Independent self
Kitayama, Snibbe, Markus, & Suzuki (2004).
Psychological Science, 15,

17. Dual Process Model of Cognitive Dissonance
Interdependent Self
Choice
Personal worry
“Am I stupid?”
Interpersonal worry
“Will they think I am stupid?” OR
Self-justification
Affirmation of
Interdependent self
Kitayama, Snibbe, Markus, & Suzuki (2004).
Psychological Science, 15,

18. Procedure Free choice dissonance paradigm (Brehm, 1956)
1st ranking of 10 CDs
Choice between the 5th and the 6th ranked CDs
10 min
2nd ranking of the 10 CDs

19. Marked Cross-Cultural Difference in Cognitive Dissonance Effect
West
Very robust, easily replicable
East
Very hard to obtain (e.g., Heine & Lehman, 1997)
Two possibilities
No dissonance effect in East
Dissonance effect is more interpersonal in East

20. Study 4 from Kitayama, Snibbe, Markus, & Suzuki (2004, Study 4).
Psychological Science, 15,

22. Study 4 from Kitayama, Snibbe, Markus, & Suzuki (2004, Study 4).
Psychological Science, 15,

23. Personal dissonance in Hokkaido

24. Do People in Hokkaido believe action to be internally motivated?
Fundamental attribution error
Tendency to attribute a cause of behavior to an internal factor of the actor even when there is an obvious situational constraint

25. A pitcher for a professional baseball team, Tom Lyons, lost several games in the beginning of the season. Instead of spending extra time practicing, he used performance-enhancing drugs for the rest of the regular season. Tom Lyons continued to use the drugs, even though the use of performance-enhancing drugs is illegal and considered to be cheating.
Do you agree or disagree with each of the following four statements
(1=strongly disagree…9=strongly agree)
Features of Tom Lyons (such as his character, attitude, or temperament) influenced his behavior.
2. Features of the environment that surrounds Tom Lyons (such as the social atmosphere, social norms, or other contextual factors) influenced his behavior.
3. Tom Lyons would have acted differently if his features (such as his character, attitude, or temperament) had been different.
4. Tom Lyons would have acted differently if features of the environment that surround him (such as the social atmosphere, social norms, or other contextual factors) had been different.

26. Causal attribution in the frontier

27. Summary Cultural norms of independence
Yes for both H-born and ML-born H Japanese
Significance attached to personal choice – cognitive dissonance
Belief in internally motivated action
Yes only for H-born H Japanese
Self-selection (personal choice)
 Social norms of independence (happiness)
 Gradual development of cultural ethos
 Enculturation (cultural ethos including lay conceptions of the person)

28. The Voluntary Settlement Hypothesis: Further Elaborations
Economically motivated voluntary settlement
in the frontier
Independent agency
1. Personal happiness
2. Personal choice
3. Belief in internally motivated action
Self-selection
(only a minority)
Social norms
and ideology of
independence
Intrinsic motivation
toward
independence
“It is important to be
independent”
“It is personally rewarding
to be independent”
“I am
independent”

29. The Voluntary Settlement Hypothesis: Further Elaborations
Economically motivated voluntary settlement
in the frontier
Independent agency
1. Personal happiness
2. Personal choice
3. Belief in internally motivated action
Social norms
and ideology of
independence
Intrinsic motivation
toward
independence
Social and psychological change in the frontier
Self-selection
(only a minority)
Social norms
and ideology of
independence
Intrinsic motivation
toward
independence
Negative independence
--Social avoidance
--Social isolation
Positive independence
--Social engagement
--Social activism