Further Evidence for the Universality of Need for High Self Esteem Seminar

In this presentation I will show evidence from students in China, Hawaii, mainland U.S., in addition to data from students in Japan. Undergraduate students were asked to draw a chart of their self-esteem history since they can remember. They were also asked about their hope and prediction about their self-esteem level. The results indicated that the subjects’ current self-esteem is positive in all the countries including Japan. Furthermore, the subjects hoped for and predicted even higher self-esteem in the future in all the countries.

These results clearly indicate that the need for high self-esteem is universal rather than unique to North American culture. Additional evidence suggests that the expression of moderate self-esteem is adaptive especially in Asian cultural milieu. It is interesting to note that the U.S. students like students in Japan and China, hold the most positive attitude toward the person who shows moderate self-esteem. We will discuss the relation between modesty and expression of self-esteem in terms of their adaptive value in each culture. In the second part, I will show you the results of meta-analysis concerning relations of Japanese self-esteem with various measures such as mental health, psychological well-being, interpersonal relationships, etc. The results indicate that self-esteem functions in Japanese culture as it does in North American culture. In all, our data indicate that self-esteem is important for Japanese people as it is for North Americans. Positive self-regards appears to be prevalent across cultures.