Personality consistency across situations among Asian and European Canadians

What is it about?

We found that the gap between how people behaved with their parents versus how they behaved with peers (friends, siblings) was wider for second-generation Asian-Canadians than European-Canadians. Perceived social expectations (i.e., injunctive norms) for how to behave with parents versus peers also differed more for Asian- than European-Canadians, and controlling for these differences in social expectations eliminated the ethnic differences in behavioral consistency across situations. Importantly, there were no ethnic differences in consistency between other contexts (e.g., behavior/norms with siblings versus teachers) or between European-Canadians and second-generation Asian-Canadians who believed their parents had embraced a Canadian identity.

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Why is it important?

Contrary to previous theorizing, cultural influences on broad cognitive or motivational dispositions (e.g., collectivism) alone were insufficient to explain the observed ethnic differences in personality profiles across different social contexts. Our findings suggest that to understand when bicultural individuals will be less consistent across situations requires also understanding across which specific situations they are especially likely to encounter divergent social norms.