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Agency‐Communion and Self‐Esteem Relations Are Moderated by Culture, Religiosity, Age, and Sex: Evidence for the “Self‐Centrality Breeds Self‐Enhancement” Principle
Open accessAbstract
OBJECTIVE: Who has high self-esteem? Is it ambitious, competitive, outgoing people-agentic personalities? Or is it caring, honest, understanding people-communal personalities? The literature on agency-communion and self-esteem is sparse, indirect, and inconsistent. Based on William James's theorizing, we propose the "self-centrality breeds self-enhancement" principle. Accordingly, agency will be linked to self-esteem, if agency is self-central. Conversely, communion will be linked to self-esteem, if communion is self-central. But what determines the self-centrality of agency and communion? The literature suggests that agency is self-central in agentic cultures, as well as among nonreligious individuals, men, and younger adults. Communion is self-central in communal cultures, as well as among religious individuals, women, and older adults. METHOD: This study examined 187,957 people (47% female; mean age = 37.49 years, SD = 12.22) from 11 cultures. The large sample size afforded us the opportunity to test simultaneously the effect of all four moderators in a single two-level model (participants nested in cultures). RESULTS: Results supported the unique moderating effect of culture, religiosity, age, and sex on the relation between agency-communion and self-esteem. CONCLUSIONS: Agentic and communal people can both have high self-esteem, depending on self-centrality of agency and communion.
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“Furthermore, Agency (a close relative of E) is more strongly linked to self-esteem than is Communion (a close relative of A) (Gebauer, Wagner et al., 2013;Gecas & Seff, 1989;Wojciszke et al., 2011).”
From Cultural norm fulfillment, interpersonal belonging, or getting ahead? A large-scale cross-cultural test of three perspectives on the function of self-esteem. (2015) · cites this paper as Gebauer, Wagner et al., 2013
In the citing paper
“They found a stronger agency-esteem relation with increasing country-level agency and a stronger communion-esteem relation with increasing country-level communion.”
From Cultural norm fulfillment, interpersonal belonging, or getting ahead? A large-scale cross-cultural test of three perspectives on the function of self-esteem. (2015) · cites this paper as Gebauer, Wagner, Sedikides, and Neberich (2013)
In the citing paper
“This in itself is a key extension of prior research on cultural norm-fulfillment because all prior research has relied exclusively on selfreports (Becker et al., 2004;Fulmer et al., 2010;Gebauer, Wagner et al., 2013;Goodwin et al., 2012).”
From Cultural norm fulfillment, interpersonal belonging, or getting ahead? A large-scale cross-cultural test of three perspectives on the function of self-esteem. (2015) · cites this paper as Gebauer, Wagner et al., 2013
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Metadata
- Authors
- Gebauer, J. E., Wagner, J., Sedikides, C., & Neberich, W.
- Affiliations
- Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (DE)
- University of Southampton (GB)
- Affinitas GmbH
- Corresponding author
- Gebauer, Jochen E.
- Venue
- Journal of Personality
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2013-02-20
- Volume
- 81
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 261-275
- ISSN
- 0022-3506 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-6494
- OpenAlex
- W1548902715
- Cited by
- 172
- References
- 124
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 24 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 4
- FWCI
- 14.49
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Personality (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Research at the University of Copenhagen (University of Copenhagen) (publishedVersion)
- ePrints Soton (University of Southampton) (acceptedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Cultural Differences and Values
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion
- Keywords
- self-esteem, agency, communion, self-enhancement, culture, religiosity, age, sex differences, William James, cross-cultural comparison
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Age Factors, Culture, Female, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Male, Middle Aged, Personality, Religion, Self Concept, Sex Factors, Personal Autonomy
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