Relationship Context Matters

This study compares self-construals in Belgium and Turkey in two different relationship contexts: mother and teacher. Following Kağıtçıbaşı’s model, we measured self-construal along the dimensions of autonomy and relatedness. Belgian (n = 276) and Turkish (n = 153) students completed Self Scales for either the mother or the teacher context. Consistent with previous cross-cultural research, Belgian students were more autonomous and less related than Turkish students, when aggregating across relationship contexts. However, in each culture, reported self-construals differed by relationship context. Moreover, the differences were entirely driven by the teacher context; no cultural differences were found with regard to self-construals in the mother context. One implication is that cultural self-construals are better seen as combined instances of socially situated selves than as stable traits.