Investigating the Relation between Moral Self-Enhancement and Self-Deception: A Cross-Cultural Study of U.S. and Chinese College Students

Testing an evolutionary framework, this study examined moral self-enhancement in relation to self-deception and self-construal in a cross-cultural context. The participants included 127 U.S. and 107 Chinese college students. The results demonstrated that moral self-enhancement is not a characteristic unique to individualistic ideology but rather a universal motivation. Regardless of their cultural groups and selfconstrual, participants tended to morally self-enhance, rating their own character and sense of responsibility significantly higher than those of other people. In addition, U.S. participants were more likely to morally self-enhance compared to their Chinese counterparts. At the individual level, strong independents demonstrated greater moral self-enhancement than did their strong interdependent peers among the U.S. participants, whereas greater moral self-enhancement was observed in strong interdependents but not strong independent in the Chinese sample. As hypothesized, self-deception as measured by self-deceptive enhancement (SDE) but not impression management (IM) stood out as a significant predictor of moral self-enhancement, supporting the evolutionary understanding that moral self-enhancement is an unconscious process intimately related to self-deception. Among Chinese participants, the association between moral selfenhancement and self-deception was found to be mediated through an inflated rating of others, which indicated a potential other-enhancement effect. On the one hand, results of this study regarding cultural differences in the demonstration of moral self-enhancement were in line with extant self-enhancement literature. On the other hand, the significant relationship between moral self-enhancement and self-deception as revealed in the study provided evidence against the claim that culture is the primary explanation for selfMORAL SELF-ENHANCEMENT AND SELF-DECEPTION iv enhancement. Moral self-enhancement as a psychological adaptation to cooperation in the social environment has an evolutionary root. Findings of the study also suggested challenges facing current moral education practices. MORAL SELF-ENHANCEMENT AND SELF-DECEPTION v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . II ABSTRACT . III LIST OF TABLES . VII LIST OF FIGURES . VIII CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION . 1 SELF-ENHANCEMENT . 2 SELF-DECEPTION . 3 VIEWING SELF-ENHANCEMENT AND SELF-DECEPTION THROUGH AN EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY LENS . 5 SELF-ENHANCEMENT AND SELF-DECEPTION IN CULTURAL CONTEXTS . 6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY . 9 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW . 10 UNDERSTANDING SELF-ENHANCEMENT . 10 Self-Enhancement in General . 10 Moral Self-Enhancement . 12 SELF-DECEPTION . 13 The Notion of Self-Deception . 13 Self-Deception as a Fitness-Enhancing Strategy . 14 LINKING SELF-DECEPTION TO SELF-ENHANCEMENT . 16 EXAMINING SELF-ENHANCEMENT AND SELF-DECEPTION IN CULTURAL CONTEXTS . 20 Defining Cultural Differences. 20 Is the Motivation to Self-Enhance Universal? 22 Self-Deception in Cultural Contexts . 25 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY . 27 HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT . 27 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY . 30 SAMPLE . 30 PROCEDURES . 30 MEASURES . 31 STATISTICAL ANALYSIS . 35 CHAPTER IV: RESULTS . 36 SAMPLE CHARACTERISTICS . 36 DATA ANALYSES . 37 Data Screening . 37 Reliabilities of Measures. 37 Correlations between Measures . 39 Hypothesis 1. 41 Hypothesis 2. 44 Hypotheses 3 & 4 . 46 Hypothesis 5. 48 MORAL SELF-ENHANCEMENT AND SELF-DECEPTION vi CHAPTER V: DISCUSSION . 55 THE CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING OF MORAL SELF-ENHANCEMENT . 55 THE EVOLUTIONARY UNDERSTANDING OF MORAL SELF-ENHANCEMENT . 56 SELF-DECEPTION AND MORAL SELF-ENHANCEMENT . 59 SELF-CONSTRUAL, SELF-DECEPTION AND MORAL SELF-ENHANCEMENT . 62 CHALLENGES FOR MORAL EDUCATION . 63 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY . 64 CONCLUSION . 65 REFERENCES . 68 APPENDIX A: MORAL SELF-ENHANCEMENT SCALE. 82 APPENDIX B: SELF-CONSTRUAL SCALE . 83 APPENDIX C: THE BALANCED INVENTORY OF DESIRABLE RESPONDING . 84 MORAL SELF-ENHANCEMENT AND SELF-DECEPTION vii