Abstract: The past two decades have seen a considerable research progress on self-enhancement which represents a preeminent self-motive defined as the tendency to hold overly positive self-evaluations. Despite this research, little is known about the potential cultural impact on self-enhancement. More specifically, questions have been raised (Zuo & Zhang, 2006) and yet to be answered on whether cross-cultural differences in self-construal (independent vs. inter-dependent or interpersonal) affect self-enhancement. Related to this cross-cultural question are the developmental characteristics of self-enhancement that also require further investigations. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between interpersonal relations and self-enhancement among Chinese adolescents. We hypothesized that self-enhancement manifest itself differently depending on the Chinese interpersonal contexts. We tested this hypothesis in two experiments. In Experiment 1, we examined self-serving attribution as an explicit self-enhancement strategy under interpersonal comparison condition. In Experiment 2, we examined both explicit (self-serving attribution & selective acceptance and refutation) and implicit self-enhancement strategies (e.g., a measure of birthday preference) under interpersonal comparison versus non-interpersonal comparison conditions.
One hundred and 67 students (81 males and 86 females, Mage = 21.51 years) participated in Experiment 1.We used two between-subject designs. One is a 2 (feedback type: success, failure) × 2 (relationship type: friends, strangers) × 2 (research situation: public, private) between-subject design, with attribution of responsibility for the task outcome being the primary dependent variable. The other is a 2 (attribution type: self-serving, self-effacing) × 2 (feedback type: success, failure) × 2 (relationship type: friends, strangers) design, with evaluation of attribution and intention to communicate being the dependent variables. In experiment 2, 150 junior high school students (66 males and 84 females, Mage = 13.5 years), 91 senior high school students (43 males and 48 females, Mage = 16.92 years), and 105 college students (68 males and 37 females, Mage = 19.6 years) were randomly assigned to between-subjects conditions. The independent variables were partner type, feedback type, and age group, whereas the dependent variables were birthday-number preference, attribution for the task outcome, and assessment of the effectiveness of the test respectively.
In Experiment 1, participants exhibited self-effacing attribution under the interpersonal comparison condition, and their evaluations of self-effacing attribution were more positive than those of self-serving attribution in the negative feedback context. The evaluations of friends’ attribution were more positive than those of strangers.’ Moreover, adolescents liked to make friends with self-effacing rather than self-serving partners after receiving negative feedback. Results from Experiment 2 lent support to the existence of implicit self-enhancement. There was a birthday-number preference that was also independent of age. Adolescents under the interpersonal comparison condition did not show self-serving attribution. By contrast, under the non-interpersonal comparison condition, self-serving attribution was present nearly across all age groups, with junior high school students showing more self-serving attribution than senior high school or college students. When assessing the effectiveness of the test they have taken, adolescents showed selective acceptance and refutation, with junior high school students self-enhancing more than senior high school or college students.
These results suggest that Chinese adolescents self-enhance in non-interpersonal comparison situations. However, the demonstration of this motive is somewhat implicit and is dependent on interpersonal contexts. Over the course of the adolescent years, implicit self-enhancement stays unchanged, whereas explicit self-enhancement which peaks in early adolescents decreases with age.

Key words: self-enhancement, explicit and implicit motive, adolescent development, evolutionary psychology, self-serving attribution