The Roles Of Relational-interdependent Self-construal And Genuine Intimacy In The Friend- Inference Effect

There were different research results about the self including other. One possible reason lies in the impact of individual differences of self-construct, intimacy and other variables. This research starts with friends and adopts the R / K paradigm in Self-Reference Effect. Two experiments will be examined to investigate whether there existing friend-reference effect based on Chinese cultural context and the impact on friend-reference effect caused by the individual differences of self-construct and friend intimacy.The Experiment 1 sets four conditions:"self, friend, Lu Xun, semantic", and speculates on whether there exists friend-reference effect among Chinese college students based on Chinese cultural context and gender differences. The results indicate that: friend-reference effect does exist and is related to gender; females show friend-reference effect more obvious than males.The Experiment 2 set only two conditions of"friends","semantics"on the basis of the presence of the friend-reference effect. It adopts the relational self-construal scale and the genuine intimacy scale, and further examines the impact on friend-reference effect caused by relational self-construal types and the intimacy of friends. The results indicate that: (1) The main effects of the conditions, the relational self-construal and the intimacy are significant; (2) The interaction between the conditions and the relational self-construal is significant; (3) The interaction between the conditions and the intimacy is significant; (4) The interaction between the relational self-construal and the intimacy is not significant (5) The conditions, the relational self-construal and the intimacy are not significantly correlated.These two experiments'results indicate that: the friend-reference effect does exist and could be affected by the relational self-construal and intimacy between friends. The high-low level relational self-construal subjects assert the friend-reference effect. However, the friend-reference effect of the high relational self-construal subjects is better than that of the low level. Moreover, the subjects of the high-low level intimacy also show a friend-reference effect, but the effect of the subjects with the high intimacy is better than that with low intimacy. Therefore, individual differences of intimacy, self-construct and other variables should be taken into consideration in the study of the other-reference effect in addition to culture factors to make a better explanation of the previous discordant results and reveal the self including other mechanism.