Uyghur Individual’s Self-reference Effect Based On Identity

Self-reference effect refers to the performance under self-reference processing task is significantly higher than that of other reference processing or other types of task. This effect was confirmed by lots of previous studies. The present study tries to investigate a new type of relation between cultural identity and self-reference effect in Uyghur individual’s.So far SRE applied mostly on the research of east-west cultural difference. But less on the fields of subcultural difference and bicultural person. Multi-cultural Dynamic Construction theory put forward the concept of cultural frame switching which believes individuals can hold two or more cultural construct network at the same time(Hong,2002),and they have a dynamic nature and driven by contextual clues.Individuals can switch the cultural frame work according to the different cultural context and make consistent reaction. In the other study about cultural frame work found that the higher the degree of integration in the cultural identity, the more consistent cultural reaction after being primed,that is the assimilation effect. However,with low levels of cultural integration, people behave in contrary reaction, after being primed, that is the contrast effect.Uyghur are one of the ethnic group in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. They have a unique culture witch is very differ from Han culture, especially in language customs and religion beliefs.According to the genetic study, Uyghurs are a Eurasian(mixed ancestry)population with Eastern and Western Eurasian anthropometric and genetic traits.Uyghurs are thus one of the many populations of Central Eurasia that can be considered to be genetically related to European and East Asian populations. It may cause them to receive the influence of eastern culture. Therefore, they may possess individualistic tendency(Fu ChengRong,Zhen-hong wan,2010).But Uighur culture is not an entirely individualism culture, to a certain extent, affected by the collectivist cultures along the infiltration and assimilation of the mainstream culture—Chinese culture. Due to the particularity of Uyghur culture, it`s hard to tell how is Uyghur minority`s self, mother,father-reference effect. Is it similar to Han Chinese or western people?This study deals with the relationship between self-reference effect and identity.There are 3 experiments in this study: Experiments 1 and 2 are similar, except identity and language, both using the Rogers` classic paradigm as the research methods. In experiment 1 we demonstrated the real extent of SRE in Uyghur individual`s,namely encoded in terms of self-reference were associated with significantly higher recall performance relative to items encoded in other ways. In experiment 2,we change the language to Chinese, which the subjects can fully understand, and use some pictures which can present Chinese culture. Moreover other factors and processes remain the same, we explore the SRE difference under different culture backgrounds manipulated by various priming methods. The results suggest that the primed participants had better recognition and recall cues on self-reference and mother reference(which did not exist in experiment 1). Experiment 3 we add the symbolic threat condition,other factors will remain same as Experiment 1,to explore the SRE of Uyghurs under symbolic threat.And the result shown that under symbolic threat condition participants had better recognition of personality trait adjectives related to father reference is better than self-reference condition.