Engaging in critical self-reflection, pondering your self-concept, and assessing your self-esteem likely aren’t new activities. After all, many people spend time looking inward to get a better sense of their selves. What’s more, your self seems to be natural and innate: you were born a certain kind of person, and that’s just who you are. But without even realizing it, how you think about your self—and how you communicate that self to others—are shaped by powerful outside forces. Two of the most influential are culture and gender.

Culture and Self.In this text, we define culture broadly and inclusively, as an established, coherent set of beliefs, attitudes, values, and practices shared by a large group of people (Keesing, 1974). Culture includes many types of large-group influences, such as nationality, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, physical abilities, and age. You learn your culture from parents, teachers, religious leaders, peers, and the mass media (Gudykunst & Kim, 2003).

Culture influences your communication in many ways, as Chapter 4 discusses in detail. But when it comes to your view of self, whether you grew up in an individualistic or collectivistic culture is highly influential. If you were raised in an individualistic culture, you likely learned that individual goals matter more than group goals. People in individualistic cultures are encouraged to focus on themselves and their immediate family (Hofstede, 1998), and individual achievement is praised as the highest good. Countries with individualistic cultures include the United States, New Zealand, and Sweden (Hofstede, 2001).

If you were raised in a collectivistic culture, you were probably taught the importance of belonging to groups that look after you in exchange for your loyalty (Hofstede, 2001). In collectivistic cultures, the goals, needs, and views of the group matter more than those of individuals, and the highest good is cooperation with others. For example, in China—a country with a collectivistic culture—the concept of “doing your own thing” has no direct translation to the Chinese language (Hofstede, 2001). Other collectivistic cultures include Guatemala, Pakistan, and Taiwan.

Gender and Self.Gender is the set of social, psychological, and cultural attributes that characterize a person as male or female (Canary, Emmers-Sommer, & Faulkner, 1997). Your concept of gender forms over time through interactions with others. Thus, it’s distinct from the biological sex organs you are born with, which distinguish you anatomically as male or female.

Immediately after birth, you begin a lifelong process of gender socialization, in which societal norms define and assign appropriate behavior for each gender. Within current American culture, for example, many girls are taught that the most important aspects of self include compassion and sensitivity to one’s own and others’ emotions (Lippa, 2002). Many boys are taught that the most important aspects of self are assertiveness, competitiveness, and independence. As a result, women and men within the culture form very different views of self (Cross & Madson, 1997). Women tend to see themselves as connected to others; men, as separate from others.