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James provides a universal self-theory; the self is one’s consciousness. We are aware that the self is separate but connected to the social world (Swann & Bosson, 200). James referred to the self as me and the I as the ego (James, 890). The ego is linked to the minds of individuals (James, 890). The empirical me comprises; social self, the spiritual self, and material self. The body is the core of the material self, called me. The material self consists of; wealth, clothes, home and family, called mine (James, 890). The social self is our interaction with society; how society recognises you and our reputation within society. The social self changes in different situations (James, 890). The spiritual me is personality, thoughts, beliefs and feelings. James ordered these components in a hierarchy with the material me at the bottom, followed by social me and the spiritual me at the top (James, 890). James shows the self has many components and it has social parts. His theory is universal; suggesting that everyone has the same structure to the self. However, Markus and Kitayama (99) said this theory failed to describe everyones self-views. The self is defined differently across cultures (Markus, Mullally, & Kitayama, 997) so his theory cannot account for differences in the self.
Markus and Kitayama (99) proposed two different self-concepts; independent and interdependent self-construals. A self-construal is one’s thoughts and conduct to relationships, and the self as separate from others (Singelis, 994). Individualistic cultures view an individual as autonomous (Triandis, 989). This is an independent self-construal where aspects of the self stem from within the individual (Markus and Kitayama, 99). In collectivistic c

ultures the self is viewed in relation to others. Private beliefs and attitudes arent important, but family and society are of importance (Wu, 994). Social relationships define the self thus aspects of the self stem external to the individual; referring to an interdependent self-construal (Markus and Kitayama, 99). Markus, Uchida, Omoregie, Townsend & Kitayama (2006) found athletes from China attributed success with the importance of their coaches and others. American athletes only emphasised their own strength and work. This supports self-construal theory as it shows the differences in social relationships between cultures. Singelis created a scale to measure self-construals. Americans score higher on independence than interdependence compared to Asian-Americans (Singelis, 994). Similar results were found with Euro-Americans and Chinese (Singelis, Bond, Sharkey & Lai, 999). Singelis showed differences exist with self-construals. Kitayama and colleagues compared Hokkaido Japanese with mainland Japan and found Hokkaido showed more independence than urban Japan (Kitayama, Ishii, Imada, Takemura & Ramaswamy, 2006). Similarly, Martella and Maass (2000) found Northern Italians were more independent than Southern Italians; suggesting individual differences within cultures. Although Markus and Kitayama assumed that nations would be classed as independent or interdependent, findings show the self differs within the same nation. The self cannot be universal as studies show that collectivistic cultures place importance to relationships while individualistic cultures are independent; causing variations across cultures. The self-construal theories account for these differences. We should consider cultural influence on the self.