Research on self-construal was the starting point of Cross’s current research in cultural psychology. Her earliest work focused on the role of self-schemas in behavior (Cross & Markus, 1994). Building on the growing literature on culture and self, Cross and her then graduate student, Dr. Laura Madson, argued that women in Western cultural contexts are socialized to pay attention to close relationships, and they may therefore tend to define themselves in terms of their close relationships (Cross & Madson, 1997). Cross and her students followed this theoretical argument with the development of a measure of Relational-Interdependent Self-Construal (RISC; Cross, Bacon, & Morris, 2000) and examination of the ways that people with highly relational self-views interact think and behave. For example, persons who define themselves relationally tend to pay close attention to their interaction partners, respond sensitively to their partners, and generally create interactions that their partners view positively (Cross, et al., 2000; Cross & Morris, 2003; Gore, Cross, & Morris, 2006; Terzino & Cross, 2009). This work on relational-interdependent self-construal is summarized along with research on other dimensions of self-construal (independent and collective) in edited volumes (Cross, Hardin, & Gercek-Swing, 2009; Cross & Lam, 2017), and peer-reviewed journal articles (Cross, 2009; Cross, Hardin, & Gercek-Swing, 2011).
Selected Self-Construal Publications
Cross, S. E. (1995). Self-construals, coping, and stress in cross-cultural adaptation. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 26, 673-697.
Cross, S. E. (2009). Relational Self-construal: Past and future. Personality and Social Psychology Compass, 3, 949-961.
Cross, S. E., Bacon, P., & Morris, M. (2000). The relational- interdependent self-construal and relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 791-808.
Cross, S. E., & Gore, J. S. (2011). Cultural models of the self. In M. Leary & J. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of Self and Identity (2nd edition). New York: Guilford.
Cross, S. E., Hardin, E., & Gercek-Swing, B. (2011). The what, how, why, and where of self-construal. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 15, 142-179.
Cross, S. E., & Lam, B. C-P. (in press). (2017) Cultural models of self: East-West differences and beyond. In T. Church (ed.) The Praeger Handbook of Personality Across Cultures (Vol. 2, pp. 1-33). Praeger.
Cross, S. E., & Madson, L. (1997). Models of the self: Self-construals and gender. Psychological Bulletin, 122, 5-37.
Cross, S. E., & Morris, M. L. (2003). Getting to know you: The relational self-construal, relational cognition, and well-being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 512-523.
Cross, S. E., Morris, M.L, & Gore, J. (2002). Thinking about oneself and others: The relational-interdependent self-construal and social cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 399-418.
Gore, J. S., Cross, S. E., & Morris, M. L. (2006). Let’s be friends: The relational self-construal and the development of intimacy. Personal Relationships, 13, 83-102.
Kanagawa, C., Cross, S. E., & Markus, H. R. (2001). “Who am I?”: The cultural psychology of the conceptual self. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 90-103.
Terzino, K. A., & Cross, S. E. (2009). Predicting commitment in new relationships: Interactive effects of relational self-construal and power. Self & Identity,8, 321-341.