LANGUAGE AND SELF-CONSTRUAL PRIMING A Replication and Extension in a Hong Kong Sample

Previous research has argued that language serves as a cognitive cue to reinforce culturally normative selfconstruals. We hypothesize that language-priming effects would be stronger for women than men and that theywould primarily occur for self-construals that are not already latently salient in the respondents’culture. Also, in contrast to earlier research on language priming of self-construals, we rely on Singelis’s independent and interdependent self-construal scales as closed-ended dependent measures. Using a bilingual sample from Hong Kong (n = 126), we experimentally varied questionnaire language (English vs. Chinese) and found support for all our predictions. The discussion focuses on cue strength as moderator of languagepriming effects.