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28 - You Can’t Be a Self by Yourself

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 September 2022

By
Hazel Rose Markus
Edited by
Saul Kassin
Saul Kassin
Affiliation:
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York
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Summary

I was born Hazel Rose in London, England to an English Catholic mom and a Jewish American dad who had grown up in England. Our family immigrated to sunny, orange-scented, anything-was-possible Southern California; first to Los Angeles and then to San Diego. My mother, father, uncles and aunts all became public school teachers. It was at San Diego State University that I became certain that social psychology was my path. I had planned on a major in English and journalism. As the editor of my high school newspaper, I was convinced that my passion was rigorous reporting and clear writing that would deliver the truth of important events to inquiring minds. Then in my sophomore year I took Psychology 101. The professor divided the room into two groups and positioned us so that the groups were out of each other’s earshot. He told my group a story about shopping for shoes and how it was often difficult to find a shoe that fits. He moved to the other side of the room and told the second group a story about the excitement of travel in North Africa.

Type
Chapter
Information
Pillars of Social Psychology
Stories and Retrospectives
 , pp. 236 - 246
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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References

Suggested Reading

Adams, G. (2005). The cultural grounding of personal relationship: Enemyship in North American and West African worlds. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88(6), 948–968.Google Scholar
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Eberhardt, J., Markus, H. R., & Hamedani, M. (2021). Bringing the world into our science. APS Observer, 34(4). www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/into-our-science.Google Scholar
Fryberg, S., Markus, H. R., Oyserman, D., & Stone, J. (2008). Of warrior chiefs and Indian princesses: The psychological consequences of American Indian mascots. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 30(3), 208–218.Google Scholar
Fu, A. S., & Markus, H. R. (2014). My mother and me: Why tiger mothers motivate Asian Americans but not European Americans. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40, 739–749.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Savani, K., Markus, H. R., Naidu, N. V. R., Kumar, S., & Berlia, N. (2010). What counts as a choice? U.S. Americans are more likely than Indians to construe actions as choices. Psychological Science, 14(3), 391–398.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shweder, R. A. (1991). Thinking through Cultures: Expeditions in Cultural Psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Snibbe, A., & Markus, H. R. (2005). You can’t always get what you want: Social class, agency and choice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88(4), 703–720.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stephens, N. M., Fryberg, S. A., Markus, H. R., Johnson, C. S., & Covarrubias, R. (2012). Unseen disadvantage: How the American universities’ focus on independence undermines the academic performance of first-generation college students. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 1178–1197.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tsai, A. Y. (2005). Equality or propriety: A cultural models approach to understanding social hierarchy. Unpublished doctoral thesis, Stanford University.Google Scholar

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