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DOI: 10.1177/0261927X07306984
2007 26: 398 Journal of Language and Social Psychology
Sylvia Xiaohua Chen and Michael Harris Bond
Affirmation Among Chinese-English Bilinguals
Explaining Language Priming Effects: Further Evidence for Ethnic

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398
Journal of Language
and Social Psychology
Volume 26 Number 4
December 2007 398-406
2007 Sage Publications
10.1177/0261927X07306984
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Research Note
Explaining Language
Priming Effects
Further Evidence for Ethnic Affirmation
Among Chinese-English Bilinguals
Sylvia Xiaohua Chen
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Michael Harris Bond
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
The present study examined participants responses to scales measuring cultural identifi-
cations and self-esteem among both Hong Kong Chinese and Mainland Chinese bilin-
guals. When the authors activated their ethnolinguistic identity and manipulated the
language of assessment, Chinese-English bilinguals were found to identify more with
Chinese culture but less with Western culture, and to report lower self-esteem when
responding in English than in Chinese. These results were interpreted as arising from
activation of the participants ethnolinguistic identity and their becoming aware of their
own ethnic vitality and cultural norms, leading to ethnic affirmation (contrast effect)
rather than cultural accommodation (assimilation effect).
Keywords: Hong Kong Chinese; Mainland Chinese; cultural identification; language
of assessment; self-esteem; ethnic affirmation; cultural accommodation
B
eing a carrier of culture and a marker of group identity, a given language may
activate cultural knowledge and shared meanings, encoded by bilinguals and
biculturals when their two languages are acquired (Chiu & Chen, 2004). Among past
studies testing language priming effects, researchers have found both cultural accom-
modation (assimilation effect), where bilinguals response patterns were aligned with
the norms of the culture activated by the language (e.g., Ross, Xun, & Wilson, 2002)
but also ethnic affirmation (contrast effect), where bilinguals responses opposed
the normative expectations of the culture primed by the second language used (e.g.,
Bond & Cheung, 1984).
To reconcile these contrasting findings for language priming, Chiu and Chen (2004)
suggest that when the connection between the dependent measure (e.g., traditional
values and beliefs) and culture is obvious to the participants, ethnic affirmation
Authors Note: We are grateful to Daphna Oyserman as well as to the editor and two anonymous reviewers
for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. Correspondence concerning this article should
be addressed to Sylvia Chen, Department of Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University,
Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong; e-mail: ssxhchen@polyu.edu.hk.
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emerges; cultural accommodation arises when the connection is opaque (e.g., spon-
taneous self-concepts and self-esteem). This explanation proposes that the content of
the dependent variables leads to differential language effects. However, Bond (1983)
found both accommodation and affirmation occurred to the same type of content
(i.e., values) when bilingual Hong Kong (HK) Chinese responded to the Rokeach
Value Survey (see also Bond & Yang, 1982). Evidently, contrasting effects of language
can occur to the same type of content.
To explain these mixing findings for language, we suggest that cultural accom-
modation and ethnic affirmation do not arise from the language or the content of the
measures themselves but from respondents expectations and goals for the audience
using that language or from the ethnolinguistic identity activated by the prime(s).
When responding in a second language, individuals may expect the audience to be
native speakers of that language and shift their response patterns to align with the
imagined societal norms of that cultural group, resulting in cultural accommodation.
The theoretical framework of Cultural Frame Switching (Hong, Morris, Chiu, &
Benet-Martnez, 2000) can explain most of the findings on cultural accommodation.
When primed with culturally relevant stimuli, biculturals shift their values and
attributions toward the norms of the primed culture and accommodate their responses
toward the normative patterns of that culture. For example, Earl (1969) found that
bilinguals in HK responded in a more Western way on the Dogmatism Scale (i.e., were
less dogmatic when answering in English rather than in Chinese). Similarly, HK
bilinguals reported more private traits and fewer social roles or group memberships
on the Twenty Statements Test in English compared to Chinese (Trafimow, Silverman,
Fan, & Law, 1997).
Moreover, recent work by Briley, Morris, and Simonson (2005) found that HK
biculturals shifted the underlying strategies to resolve choice problems induced by a
language manipulation. They argued that this shift occurred because biculturals
responded in a manner consistent with not only the culture-related norms activated by
the language but also the behavioral ideals of that culture based on their anticipation
of the audience being Cantonese or Western.
This process has also been described by communication accommodation theory
for communication strategies (Giles & Ogay, 2006). When interacting with outgroup
members in the outgroups language, bilinguals change their communicative behaviors
and accommodate to the outgroup (i.e., convergence), with the aim of facilitating
comprehension and developing a harmonious relationship (e.g., Gallois, Ogay, & Giles,
2005). In contrast, given that language functions as a marker for different ethnicities
or nationalities, bilinguals change their communicative patterns to distinguish them-
selves from the outgroup (i.e., divergence) when there is a need to signal social identity
(e.g., Giles, Willemyns, Gallois, & Anderson, 2007).
Although the majority of studies on language priming have shown accommodation
effects, past research has also found ethnic affirmation. For instance, Yang and Bond
(1980) revealed that in response to an attitude survey in English, Chinese-English
Chen, Bond / Explaining Contrast Effects 399
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bilinguals identified themselves more with Chinese than with Western attitudes and
practices than when they responded in Chinese. In another study, Cantonese-speaking
HK undergraduates affirmed a more Western identity in a survey of traditional Chinese
beliefs when instructed by a Mandarin-speaking experimenter compared to a Cantonese-
speaking experimenter (Bond & Cheung, 1984). We postulate that, in addition to
the language manipulation in these two studies, it was the cultural identity of the
experimenters that challenged the respondents valued cultural identity and thus led
to ethnic affirmation.
If we made respondents ethnolinguistic identity salient, the outgroup language
would activate an awareness of respondents own ethnic vitality, thereby eliciting
responses consistent with the societal norms of their own culture, resulting in ethnic
affirmation. To test our conceptualization of language effects on response patterns,
we conducted the present study among Chinese-English bilinguals in HK and in
Mainland China. We attempted not only to manipulate the language of the measures
(Chinese vs. English) but also to assess respondents language proficiency and daily
language usage before administering the dependent measures.
We included dependent measures that were culturally sensitive or culturally opaque
(viz., identification with their culture of origin and identification with Western culture,
or self-esteem). Research has found cultural differences in self-esteem, with East
Asians being lower than North Americans (e.g., Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama,
1999). Closely related to identification with Western culture, higher self-esteem
would be observed if individuals assimilated into Western culture, but lower self-esteem
if aligned with their own ethnic culture.
As such, the assessment of language proficiency and usage plus a language manip-
ulation constitute a strong prime, and we anticipate ethnic affirmation with such
ethnolinguistic priming, even to the culturally more opaque measure of self-esteem.
Specifically, we hypothesized that participants, responding in English compared to
Chinese, would show more identification with Chinese culture but less identification
with Western culture, and would report lower self-esteem, in contrast with the norms
of Western culture.
Our sample comprised a total of 452 college students. Of these, 213 (104 males
and 109 females) were from The Chinese University of Hong Kong with a mean age
of 20.58 (SD = 1.51); 239 (107 males and 132 females) were from Beijing Normal
University, China, with a mean age of 22.19 (SD = 2.73). Both universities are pres-
tigious and require a high level of proficiency in English for admission. Thus, the
participants were all Chinese and English bilinguals. All of them were invited to
participate in the study on a voluntary basis. We assured participants of their confiden-
tiality and collected anonymous self-reports on the following measures:
Language proficiency and usage (Benet-Martnez & Haritatos, 2005). Participants
were asked to report on their first and second languages in the following domains:
(a) language ability, (b) past and present language usage, and (c) media exposure. The
400 Journal of Language and Social Psychology
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Chen, Bond / Explaining Contrast Effects 401
two scales consisted of 14 items on 6-point scales, with the items on language ability
ranging from 1 (very little ability) to 6 (very high ability) and the rest from 1 (almost
never) to 6 (very often). In this study, the reliability coefficients for Chinese and English
usage were both .73 in the HK sample, and .67
1
and .74 for Chinese and English usage
in the Mainland sample, respectively.
Cultural identification (Benet-Martnez & Haritatos, 2005). Two items were used
to assess the extent to which participants identified with Chinese culture and Western
culture. Reponses were anchored on 6-point scales ranging from 1 (very weakly identi-
fied) to 6 (highly identified).
Rosenbergs Self-Esteem Scale. Rosenbergs (1965) 10-item self-esteem scale was
used to assess ones orientation toward the self. Items were anchored with a 4-point
scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). In this study, the alpha
for this scale was .86 and .81 for the HK and Mainland samples, respectively.
The questionnaire sets were administered to the participants in small groups. About
half of the participants were randomly assigned to fill out the English version
(105 for HK with 52 males and 53 females; 100 for Mainland China with 50 males
and 50 females), and half were assigned to fill out the Chinese version (108 for HK
with 52 males and 56 females; 139 for Mainland China with 57 males and 82 females).
They also reported demographic information, including age and gender.
Descriptive statistics including means and standard deviations of the measures are
presented in Table 1. Tables 2 and 3 show the correlations among variables for HK
and Mainland Chinese, respectively.
First, we checked the equivalence of the two groups derived from the language
manipulation. Within each cultural group, independent-sample t tests were conducted
to evaluate the differences in participants language proficiency and usage between
the two groups assigned to the English and Chinese versions. We found no significant
Table 1
Means and Standard Deviations of the Measures for the
Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese
M SD
Measure Hong Kong Mainland China Hong Kong Mainland China
Chinese proficiency 5.10 5.52 0.91 0.74
English proficiency 4.02 3.61 0.83 0.95
Chinese usage 5.52 5.58 0.56 0.52
English usage 2.65 2.31 0.60 0.65
Identification with Chinese culture 4.61 5.08 0.91 0.74
Identification with Western culture 3.00 3.39 1.15 0.98
Self-esteem 2.80 3.02 0.50 0.49
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402 Journal of Language and Social Psychology
differences between the English-version group and the Chinese-version group in their
reported Chinese proficiency, t
(211)
= .85 for HK Chinese and t
(236)
= -.63 for Mainland
Chinese; in their Chinese usage, t
(236)
= -.50 for HK Chinese and t
(236)
= .23 for
Mainland Chinese; in English proficiency, t
(211)
= -.49 for HK and t
(235)
= .63
for Mainland Chinese; and in English usage, t
(211)
= -1.74 for HK and t
(236)
= .50 for
Mainland Chinese, all ps > .05. In HK or Mainland China, therefore, the two groups
were equivalent in their self-reported proficiency and usage in both languages. Any
differences in responding as a function of questionnaire language did not arise because
of differential language ability or usage.
Second, we conducted a 2 (Language) 2 (Culture) analysis of variance (ANOVA)
to test the differences of language and culture in identification with Chinese culture.
2
The ANOVA indicated a significant interaction between language and culture,
F(1, 446) = 7.09, p < .01, partial
2
= .02. The main effects were also significant for
language, F(1, 446) = 25.70, p < .001, partial
2
= .05, and for culture, F(1, 446) = 39.92,
p < .001, partial
2
= .08. Thus, the participants who completed the measure in English
reported significantly more identification with Chinese culture (M = 5.04) than those
who responded in Chinese (M = 4.70), confirming our hypothesis. This affirmation
Table 2
Intercorrelations Among the Measures for the Hong Kong Chinese
Measure 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. Chinese proficiency
2. English proficiency .39***
3. Chinese usage .38*** .28***
4. English usage .16* .49*** .08
5. Identification with Chinese culture .32*** .10 .30*** .06
6. Identification with Western culture .12 .29*** .19** .31*** -.08
7. Self-esteem .16* .23** .10 .19** .04 .07
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
Table 3
Intercorrelations Among the Measures for the Mainland Chinese
Measure 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. Chinese proficiency
2. English proficiency .21**
3. Chinese usage .14* -.02
4. English usage .00 .54*** .00
5. Identification with Chinese culture .08 .04 .26*** -.04
6. Identification with Western culture .14* .22** .00 .36*** .01
7. Self-esteem .24*** .10 -.08 .12 -.01 .15*
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
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effect was significantly stronger for HK Chinese than for Mainland Chinese who
identified with Chinese culture significantly more than their HK counterparts.
Similarly, a two-way ANOVA was performed to test the differences of language
and culture in identification with Western culture. The interaction between language
and culture was not significant, F(1, 446) = 3.67, p > .05, partial
2
= .01. The main
effects were significant for language, F(1, 446) = 27.22, p < .001, partial
2
= .06,
and for culture, F(1, 446) = 14.30, p < .001, partial
2
= .03. As expected, participants
who completed the measure in English reported significantly less identification with
Western culture (M = 2.92) than those who responded in Chinese (M = 3.45).
Intriguingly, Mainland Chinese identified with Western culture significantly more
than their HK counterparts.
Finally, we conducted a two-way ANOVA to test the impact of language and culture
on self-esteem. The ANOVA indicated no significant interaction effects, F(1, 447) = .12,
p > .05, partial
2
= .00. Significant main effects were found for language, F(1, 443)
= 6.12, p < .05, partial
2
= .01, and for culture, F(1, 443) = 19.95, p < .001, partial

2
= .04. The participants completing the measures in English reported a significantly
lower self-esteem (M = 2.85) than those responding in Chinese (M = 2.98), and
Mainland Chinese reported a significantly higher level of self-esteem than their HK
counterparts.
In the present study, we consistently found ethnic affirmation rather than cultural
accommodation on measures of cultural identification and self-esteem, thus confirming
contrast effects regardless of the cultural context in which the research was conducted
HK or Mainland China. When completing the measures in English, Chinese college
students identified more with Chinese culture but less with Western culture and reported
lower self-esteem than when responding in their native language of Chinese.
A plausible explanation is that our ethnolinguistic priming was overt, which provoked
reactance. Using self-construals to activate independent versus interdependent self-
knowledge in a study on social comparisons, Kuhnen and Hannover (2000) suggested
that assimilation effects emerged when the priming was subtle, whereas contrast effects
occurred when the priming was overt. If participants became aware of the priming
influences on their judgments, they corrected their responses by moving in the opposing
direction, a phenomenon termed correction contrast. Thus, one may speculate that it
was the overt nature of our ethnolinguistic priming that caused the present contrast
effects. However, because Bond (1983) found both assimilation and contrast effects
using a relatively overt manipulation (viz., asking the participants to rate the perceived
positions of typical HK Chinese and typical English-speaking Westerners), we could
rule out this possibility.
Rather, we maintain that it was the language manipulation itself combined with
the measures of language proficiency and daily usage that reminded the participants
of their ethnolinguistic identity. The use of an outgroup language and evaluation of the
respondents own linguistic patterns activated ethnic awareness in an ethnically vital
group, thereby eliciting responses that created psychological distance from outgroup
Chen, Bond / Explaining Contrast Effects 403
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members. These responses deviated from the normative self-evaluations of these
outgroup members, moving their responses closer to those of their ingroupethnic
affirmation. In this process, they identified more with the Chinese culture (ingroup)
but less with the Western culture (outgroup) and reported lower levels of self-esteem,
which contrasted with the normative responses of members in Western culture.
However, it is also possible that having to respond in a second language decreased
ones sense of competence, a source for low self-esteem. Judged from the means of
English proficiency, both HK (M = 4.02) and Mainland (M = 3.61) samples rated
themselves above average on a 6-point Likert-type scale. Given that these participants
were from prestigious universities in which a high level of proficiency in English is
an important requirement for admission, we could infer that they were competent in
English, as perceived by themselves and as required by the university. Thus, the respon-
dents reported low self-esteem is not a consequence of their language deficiency in
English but probably an outcome of the experimental manipulation.
It is intriguing to find that Mainland Chinese identified with both Chinese and
Western cultures more than did the HK Chinese. Conceptually, identification with
ones culture of origin and the second culture are orthogonal instead of bipolar, as
suggested by acculturation researchers on their work on cultural identity (e.g., Berry,
1984). Biculturals may display high identification with both cultures rather than
being high in one culture and necessarily low in the other. In fact, the present study
showed that the correlations between Chinese identification and Western identifi-
cation were nonsignificant in both HK, r
(210)
= -.08, p > .05 and Mainland China,
r
(235)
= .01, p < .05.
Interpreting these findings within their cultural contexts, Mainland China has
witnessed rapid growth economically and politically after the open-door policy in the
late 1970s, with its prosperity-inducing pride and patriotic fervor. Opening up to
the West has simultaneously exposed Mainland Chinese to the influences of Western
cultures and led to increasing Western identification. By contrast, HK was under British
rule and heavily influenced by British culture before 1997; the transfer of sovereignty
to China has moderated these Western influences, at least politically. The economic
downturn after 1997 might have made HK Chinese dissatisfied with their own govern-
ment and led them to identify less with Chinese culture. In consequence of these
various cultural influences, Mainland Chinese scored higher in identification with
both Chinese and Western cultures than did the HK Chinese. HK Chinese may be
developing a stronger identification with a HK identity in compensation.
Further studies may explore other psychological mechanisms underlying the
differential outcomes of language priming, with particular emphasis on the social
context and the cultural orientation of the participants, which leads to affirmation or
accommodation across cultural lines. Because most previous work on language priming
has focused on written measures, future research should use other methods, such as
behavioral observations, thereby focusing more on social processes and tapping into
the social dynamics involving language and culture.
404 Journal of Language and Social Psychology
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Chen, Bond / Explaining Contrast Effects 405
Notes
1. The reliability coefficient for Chinese usage among Mainland Chinese was less than satisfactory
and thus needs to be interpreted with caution.
2. We also conducted 2 (Language) 2 (Culture) 2 (Gender) ANOVAs to test the differences of
language, cultural context, and gender in identification with Chinese culture, identification with Western
culture, and self-esteem separately. We found no significant interaction or main effects for gender,
ps > .05, indicating that males and females showed similar patterns on the three variables within each
cultural group. Because gender is not the major focus of this study, we used two-way ANOVAs in the
Results section.
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Sylvia Xiaohua Chen is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Social Sciences at The Hong
Kong Polytechnic University. She has a Ph.D. in psychology from The Chinese University of Hong Kong
and a M.A. in counseling psychology from Santa Clara University, U.S.A.. Her research interests include
the social psychology of bilingualism and biculturalism, personality and social behaviors in cultural
contexts, cross-cultural research methodology, and sociocultural influences on illness behaviors and
help-seeking patterns.
Michael Harris Bond has been practicing social psychology for the last three plus decades at the Chinese
University of Hong Kong where he is Professor of Psychology. He is fascinated by culture, having been
socialized into an English-Canadian variant, followed by an American graduate education in exotic
California, and an extended inter-cultural immersion as a Research Associate from 1971-74 at Kwansei
Gakuin University in Japan. Throughout much of this cultural awareness-raising, he has been a member
of the Bahai Faith. This religious practice has further extended his contact with representatives of other
cultural realities, sharpened his appreciation of pervasive societal influences on human social performance,
and opened his sensibilities to Islamic art, literature, and philosophy. He is the author of Beyond the Chinese
face (Oxford, 1991), and co-author of Understanding social psychology across cultures (Sage, 2006).
406 Journal of Language and Social Psychology
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