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Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study examined the relationships between culture, individual attributes, and self-rating behavior among 1,786 university students in Canada, Hong Kong, Taiwan, mainland China, and Japan, and in doing so extended and refined the cultural relativity hypothesis. It explored the difference between vertical and horizontal individualists in self-rating behavior, and examined the mediating effects of two individual attributes, self-enhancement propensity and general self-efficacy in the relationship between individualism and self-rating behavior. The results confirmed that individualism is the cultural driver for self-rating leniency, and that the individual-level assessment of individualism is a stronger predictor of self-rating leniency than are culture-level differences. Vertical individualism was found to be positively related to self-enhancement propensity, which in turn was positively related to self-rating. Whereas, horizontal individualism was positively related to general self-efficacy, which in turn had a positive relationship with self-rating. We discuss the implications of the results for academic research and practical management. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]