The Quiet Ego and Its Predictors in Turkish Culture

Although high self-esteem has been seen as a panacea for all sorts of personal and social problems for a long time, recent research has shown its potential negative effects. The concept of quiet ego, defined as a balanced integration with others by turning down the volume of the ego (Bauer & Wayment, 2008), has been coined as a plausible alternative that can mitigate negative effects of fragile high self-esteem. This study aims to examine psychometric properties of the Quiet Ego Scale in Turkish culture, and to investigate its correlates related to personality traits, culture, and well-being. A total of 254 Turkish university students completed the measures of the Quiet Ego Scale, Big Five Personality, happiness, self-esteem, and individualism-collectivism. Factor analyses on the items of the Quite Ego measure supported its construct validity among Turkish participants. As expected, quiet ego was positively associated with the indicators of well-being and certain personality traits. Regression analyses indicated that openness to experience among the personality traits and horizontal collectivism among the cultural orientations were the strongest predictors of quiet ego. Results were discussed considering cultural values and previous findings on quite ego