"Culture's Like an Extra Layer on Top Isn't It?" Sociality and Superordination in Italian and English People

How we construe people in other cultures is arguably of increasing importance in contemporary society. The qualitative research reported in this chapter was carried out in the U.K. and in Italy and used a personal construct psychology approach to study intercultural perceptions of English and Italian participants. The research explored constructions of self and other in a sample of Italian and English participants; using a Perceiver-Element Grid (PEG) it additionally examined how participants responded when given access to the other's constructions. The findings suggest that a sense of national identity is relational and built upon social comparisons. Participants showed evidence of a degree of commonality and sociality in their construing, and when given access to the other's construing they used superordination to resolve apparent differences. This strategy is suggested as a possible means of increasing sociality.