culture and its influence on behavior and cognition Flashcards
culture and its influence on behavior and cognition intro/ theories
Attribution theory
Internal attribution/ dispositional- assigning/ explaining your own behaviour due to yourself and similar factors, e.g how hard you work
External/ situational attribution- explaining behaviour due to your environment and external factors.
Actor- observer effect
The tendency to attribute your own actions to external causes/situational factors (e.g bad luck, had a cold) and attributing other people’s behaviour to internal causes/ dispositional factors
“If others make mistakes, its their fault. If i make mistakes, its the situation im in”
Actor- you
Observer- other people
Self serving bias
more likely to attribute own behaviour to dispositional factors when it’s a good thing, and situational factors when its a bad thing. Boost self esteem
We think we can judge others based on their personality, which is fixed and predictable. We like to think we are flexible and can be affected by the environment.
Actor- external. Observer- internal
Fundamental attribution error/ FAE:
underestimate situational factors. Emphasizes the influence of dispositions/ personality traits as explanations of others’ behaviours and minimizing the role of situational factors
E.g meeting a person and they seem rude, so u assume they have a bad personality instead of they might have a headache
More likely to happen in individualistic societies, as they do things based on what they want to do. Assumes people do things based on their personality and not because of what the environment wants them to do.
FAE more likely to be common in individiualistic cultures as there is in an emphasis on individual responsibility and independence. In collectivist cultures, There is an emphasis on group cohesiveness and have to be responsive of the wishes of others.
choi and nisbett
2 studies:
Ppt told to read an essay written by a student either supporting or going against capital punishment. Ppt told that the essay writer was told which side to support.
ppt asked whether or not the student actually agreed what they had wrote, even though they were told to do it. Little diff between US ppt and Korean ppt.
Ppt had to read it, but also WRITE an essay, Then asked the extent to which the agreed with their own essay, and the essay the read. Some ppt were only told to write an essay and the supporting side, while others were also given supporting points. E.g “i ant you to write an essay on capital punishment, and i want you to include these 5 points. “ US ppt argued that the other student was more likely to have shown thier true attitdues than themselves- shows actor-observer effect.. US ppt attitudes were relatively unchanged regardless of how much instruction the ppt got when writing the essay. Korean ppt argued they were no more likely to have believed in what they wrote than themselves. Korean ppt were much less likely to believe that the students believed what they wrote when they themselves were given specific instructions as to what to write. Bc it made it seem as if there was a more structured essay, the person that sets the essay is less likelty to think you actually support the point you write about as they gave you specific instructions as to what to do.
to see if individualistic or collectivist cultures are more likely to exhibit FAE
lesson 1 with 2nd experiment
1st experiment (fundamental attribution error)
four variables: essay support or against capital punishment, and if they were given a choice or assigned a position
read essay, told to rate how much they thought writer believed with what they wrote
Results
US ppt more likely to think essays were the values of the actualy writers, even though they were told the writer was assigned the position
FAE underlying attitude that writer can still choose not to write something they don’t believe, autonomy in individualists
2nd experiment (actor-observer effect)
Ppt had to write the essay. Told to either write their own side or get assigned a side.
they were then told to rate the extent they agreed with their own essay and how much the writer agreed with theirs (also told which side, no choice)
exposure = wrote own essay
exposure + argument = told what they had to write about
after writing their own essay (2nd experiment)
americans had high degree the writer believed in what they wrote, even tho both (participant and writer) had no choice
koreans rated both believed in their essay less when they were told what points they had to write about
Americans were more likely to believe essay presented true values even when told the writer was told to write something you didn’t believe (not significant difference in 1st experiment) - FAE underlying attitude that writer can still choose not to write something they don’t believe, autonomy in individualists
Little difference
Actor-observer effect weaker in collectivist cultures than individualistic
kashima and triandis
Aiim of their study
investigate the use of the self-serving bias in Western and Eastern countries.
Method
They had shown Japanese and American students slides regarding life in Iraq, Israel and Greece.
The participants were then given a recognition test on the slides, followed by seeing slides showing life in India, which they were then given another recognition test on.
Participants were then randomly assigned into success or failure groups, with the success groups being told they had gotten a high score, and the failure groups being told they had gotten a low score.
The participants were then given an attribution questionnaire regarding their performance on the tests.
Results
American students tended to attribute their successes to ability or internal factors, while the Japanese students tended to attribute their failures to lack of ability or internal factors, a result that supports the idea of a modesty bias.
Gives evidence to show culture does affect cognition, as individualistic cultures/Western/ American participants had shown greater self-serving bias, due to their individualist values, which put emphasis on standing out and personal achievement.
Japanese students displayed a modesty bias/ less self-serving bias, as collectivist societies push the idea that the individual is less important, and so they may be more modest in an attempt to blend in with the group.
smith and bond
Aim- to investigate whether the level of conformity has changed over time and whether it is related to individualism and collectivism
How to measure individualism and collectivism- found correlations to measures of cultural values- Hofstede, Schwartz and Trompenaars
Literature search- looked at psych lit online database, psych info database, dissertation abstracts, pscyh abstracts etc
Smith and Bond: review of 31 conformity studies
Did their conformity test based on asch’s experiment
Conformity lower in individualist cultures (north america, north-west europe) 25.3%
Than in collectivist cultures (Africa, asia, south america) 37.1%
The results of the meta-analysis showed that collectivist cultures had a significantly higher rate of conformity than cultures classified as individualistic. For instance, countries like Japan, Hong Kong and Fiji had higher rates of conformity than France, the UK and the USA.
Method-
Still basing conformity off of Asch’s study. If that one didn’t reflect real life than this one doesn’t either.
Shows differences between individualistic and collectivist societies. Had strict criteria that allowed them to compare behaviours.
Meta-analysis
Holistic approach- looking at lots of research and compare and look for trends
Find research all of a similar quality. Select research that fits and matches
Patterns and trend between collectivist and individualistic cultures. Collectivist generally found to have higher conformity (not limited to one country)
Problem- if you have less studies for some countries, then the limitations may cause a bias in results. E.g saying fiji is high in conformity even if only two studies used, while the US has 79 pieces of research.
No. of studies needs to be taken into consideration
Asche
Aim- Wanted to test conformity under non-ambiguous conditions
Procedure-
Simple perceptual task- matching length of line to 3 other comparison lines. Control subjects made almost no errors
In the actual test, there was only ever one ppt at a time, but were surround by 7 other ppl who were told to give the wrong answer. They were told to get it wrong 12 out of 18 times
Ppt was second last to answer, so either had to conform, or go agaisnt group
