Lecture 6 - Cross-Cultural Social Psychology 2 Flashcards
(lecture synopsis):
The individualism v. interdependence dimension is important to both causal attribution and the self.
The fundamental attribution error can be explained as a cultural phenomenon, a product of the individualistic culture of America with its emphasis on personal responsibility and independence. Studies have shown that the FAE is weaker or absent in interdependent cultures such as East Asia, but only when the situational manipulation is sufficiently salient.
A study by Cousins (1989) shows that people in interdependent cultures apply personality trait labels to themselves in a way that is situation-specific, whereas people in individualistic cultures see their personality traits as applying across situations.
That relates to the distinction between analytical and holistic thinking. It has been found that, when making causal attributions, people from holistic cultures regard more information as relevant to causal attribution than people from individualistic cultures do. This in turn affects the kind of causal attribution they make.
(lecture synopsis):
(essential reading):
Choi, I., & Nisbett, R. E. (1998). Situational salience and cultural differences in the correspondence bias and in the actor-observer bias. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 949-960.
Choi, I., Dalal, R., Chu, K.-P., & Park, H. (2003). Culture and judgment of causal relevance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 46-59.
(essential reading):
(lecture):
Define the fundamental attribution error.
(lecture):
The fundamental attribution error is a tendency to overestimate the extent to which behaviour is due to personal characteristics and to underestimate the influence of situational factors.
(lecture):
Describe this study:
Choi, I., & Nisbett, R. E. (1998). Situational salience and cultural differences in the correspondence bias and in the actor-observer bias. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 949-960.
(lecture):
EXPERIMENT 1:
PRODECURE:
- Compared American and Korean Pps (Choi himself is Korean)
- They used the same method as (Jones, E. E., & Harris, V. A. (1967). The attribution of attitudes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 3, 1-24.) and made sure that the essays presented were as identical as possible (as ofc they were in a different language)
RESULTS:
- Were the same as Jones study. American felt the attitude of the writer corresponded to the attitude of the essay.
- HOWEVER, Korean Pps also felt the attitude of the essay corresponded to the writers own attitude, it wasn’t just because of the task set for them.
The reason for these results could lie in the method: The instructions tell the Pps how the essay was assigned but only briefly, just in one sentence. The essay itself was 200 words. They concluded that the essay itself was high in salience but the information given to Pps was low in salience. This might be why people didn’t take any notice of it when rating the writers’ attitudes.
EXPERIMENT 2:
PROCEDURE:
- Basic method was the same as experiment 1.
2 GROUPS:
Group 1:
- Had to do exactly what the writers were told to do. So they had to write an essay. Told they had to write a pro essay. Or told they had to write an anti essay (no choice)
Group 2:
- They had to do the same as group 1 but were additionally given 4 pre-written arguments that they had to implement into their essay.
Researchers felt that now, the situational restraint would be more salient.
RESULTS:
- For Korean Pps: as you make the situation more salient, they are more likely to take it into account.
- For American Pps: as you make the situation more salient, they not more likely to take it into account, they rate the writers attitudes as the same throughout (always being due to the person not the situation). Doesn’t really change no matter how salient they made it.
CONLUSION:
- The Fundamental attribution error (FAE) is a strong tendency in the individualistic culture of America, but a much weaker tendency in the interdependent culture of these asian nations.
(lecture):
Describe this study:
Cousins, S. (1989). Culture and selfhood in Japan and the U. S. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 124-131.
(lecture):
PROCEDURE:
- Comparing American + Japanese Pps.
2 GROUPS:
Simple condition:
- Had to write sentences describing themselves.
Contextualised condition:
- Had to write 3 sentences about themselves but in a particular situation. e.g., write about yourself when you are at school, write about yourself when you are with friends.
RESULTS:
- Researchers coded this responses into several categories, but we are only concerned for 3 of those categories.
3 Categories:
- Social (e.g., I am a member of the Badminton club)
- Qualified attribute (A personality characteristic but with some statement of when it applies e.g., I am a kind person when I’m with my friends)
- Pure attribute (a personality characteristic e.g., I am a kind person)
SImple condition:
- American responses were dominated by pure attribute responses (58% of all statements they made about themselves were statements of personality characteristics)
- Japanese responses were dominated by the social category (27% of all statements they made were social)
Both conditions:
- Japanese Pps used the ‘pure attribute’ category a lot more than the Americans.
- Japanese Pps used social category less than previous condition.
- Americans used the ‘qualified attribute’ category a lot more than previously and a lot more than Japanese.
(See slide 9+10 in lecture 6 slides for table of results)
CONCLUSION:
- Japanese people do identify themselves in terms of personality characteristics almost as much as Americans do, if not as much.
- But, the meaning of the personality trait is different.
- For Americans, a personality characteristic is something you bring across situations, and makes your behaviour consistent.
- For Japanese people, a personality trait is much more specific to situations. The kinds of personality traits are different in one situation to ones that you show in another. So they are still personality characteristics, but they dont give the same global consistency.
(lecture):
Describe this study:
Choi, I., Dalal, R., Chu, K.-P., & Park, H. (2003). Culture and judgment of causal relevance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 46-59.
(lecture):
PROCEDURE:
- American + Korean Pps
- Pps had to imagine that they were a police officer investigating a case in which a graduate student had murdered a professor.
- They had to explain WHY the graduate student might have murdered the professor..
- They were presented a list of 97 items of information. They had to look at each of these and decide whether that piece of information was relevant to the case.
- If they felt it was not relevant, they had to cross it off the list.
RESULTS:
Researchers looked at the number of items left on the list (that weren’t crossed out)
- Koreans - 61
- Americans - 45
CONCLUSION:
- People from a holistic culture will consider more of the situation before making a causal attribution, and vice versa for people from analytic cultures.
- Culture effects how much information from the situation you sample, and then how much information you sample effects the causal attribution you make.
