The cultural dynamics of rewarding honesty and punishing deception

Recent research suggests that individuals reward honesty more than they punish deception. Five experiments showed that different patterns of rewards and punishments emerge for North American and East Asian cultures. Experiment 1 demonstrated that Americans rewarded more than they punished, whereas East Asians rewarded and punished in equivalent amounts. Experiments 2 and 3 revealed that these divergent patterns by culture could be explained by greater social mobility experienced by Americans. Experiments 4 and 5 examined how certain consequences of social mobility, approach-avoidance behavioral motivations and trust and felt obligation, can lead to disparate reward and punishment decisions within the two cultures. Moreover, Experiment 4 revealed that Americans exhibited stronger evaluative reactions toward deception but stronger behavioral intentions toward honesty; East Asians did not exhibit this evaluative-behavioral asymmetry. The cross-cultural implications for understanding rewards and punishments in an increasingly globalized world are discussed.     

Stand tall,but don't put your feet up: Universal and culturally-specific effects of expansive postures on power

Previous research suggests that there is a fundamental link between expansive body postures and feelings of power. The current research demonstrates that this link is not universal, but depends on people's cultural background (Western versus East Asian) and on the particular type of expansive posture enacted. Three types of expansive postures were examined in the present studies: the expansive-hands-spread-on-desk pose (Carney et al., 2010), the expansive-upright-sitting pose (Huang et al., 2011, Tiedens and Fragale, 2003), and the expansive-feet-on-desk pose (Carney et al., 2010). Of these postures, the expansive-feet-on-desk pose was perceived by both Americans and East Asians as the least consistent with East Asian cultural norms of modesty, humility, and restraint (Study 1). The expansive-hands-spread-on-desk and expansive-upright-sitting postures led to greater sense of power than a constricted posture for both Americans and East Asians (Studies 2a–2b). In contrast, the expansive-feet-on-desk pose led to greater power activation (Study 3) and action orientation (Study 4) for Americans, but not for East Asians. Indeed, East Asians in the expansive-feet-on-desk pose showed less power activation and action orientation than Americans in this pose. Together, these findings support a basic principle of embodiment — the effects of posture depend on: (a) the type of posture, and (b) the symbolic meaning of that posture.     

In search of East Asian self-enhancement

A meta-analysis of published cross-cultural studies of self-enhancement reveals pervasive and pronounced differences between East Asians and Westerners. Across 91 comparisons, the average cross-cultural effect was d = .84. The effect emerged in all 30 methods, except for comparisons of implicit self-esteem. Within cultures, Westerners showed a clear self-serving bias (d = .87), whereas East Asians did not (d = -.01), with Asian Americans falling in between (d = .52). East Asians did self-enhance in the methods that involved comparing themselves to average but were self-critical in other methods. It was hypothesized that this inconsistency could be explained in that these methods are compromised by the "everyone is better than their group's average effect" (EBTA). Supporting this rationale, studies that were implicated by the EBTA reported significantly larger self-enhancement effect for all cultures compared to other studies. Overall, the evidence converges to show that East Asians do not self-enhance.     

Age and culture modulate object processing and object—scene binding in the ventral visual area

Behavioral differences in the visual processing of objects and backgrounds as a function of cultural group are well documented. Recent neuroimaging evidence also points to cultural differences in neural activation patterns. Compared with East Asians, Westerners’ visual processing is more object focused, and they activate neural structures that reflect this bias for objects. In a recent adaptation study, East Asian older adults showed an absence of an object-processing area but normal adaptation for background areas. In the present study, 75 young and old adults (half East Asian and half Western) were tested in an fMR-adaptation study to examine differences in object and background processing as well as object—background binding. We found equivalent background processing in the parahippocampal gyrus in all four groups, diminished binding processes in the hippocampus in elderly East Asians and Westerners, and diminished object processing in elderly versus young adults in the lateral occipital complex. Moreover, elderly East Asians showed significantly less adaptation response in the object areas than did elderly Westerners. These findings demonstrate the malleability of perceptual processes as a result of differences in cohort-specific experiences or in cultural exposure over time.     

Culture and aesthetic preference: comparing the attention to context of East Asians and Americans

Prior research indicates that East Asians are more sensitive to contextual information than Westerners. This article explored aesthetics to examine whether cultural variations were observable in art and photography. Study 1 analyzed traditional artistic styles using archival data in representative museums. Study 2 investigated how contemporary East Asians and Westerners draw landscape pictures and take portrait photographs. Study 3 further investigated aesthetic preferences for portrait photographs. The results suggest that (a) traditional East Asian art has predominantly context-inclusive styles, whereas Western art has predominantly object-focused styles, and (b) contemporary members of East Asian and Western cultures maintain these culturally shaped aesthetic orientations. The findings can be explained by the relation among attention, cultural resources, and aesthetic preference.     

跨文化的实证法学研究：文化心理学的挑战与贡献

跨文化的实证法学研究把文化心理学的理论突破和心理学的实证方法引入到对法学基本原理的研究之中。文化心理学研究中发现的东西方文化在价值定向、道德判断和思维方式等方面的差异能够给跨文化实证法学研究带来重要的启示。在对一些重要法律问题的认识上, 例如法律中的因果关系和责任的判定、合同形成以及纠纷调解等方面, 跨文化心理学研究已经发现了显著的跨文化差异, 这些差异可能会影响到不同文化背景的人对法的认识、法的建设以及法律的应用。我们认为跨文化的实证法学研究不仅可以为法学研究提供一条新的研究路径, 更主要的是还可以为中国法学研究的国际化和国际法律纠纷提供理论指导。     

The "ripple effect": cultural differences in perceptions of the consequences of events

Previous research has demonstrated that people from East Asian cultural backgrounds make broader, more complex causal attributions than do people from Western cultural backgrounds. In the current research, the authors hypothesized that East Asians also would be aware of a broader, more complex distribution of consequences of events. Four studies assessed cultural differences in perceptions of the consequences of (a) a shot in a game of pool, (b) an area being converted into a national park, (c) a chief executive officer firing employees, and (d) a car accident. Across all four studies, compared to participants from Western cultural backgrounds, participants from East Asian cultural backgrounds were more aware of the indirect, distal consequences of events. This pattern occurred on a variety of measures, including spontaneously generated consequences, estimations of an event's impact on subsequent events, perceived responsibility, and predicted affective reactions. Implications for our understanding of cross-cultural psychology and social perception are discussed.     

"Express yourself": culture and the effect of self-expression on choice

Whereas self-expression is valued in the United States, it is not privileged with such a cultural emphasis in East Asia. Four studies demonstrate the psychological implications of this cultural difference. Studies 1 and 2 found that European Americans value self-expression more than East Asians/East Asian Americans. Studies 3 and 4 examined the roles of expression in preference judgments. In Study 3, the expression of choice led European Americans but not East Asian Americans to be more invested in what they chose. Study 4 examined the connection between the value of expression and the effect of choice expression and showed that European Americans place greater emphasis on self-expression than East Asian Americans, and this difference explained the cultural difference in Study 3. This research highlights the importance of the cultural meanings of self-expression and the moderating role of cultural beliefs on the psychological effect of self-expression.     

The role of cultural orientation in bargaining under incomplete information: Differences in causal attributions

This research examines how differences in cultural orientation influence causal attributions and thus the behavioral outcomes in an incomplete information bargaining situation. Using ultimatum bargaining, three experiments demonstrate that acceptance rates differ across Western and East Asian cultures because of the differences in implicit theories of behavior. The results of Experiment 1 shows that East Asians are more sensitive to both external constraints and group influences but only when there is information about the opponent’s situation to discount personality traits. Experiment 2 shows that reasons for an opponent’s behavior mediate the influence of cultural orientation on bargaining outcomes when situational constraints are made salient. Experiment 3 shows that reasons for an opponent’s behavior based on the saliency of a group context mediate the influence of cultural orientation on behavior. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the findings and suggesting directions for future research.     

Culture, control, and perception of relationships in the environment

East Asian cognition has been held to be relatively holistic; that is, attention is paid to the field as a whole. Western cognition, in contrast, has been held to be object focused and control oriented. In this study East Asians (mostly Chinese) and Americans were compared on detection of covariation and field dependence. The results showed the following: (a) Chinese participants reported stronger association between events, were more responsive to differences in covariation, and were more confident about their covariation judgments; (b) these cultural differences disappeared when participants believed they had some control over the covariation judgment task; (c) American participants made fewer mistakes on the Rod-and-Frame Test, indicating that they were less field dependent; (d) American performance and confidence, but not that of Asians, increased when participants were given manual control of the test. Possible origins of the perceptual differences are discussed.     

Culture and diverging views of social events

The authors compared East Asians' and Americans' views of everyday social events. Research suggests that Americans tend to focus more on the self and to have a greater sense of personal agency than East Asians. The authors assessed whether, compared to East Asians, Americans emphasize main characters even when events do not involve the self and whether they see more agency or intentionality in actions, even when the actions are not their own. Whether East Asians would observe more emotions in everyday scenarios than would Americans also was investigated. In Study 1, Chinese and Americans read alleged diary entries of another person. Americans did focus more on main characters and on characters' intentionality. Study 2 replicated these results comparing Taiwanese and Americans on free recall of events concerning the self and of narratives and videos concerning others. Study 2 also found that Taiwanese made more comments about the emotional states of characters.     

Re-examining the positivity of self-evaluations among East Asians and European Americans

Evidence from recent studies suggests that the method used to assess self-enhancement can influence the interpretation of findings on the existence of self-enhancement among East Asians. Circumventing many of the methodological problems associated with previous studies, we conducted a cross-cultural study that contrasted participants’ self-evaluations of personality traits with peer ratings. Specifically, East Asian and European American participants provided separate self- and peer-ratings on measures of individualistically- and collectivistically-valued traits in a round-robin design. Results revealed greater self-enhancement tendency among European Americans on both traits. Moreover, European Americans, but not East Asians, provided self-ratings that were more positive than peer-ratings. These findings challenge claims regarding the use of tactical self-enhancement among East Asians.     

Social anxiety among East Asians in North America: East Asian socialization or the challenge of acculturation?

North American research has consistently reported higher social anxiety among people of Asian heritage compared to people of Western heritage. The present study used a cross-national sample of 692 university students to explore explanatory hypotheses using planned contrasts of group differences in social anxiety and related variables. The East Asian socialization hypothesis proposed social anxiety would show a linear relation corresponding to the degree of exposure to East Asian cultural norms. This hypothesis was not supported. The cultural discrepancy hypothesis examined whether bicultural East Asian participants (residing in Canada) would endorse higher social anxiety in comparison to unicultural participants (Western-heritage Canadians and native Koreans and Chinese). Compared to unicultural participants, bicultural East Asian participants reported higher social anxiety and depression, a relation that was partially mediated by bicultural participants' reports of lower self-efficacy about initiating social relationships and lower perceived social status. Overall, the results suggest higher reports of social anxiety among bicultural East Asians may be conceptualized within the context of cultural discrepancy with the mainstream culture.     

Situational differences in dialectical emotions: Boundary conditions in a cultural comparison of North Americans and East Asians

Past research generally suggests that East Asians tolerate opposing feelings or dialectical emotions more than North Americans. We tested the idea that North Americans would have fewer opposing emotions than East Asians in positive, but not in negative or mixed situations. Forty-seven European American, 40 Chinese, and 121 Japanese students reported the emotions that a protagonist of standardised positive, negative, and mixed situations would feel. Emotions were coded into three valence categories: pleasant, unpleasant, and neither-pleasant-nor-unpleasant. As predicted, cultural differences in opposing emotion associations were found in positive situations only. Moreover, East Asians reported more neither-pleasant-nor-unpleasant feelings, especially in mixed situations, possibly reflecting a deferral of valence appraisal due to expected change.     

Which should you use,intuition or logic? Cultural differences in injunctive norms about reasoning

Past research has shown that tendencies to engage in holistic and analytical reasoning are differentially encouraged by East Asian and Western cultures. But little is known about cultural differences in the perceived value of analytic versus intuitive reasoning. In Study 1, Koreans and Americans ranked the importance of traits including ‘intuitive’ and ‘logical’ in work and family contexts. In Study 2, Euro‐Canadians and East‐Asian‐Canadians read scenarios of intuitive versus rule‐following business decisions. Relative to Western participants, East Asians rated intuitive reasoning as more important and reasonable than analytic reasoning. Implications for the epistemic status of reasoning modes, culture's effect on values about reasoning, and multiculturalism are discussed.     

Conversing across cultures: East-West communication styles in work and nonwork contexts

Four experiments provided evidence that East-West differences in attention to indirect meaning are more pronounced in work settings compared with nonwork settings as suggested by prior research on Protestant relational ideology. Study 1 compared errors in interpreting indirect messages in work and nonwork contexts across three cultures. Studies 2 and 3 examined differences in self-reported indirectness with coworkers versus nonwork acquaintances across three cultures controlling for variation in individualism--collectivism. Study 4 examined self-reported indirectness in bicultural managers and experimentally manipulated the salience of Western versus Eastern culture. The results showed that Americans, but not East Asians, were less attentive to indirect cues in work than nonwork settings and that East-West differences in indirectness were greater in work than nonwork settings.     

On the origins of cultural differences in conformity: four tests of the pathogen prevalence hypothesis

What are the origins of cultural differences in conformity? The authors deduce the hypothesis that these cultural differences may reflect historical variability in the prevalence of disease-causing pathogens: Where pathogens were more prevalent, there were likely to emerge cultural norms promoting greater conformity. The authors conducted four tests of this hypothesis, using countries as units of analysis. Results support the pathogen prevalence hypothesis. Pathogen prevalence positively predicts cultural differences in effect sizes that emerge from behavioral conformity experiments (r=.49, n=17) and in the percentage of the population who prioritize obedience (r=.48, n=83). Pathogen prevalence also negatively predicted two indicators of tolerance for nonconformity: within-country dispositional variability (r=-.48, n=33) and the percentage of the population who are left-handed (r=-.73, n=20). Additional analyses address plausible alternative causal explanations. Discussion focuses on plausible underlying mechanisms (e.g., genetic, developmental, cognitive).     

Culture and context: East Asian American and European American differences in P3 event-related potentials and self-construal

Research has demonstrated differences in social and cognitive processes between East Asians and European Americans. Whereas East Asians have been characterized as being more sensitive to situational context and attending more to the perceptual field, European Americans have been characterized as being more focused on the object and being more field independent. The goal of the present experiment was to investigate differences in neural responses to target objects and stimulus context between East Asian Americans and European Americans using a three-stimulus novelty P3 event-related potential design. As hypothesized, European Americans displayed relatively greater target P3 amplitudes, indexing attention to target events, whereas East Asian Americans displayed relatively greater novelty P3 amplitudes, indexing attention to contextually deviant events. Furthermore, the authors found that interdependent self-construal mediated the relationship between culture and the novelty P3. These findings identify a specific pattern of neural activity associated with established cultural differences in contextual sensitivity.     

The psychology behind the masks: Psychological responses to the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in different regions

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) was first reported in China, and spread to 29 regions, affecting over 8000 people worldwide. For the general public, the psychological impact of SARS may have been greater than the physical health danger of the disease. The present paper proposes the influence of psychological factors on people's cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses during the SARS outbreak. The various papers in this special issue of the Journal reveal how people have reacted during the SARS outbreak: People's general coping styles may be related to their health behavior during the outbreak. Cultural differences were evident in the perception of SARS, and individuals' perceptual styles may have influenced their ability to cope with the outbreak. The way in which individuals coped with SARS-related stressful events was different from their usual practices of managing daily stress. Individual differences in the adoption of preventive measures were related to the distinct susceptibility to several social-cognitive biases.