How Effective are Different Accounts of Harm-doing in Softening Victims’ Reactions? A Scenario Investigation of the Effects of Severity,Relationship, and Culture

In order to examine the effects of different types of accounts in terms of the victims' reactions, we presented 193 American and 186 Japanese participants with scenarios in which an actor unintentionally harmed someone and then gave one of five different accounts. We asked the participants to estimate how the victim would react (emotional alleviation, impression improvement, or forgiveness) to these accounts. The participants rated that the victims would make more positive reactions to the mitigative accounts (apology or excuse) but more negative reactions to the assertive accounts (the denial). Although the reactions to accounts became generally more negative when the harm was severe, the mitigative accounts were more likely to be accepted by the victim than the assertive ones. As compared with the Japanese, the Americans rated the victim as more increasing their impression improvement reactions to one type of justification but more decreasing it to the denial. However, these results did not match the cultural preference of accounts, thereby casting doubt over the validity of cultural efficacy theory.     

Cultural influences on cognitive representations of conflict: interpretations of conflict episodes in the United States and Japan.

This article integrates theory from the cognitive tradition in negotiation with theory on culture and examines cultural influences on cognitive representations of conflict. The authors predicted that although there may be universal (etic) dimensions of conflict construals, there also may be culture-specific (emic) representations of conflict in the United States and Japan. Results of multidimensional scaling analyses of U.S. and Japanese conflict episodes supported this view. Japanese and Americans construed conflicts through a compromise versus win frame (R. L. Pinkley, 1990), providing evidence of a universal dimension of conflict construal. As the authors predicted, Japanese perceived conflicts to be more compromise-focused, as compared with Americans. There were also unique dimensions of construal among Americans and Japanese (infringements to self and giri violations, respectively), suggesting that identical conflict episodes are perceived differently across cultures.     

A Cross-Cultural Study of Preference of Accounts: Relationship Closeness,Harm Severity,and Motives of Account Making1

We presented 174 American and 169 Japanese subjects with scenarios in which an actor unintentionally harmed someone. We asked them to rate the likelihood of each of 6 different account tactics and 3 motives of account making. Collectivists (Japanese) were found, compared with individualists (Americans), to show more preference for the mitigating accounts, such as apologies or excuses, but less the assertive accounts, such as justifications. The collectivists’ mitigating style became distinguished, particularly when the participants were in-group members; and also gender differences were larger among collectivists than among individualists. Harm severity was an independent and powerful determinant of account choice: The causal analysis of the motives revealed that each account tactic was uniquely motivated, and that its supposed motivational process was quite similar between the two cultural groups.     

Procedural fairness in ultimatum bargaining: Effects of interactional fairness and formal procedure on respondents’ reactions to unequal offers1

Abstract: Ninety‐nine Japanese students received one of three offers in an ultimatum bargaining scenario: unfavorable and unequal; equal; or favorable but unequal. These offers were determined by either the other participant or by a computerized lottery. We also manipulated the arbitrariness of the role assignment procedure. Participants perceived the intentional small offer as more unfair in the interactional sense than the unintentional small offer, while they perceived the same offers as unfair in the distributive sense, regardless of intentionality. The intentional small offer was more likely to be rejected than the unintentional small offer. Participants perceived the arbitrary procedure of the role assignment as highly unfair, whereas the difference of arbitrariness in role assignment procedures had no significant impact on their reactions to the offer. Acceptance of the offer was strongly determined by interactional fairness, as well as by distributive fairness, and these types of fairness were influenced by different situational characteristics, such as intentionality, the size of the offer, and the equality of the offer.     

Mutual liking and meta‐perception accuracy

The present study investigated the underlying mechanism yielding a positive correlation between dyad members' mutual liking and meta‐accuracy (i.e., dyad members who like each other tend to be accurate in judging how their partner sees them). Two pilot studies were first conducted to confirm the presence of the positive correlation. The main study was conducted to test several possible explanations for the observed positive correlation. In the main study, each participant took part in a series of brief interactions with an unacquainted opposite‐sex partner three times. In each interaction, participants rated their liking for the partner, evaluated their impression of the partner on 15 items, and finally inferred the partner's impression of them on the same 15 items. The meta‐accuracy was operationally defined as the correlation between the partner's impression and the participant's inference. Neither of the two types of unilateral liking (i.e., participant's liking for the partner nor the partner's liking for the participant) predicted meta‐accuracy. However, when both members found the partner likeable (i.e., mutual liking was present), the within‐dyad average meta‐accuracy tended to be high. The implications of these results for meta‐perception research are discussed on the basis of Brunswik's lens model framework. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.