Abstract
While social-psychological research has afforded much insight into the causes of human behavior, its emphasis on “the power of the situation” has been met with resistance from laypeople. Previous research found that American participants, when provided with different accounts of wrongdoing, were comfortable endorsing dispositional explanations of the behavior, but suspected that psychologists were exonerating wrongdoers when they were provided with situational explanations. The current study extends this research by examining the moderating effect of culture on laypeople’s perceptions of different explanations of wrongdoing. Chinese and American participants read about two hypothetical studies about wrongdoing and learned that either situational factors or personality variables seemed to account for the behavior. They then made responsibility attributions for the wrongdoer from both their own perspective and from what they perceived was the psychologists’ perspective. When given dispositional explanations, both Chinese and Americans reported consistency between their own and what they perceived to be the psychologists’ perspectives. However, when given situational explanations, although Chinese participants again reported consistency between their own and the psychologists’ perspectives, American participants thought the psychologists were exonerating the wrongdoer. These findings shed light on why social-psychological research sometimes faces skepticism and on cross-cultural variations in how people explain human behaviors. Practical implications of the study include a reminder that when social psychologists package their messages, they should take into account the biases of different targeted audiences.
Classic social-psychological issues, such as aggression, intergroup conflict, and prejudice, all bear direct relevance to high profile events and controversies in the public sphere. However, social psychologists frequently bemoan the fact that their message about the importance of situational influences on behavior is often unwelcome or even resisted by many people (e.g., Markus, 2004; Zimbardo, 2008).
Many scholars have speculated about the difficulties involved in communicating about research with non-academic audiences (e.g., Carey & Pennebaker, 2009; Epstein, 2006; Lilienfeld, 2012). Social psychologists have found it especially hard to promote their findings (Newman, Bakina, & Tang, 2012). One reason is that their general focus on the power of the situation may clash with the lay preferences for dispositional causal accounts of behavior, as revealed by research on lay dispositionism and the fundamental attribution error (FAE) (Jones & Harris, 1967; L. D. Ross, 1977; L. Ross & Nisbett, 1991).
Social-Psychological Explanations: Evidence for Perceived Exoneration
One direct consequence of this clash is that social-psychological explanations of human behaviors, especially of behaviors that are atrocious, are often misconstrued as exonerating or forgiving (Miller, Buddie, & Kretschmar, 2002; Miller, Gordon, & Buddie, 1999). Miller et al. (1999, Study 1) tested this hypothesis. In their study, participants were presented with the results of a hypothetical study about the causes of cheating. Participants were either told that what actually predicted the cheating behavior was people’s level of honesty (personality condition) or that cheating behavior was caused by situational influences (situational condition). Afterward, the participants were asked to report their own judgments of the responsibility of the cheaters. Consistent with lay dispositionism, participants held cheaters accountable for their behavior regardless of the type of explanation they had read, ignoring the situational implications of the social-psychological explanations. The participants were also asked to report what they considered to be the psychologist’s perspective regarding intent, responsibility, and moral blameworthiness of the wrongdoers. Results indicated that participants who had read a social-psychological explanation of cheating viewed the psychologist as more condoning toward the perpetrators than did subjects who had read a dispositional explanation. Newman and Bakina (2009) found convergent evidence in their replication of the Miller et al. (1999) study using new but similar stimulus materials.
The goal of the present research is to examine laypeople’s observed discomfort with social-psychological analyses of behavior in a cross-cultural context. It is possible that the reactions to social-psychological accounts of wrongdoing documented in past research may be more prevalent in some cultural contexts than others.
Culture and Attribution
Both the Miller et al. (1999) and Newman and Bakina (2009) studies were conducted in North America. Historically, it has been found that people from such individualistic cultures are prone to committing the FAE, possibly as a result of a thinking style that is firmly embedded in a well-preserved philosophical and epistemological heritage that emphasizes individuality and personal responsibility. Correspondingly, people from individualistic cultures have been found to have a strong tendency to focus on dispositional attributions and be prone to the FAE (Morris & Peng, 1994).
Although the FAE has been demonstrated in many contexts, cultural psychologists have suggested that it may actually not be so uniform and may differ across cultures. In particular, the FAE is much harder to demonstrate in East Asian cultures (Choi, Nisbett, & Norenzayan, 1999), possibly due to different thinking styles. Scholars in many fields hold that at least since the sixth century
However, it would be incorrect to conclude that people from non-Western cultures (e.g., East Asians) are incapable of making, or generally disinclined to make dispositional attributions. Much cross-cultural and ethnographic research has provided evidence that Asians and Americans are likely to demonstrate similar levels of dispositional inference but it is a stronger emphasis on situational influences by Asians that accounts for the cultural differences in social explanation (Choi et al., 1999).
In sum, there seems to be a certain level of universality in terms of the use of dispositional attributions across cultures. But Choi et al. (1999) maintain that the seemingly universal phenomenon of dispositional attribution is qualified by specific constraints. In particular, much evidence suggests that the typical East−West differences in causal attributions derive primarily from East Asians’ relative sensitivity to situational cues, and not from their lack of dispositional beliefs. One direct piece of evidence supporting this hypothesis comes from research conducted by Choi and Nisbett (1998). In their studies, both Korean and American participants attributed the content of an essay to the true attitude of the essay writer when the situational constraint of essay writing was not salient. However, when the situational influences on the essay content were made more salient to the participants, Korean participants showed a significant decrease in the FAE, but the American participants remained insensitive to situational cues.
Attributions About Individuals and Groups
Menon, Morris, Chiu, and Hong (1999) further elaborated on the difference between individualistic and collectivist cultures regarding dispositional attributions. They contended that theories about the properties of individuals and groups may vary across cultures. The prevailing North American theories hold that persons have stable dispositions that directly lead to social and behavioral outcomes, because of their notion of individual autonomy. However, widely accepted implicit theories in East Asian cultures emphasize the causal agency of groups or the collective, which result from their strong beliefs about collective autonomy. Implicit theories of collective agency in East Asian countries can be further illustrated by a practice known as collective responsibility attribution, which entails punishing the wrongdoer’s associates even when they do not have direct involvement in the wrongdoing per se (Chao & Chiu, 2011).
Overview and Hypotheses
At the broadest level, the goal of the current study is to replicate and extend the findings from the Miller et al. (1999) and Newman and Bakina (2009) studies, which have suggested that social psychologists’ emphasis on the role of social and situational influences on human misdemeanors may cause laypeople to resist social-psychological explanations because they appear to be exonerating. Given the complex interaction between culture, attributional style, and implicit theories of agency, we also expected cross-cultural differences in people’s reactions to and preferences for different social-psychological accounts of individual and group wrongdoing.
It was hypothesized that, in light of the universal prevalence of dispositional attributions, when both American and Chinese participants are presented with dispositional explanations for individual wrongdoing, they will attribute high levels of responsibility to the individual and will assume that the psychologist does so as well. However, even though we expected both American and Chinese participants presented with situational explanations for individual wrongdoing to attribute responsibility to the individual, we predicted that the American participants would perceive the psychologist as being exonerating whereas the Chinese participants would not, because East Asians have been found to be more sensitive to information regarding situational pressures and constraints on individuals.
American and Chinese participants presented with dispositional explanations for collective wrongdoing were again expected to attribute responsibility to the group and to think that the psychologist also does so. However, when presented with situational explanations for collective wrongdoing, we expected Chinese participants to perceive the psychologist as being more exonerating than the American participants, because such an account may be conflicting with East Asians’ belief in the collective agency. Overall, we expected a four-way interaction between participants’ Culture (United States vs. China), Attribution (dispositional vs. situational), Perspective (own vs. psychologist), and Target (individual vs. group).
Method
Participants
One hundred sixty Chinese college student participants (representing a collectivist culture) and 203 American college student participants (representing an individualistic culture) were recruited to participate in this study. To ensure that the American participants were an accurate proxy sample of an individualistic U.S. culture, 51 U.S. participants were eliminated because 19 were international students, 27 self-identified as Asians, and 5 were born outside of the United States. As a result, the total number of American participants included in the study was 152. The American participants were recruited from Syracuse University and the Chinese participants were recruited from Sichuan Normal University in southwestern China. The U.S. and China portions of the study were conducted in English and Mandarin Chinese, respectively. All experimental stimuli were translated into Mandarin Chinese from English by the first author and cross-checked by the third author. Both of these authors are native speakers of Chinese and proficient in English.
Procedure
The study design followed a 2 (Culture: American vs. Chinese) × 2 (Attribution: dispositional vs. situational) × 2 (Target: individual vs. group) × 2 (Perspective: own vs. psychologist) factorial design. The between-subject variables were Culture and Attribution, and the within-subject variables were Target and Perspective.
Hypothetical studies involving cheating and aggression were presented to the participants. Specifically, each participant received a packet of two scenarios; one scenario was about cheating and the other one about aggression (see the appendix for examples 1 ). Participants in the situational explanation condition read two hypothetical studies that suggested that cheating and aggression were caused by situational factors. In contrast, participants in the dispositional explanation condition read two hypothetical studies that suggested that cheating and aggression were caused by dispositional factors. The order in which participants read the cheating or the aggression study first was randomized, as was the order in which the group or the individual behavior was presented first. Hence, within both the dispositional and situational conditions, there were four possible sequences of hypothetical studies.
At the end of each hypothetical study, the participants were asked to make their own responsibility (“How much do you think the participants who cheated were personally/collectively responsible for their behavior?”) and blame (“How much do you think the participants who cheated should be personally/collectively blamed for their behavior?”) attributions for the wrongdoers’ behavior (using 7-point scales, with higher numbers meaning more responsibility or blame). They then also reported what they perceived to be the responsibility and blame judgments of the psychologist who conducted and described the study. Following Newman and Bakina (2009), the mean of the responsibility and blame judgments served as the dependent variable. In addition, participants were asked to rate (on 7-point scales) the extent to which they thought the causal account presented in each scenario was consistent with their own thinking and how much they agreed with the psychologists’ conclusion about the causes of behavior.
When presented with a group behavior scenario, before making any responsibility ratings, participants were also instructed to rate their perception of the group’s entitativity by choosing one of five images that they felt best represented the group described in the study. The images each portrayed a cluster of increasingly overlapping circles (Lickel et al., 2000).
Participants recruited in the United States also reported their ethnicity, whether they were native English speakers, and the country in which they were born. The additional demographic information that the American participants provided was used to identify participants with individualistic cultural backgrounds. 2
Results
Test of the Factorial Design
The main analysis was a four-way mixed-model ANOVA, which tested the 2 (Culture: American vs. Chinese) × 2 (Attribution: dispositional vs. situational) × 2 (Target: individual vs. group) × 2 (Perspective: own vs. psychologist) factorial design. The means and standard deviations of responsibility/blame attributions by Target, Attribution, Perspective, and Culture are presented in Table 1. A significant four-way interaction was not found, F(1, 305) = .30, p = .59,
Responsibility/Blame Attribution Ratings From the Self and the Psychologist’s Perspectives by Target, Attribution, Perspective, and Culture.
Note. Larger values indicate more attribution of responsibility/blame (possible range = 1-7).
This result undermined the rationale for the original inclusion of the Target variable, which was individualist cultures’ tendency to view individuals as agentic versus collectivist cultures’ tendency to view groups as agentic (Menon et al., 1999). Therefore, subsequent data analyses were conducted after collapsing across the two Target unit levels (individual and group).
The second three-way interaction was the interaction between Perspective, Attribution, and Culture, F(1, 305) = 14.81, p < .001,
Responsibility/blame attribution ratings from the own and the psychologist’s perspectives by Attribution, Perspective, and Culture.
The Moderating Effect of Culture
The significant three-way interaction between Perspective, Attribution, and Culture provided support for the central hypothesis that culture moderates how people react to different social-psychological explanations of wrongdoing. Specifically, when given dispositional explanations, American participants made similar responsibility/blame judgments from their own (M = 4.96, SD = 0.97) and the perceived psychologist’s perspectives (M = 4.97, SD = 0.92), and Chinese participants, as expected, also made similar responsibility/blame judgments from their own (M = 4.79, SD = 1.13) and the perceived psychologist’s perspectives (M = 4.73, SD = 1.18). However, when given situational explanations, American participants, consistent with past research, perceived the psychologist to be exonerating the wrongdoers (M = 3.86, SD = 1.15) compared with their own responsibility and blame judgments (M = 4.71, SD = 1.10), whereas Chinese participants’ judgments from their own perspective (M = 4.43, SD = 1.17) and the perceived psychologist’s perspective (M = 4.40, SD = 1.23) remained no different (see Figure 1).
Agreement With the Psychologist’s Explanation
The significant interaction between Perspective, Attribution, and Culture suggested that there was a greater discrepancy between self and psychologist’s perspectives among American participants than among Chinese participants, given a situational explanation. Two questions directly asked participants to compare their own perspective with that of the psychologist (“How consistent is your own conclusion with that of the psychologist’s explanation?” and “How much do you agree with the psychologist?”). The two items were significantly correlated, r = .69, p < .01; therefore, the scores were averaged to create a single variable, which indicates overall level of agreement (see Table 2). A significant main effect of Attribution was found, F(1, 308) = 27.92, p < .01,
Agreement With the Researchers’ Explanations by Culture and Attribution.
Note. Larger values indicate more agreement (possible range = 1-7).
Discussion
The current study extended findings from the Miller et al. (1999) and Newman and Bakina (2009) studies by identifying a different pattern of reactions to social-psychological explanations of wrongdoing from laypeople in a collectivistic culture (China). When provided with dispositional explanations, both Chinese and American participants attributed similar amounts of responsibility and blame to the perpetrator and assumed that the psychologists would do the same. When provided with situational explanations, both Chinese and American participants, overall, perceived the perpetrator to be less responsible as compared with those in the dispositional condition. However, American participants significantly differed from Chinese participants in that they now believed that the psychologists would attribute even less responsibility and blame to the wrongdoer. Put another way, when presented with situational explanations for wrongdoing, American participants had a tendency to view psychologists as being exonerating toward the perpetrator, whereas the Chinese participants did not.
Attribution Theories and Current Findings
The current pattern of cultural differences in response to situational explanations is consistent with previous findings on cross-cultural variations in attribution. Although thinking styles in collectivist cultures differ in various ways from those in individualist cultures, research has suggested that cross-cultural difference in causal attributions between individualistic and collectivist cultures lies primarily in the phenomenon that people from collectivist cultures assign more importance to situational influences and constraints and not in a lack of dispositional beliefs (Choi et al., 1999).
Such basic cross-cultural differences in causal attributions shed light on the current findings. In this study, when given dispositional explanations, both Chinese and American participants were equally likely to attribute responsibility to the perpetrators. They also assumed that the psychologist was attributing the same amount of responsibility. This uniform pattern in responsibility judgment from both their own perspective as well as the perspective of the psychologist when presented with dispositional explanations is arguably deeply rooted in the widely found human tendency to favor the adoption of a dispositional focus when explaining others’ behavior. Therefore, when psychologists offer insights about human behavior that feature a focus on dispositions and internal characteristics, people are likely to voice agreement and little suspicion.
However, cultural differences start to emerge when people are presented with information related to situational influences that shape conduct or behavior. Cross-cultural research focused on causal attribution patterns in collectivist cultures has found that East Asians, compared with their Western counterparts from individualistic cultures, are more sensitive to situational cues and can more easily adjust their thinking to take into account the influence of external influences. This sensitivity may very well have led East Asian participants in the current study to perceive less distance between their own perspective and that of the psychologist, particularly when they were presented with situational accounts of behavior. In the meantime, due to a tendency to focus on dispositional reasons for behavior in individualistic cultures, it is reasonable that American participants in the current study found psychologists’ situational explanations to be quite divergent from their own perspectives. They might have even suspected the psychologist to be condoning the perpetrator by attributing less responsibility and blame.
Individuals Versus Groups
However, contrary to our predictions, the Target factor did not interact with Culture in changing the participants’ perceptions of the responsibility of the perpetrator when given two distinct causal accounts. Results revealed that the general trend that American participants found situational accounts exonerating and that Chinese participants did not was the same for both individual and group targets. This finding did not support the hypothesis that Chinese participants would perceive situational explanations for group behavior to be exonerating because of East Asians’ implicit theory of collective agency. One possibility is that Chinese participants’ sensitivity to situational cues overrode their belief in collective agency. Another explanation is that while East Asians in general are more likely to perceive collectives to be agentic than their Western counterparts (Menon et al., 1999), they do not necessarily perceive all groups to have more agency (Kashima et al., 2005). Also, collective agency and entitativity have been two closely related and sometimes interchangeable constructs (Kashima et al., 2005). Given that in this study, Chinese and American participants did not perceive group targets to be different in entitativity, it is speculated that Chinese and American participants did not differ in their perception of collective agency of the group, as hypothesized. Thus, Target was not found to interact with other factors.
Limitations and Future Directions
One limitation of the current study is that the exact mechanism underlying the cultural differences in reactions to situational accounts of wrongdoing is still unclear. To obtain a clearer picture of the phenomenon, future research needs to measure causality and responsibility attributions for not only the person but also the situation from participants’ own perspective as well as the perceived perspective of the psychologist. Second, situational and dispositional explanations are two dominant but not exhaustive perspectives in causal thinking. Cross-cultural patterns in other perspectives, such as an interactionist or neurobiological explanation, await investigation (Newman & Bakina, 2009). Moreover, more varied scenarios of human misconduct and ecologically valid operationalization of wrongdoing should be examined in the future. In addition, current study only focused on laypeople’s reactions toward different social-psychological accounts of negative behaviors. Ybarra (2002) in his review of naïve causal theories of valenced behaviors suggested that there might be an asymmetry in causal attributions for positive and negative behaviors. Given that positive behaviors are more prevalent and congruent with social norms and demands, people are likely to infer that such behaviors tend to be caused by situations and are only potentially reflective of a person’s dispositions. In contrast, the naïve theory for negative behaviors is characterized by the tendency to view such as more readily diagnostic of and linked to a person’s dispositions. Therefore, we speculate that when provided with situational explanations for positive behaviors, the American participants would be less suspicious, thus diminishing the cultural differences in perceptions of dispositional and situational explanations of negative behaviors that we have observed in this study.
Implications
The current study contributes to the cross-cultural literature on social cognition as well as to attribution theories. In addition to its theoretical significance, this current study also has practical implications. First, the direct implication of the divergent cultural patterns in response to situational accounts of wrongdoing is that psychologists should be mindful of how they frame their research results when they address different audiences. While emphasizing situational factors when trying to explain evil may not cause too many raised eyebrows in a Chinese audience, it may raise suspicion and skepticism among American participants. Moreover, as judgments of wrongdoing are closely related to judicial and social issues, a better understanding of how people from different cultures make and perceive responsibility attributions given various causal accounts of behavior helps inform social institutions, such as the legal system, a very valuable way.
Footnotes
Appendix
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.