Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology

Two studies examined the comparative influence of network members on one's intention to marry and relational commitment among 616 college students in both China and the United States. Compared with U.S. participants, Chinese students believed that their dating partners would meet their filial piety beliefs, that such beliefs were more important in their potential decision to marrying their dating partners, and that they were more likely to comply with network members regarding the decision to marry. Network influence predicted Chinese marital intentions and relationship commitment, whereas relationship length and beliefs about support, care, living a better life, and network influence predicted U.S. participants' marital intentions and/or relationship commitment.

One explanation for the lower self-esteem of East Asians is that they have dialectical, or inconsistent, self-esteem in that they endorse both the positively and the negatively keyed items of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, relative to Euro-Americans. The following research extended this effect to implicit self-esteem. In two studies, Chinese, Euro-Americans (Studies 1 and 2), and Chinese Americans (Study 2) completed explicit and implicit measures of self-esteem. On both types of measures, Chinese scored most highly on various indices of dialectical self-esteem. In Study 2, the explicit self-esteem of Chinese Americans was similar to that of Chinese, but their implicit self-esteem was identical to that of Euro-Americans. In the discussion, we focus on how East Asians come to possess inconsistent self-esteem and pose questions for future research.

The purpose of this research is to test whether descriptive norms, or cognitions about typical beliefs, values, and behaviors of one's group, can explain cultural influence in the domains of blame attribution and harm perception. In Study 1, using participants from the United States and South Korea, the authors find that individuals with lower (vs. higher) collectivistic descriptive norms ascribed more blame after more intentional acts and less blame after less intentional acts. In the second study, using American and South Korean participants, the authors find that individuals with lower (vs. higher) collectivistic descriptive norms perceived more harm after right violations and less harm after duty violations. Collectivistic personal attitudes did not predict the expected differences in attribution of blame or perception of harm. The descriptive norm account of cultural influence provides an alternative to the currently dominant personal attitude paradigm.

It is said that conventional gestures for numbers differ by culture. Conventional gestures are thought to imply consistency of form both across and within individuals. The present study tests the consistency of finger gestures of 60 participants of three different cultures and in three different mother tongues in nine different hypothetical scenarios. The first subject of analysis is whether participants differentiate between counting and signaling. The second subject is the consistency of gestures within and between groups. The third is how participants depict the number 1. Result show that most people use the same gestures for counting and signaling. In addition, Germans and English Canadians show relatively low degrees of individual differences whereas French Canadians show relatively high degrees of individual variability. Furthermore, only the Germans use the thumb to indicate the number 1, whereas the two North American cultures use the index finger. The present data suggest that finger gestures of some cultures clearly qualify as conventional gestures whereas others do not. It is suggested that the development of conventional gestures is influenced by cultural exposure, which can even result into the loosening of conventions.

Cultural values emphasizing female loyalty, sacrifice, and male honor may indirectly sanction relationship violence and reward women who remain in abusive relationships. Two studies compare participants from subcultures emphasizing honor (Latinos and southern Anglos in Study 1, Chileans in Study 2) and subcultures without strong honor traditions (northern U.S. Anglos in Study 1, Anglo-Canadians in Study 2). In Study 1, participants watch a videotape of a woman describing an abusive relationship. Participants from honor cultures are relatively more favorable to the woman if she stays in the relationship, compared to northerners. In Study 2, Chilean and Canadian students listen to audiotapes of a husband describing a violent conflict with his wife. Chileans rate the husband and his actions more positively than Canadians do when the conflict is jealousy related (perceived flirting), but no cultural differences are found when the conflict is unrelated to jealousy (spending too much money).

People are being exposed to second cultures in growing numbers, yet the role played by second-culture exposure in shaping sociocognitive skills has received little theoretical attention. The authors address this gap by exploring the relationship between acculturation strategies and integrative complexity. Consistent with the acculturation complexity model, studies of both Asian American college students (Study 1) and Israelis working in the United States (Study 2) show that biculturals are more integratively complex across domains (e.g., culture, work) than either assimilated or separated individuals. Using priming manipulations to clarify the directional flow of causality between acculturation and integrative complexity, the authors also find that greater integrative complexity among biculturals is driven by acculturation pressures (Study 3). Finally, the authors discuss the adaptive implications of multiculturalism.

East Asians report lower levels of self-esteem than North Americans and Western Europeans. These differences could mean that self-esteem is a culturally bounded construct, experienced differently in different cultures, or they could mean that self-esteem is a universally relevant construct whose average level is raised or lowered in different cultures. To examine these possibilities, the authors assessed self-esteem functioning in China and America. Study 1 found that, across cultures, self-serving attributions are stronger when self-esteem is high than when it is low. Study 2 replicated this finding and also found that, across cultures, failure produces less emotional distress when self-esteem is high than when it is low. Because self-esteem functioned similarly in China as in America, the authors conclude it is of general psychological importance.

Much research reveals pronounced self-improving motivations among East Asians. A question remains whether similar patterns would emerge in non-Asian collectivist cultures. Research that has used self-report measures reveals mixed evidence regarding collectivist self-improvement. The present study assesses self-improving motivations among Chileans using a behavioral measure in a replication of an earlier experiment with Americans and Japanese by Heine and colleagues (2001). The results revealed that Chileans, like Japanese and unlike Americans, were more likely to switch tasks following success feedback than following failure feedback.