Are Americans more individualistic and less collectivistic than members of other groups? The authors summarize plausible psychological implications of individualism–collectivism (IND-COL), metaanalyze cross-national and within-United States IND-COL differences, and review evidence for effects of IND-COL on self-concept, well-being, cognition, and relationality. European Americans were found to be both more individualistic—valuing personal independence more—and less collectivistic—feeling duty to in-groups less—than others. However, European Americans were not more individualistic than African Americans, or Latinos, and not less collectivistic than Japanese or Koreans. Among Asians, only Chinese showed large effects, being both less individualistic and more collectivistic. Moderate IND-COL effects were found on self-concept and relationality, and large effects were found on attribution and cognitive style. To contemporary Americans, being an individualist is not only a good thing; it is a quintessentially American thing. However, the term individualism itself appears to have its roots outside of the North American continent, namely in the French Revolution. It appears that individualism was first used to describe the negative

A meta-analysis examined emotion recognition within and across cultures. Emotions were universally recognized at better-than-chance levels. Accuracy was higher when emotions were both expressed and recognized by members of the same national, ethnic, or regional group, suggesting an in-group advantage. This advantage was smaller for cultural groups with greater exposure to one another, measured in terms of living in the same nation, physical proximity, and telephone communication. Majority group members were poorer at judging minority group members than the reverse. Cross-cultural accuracy was lower in studies that used a balanced research design, and higher in studies that used imitation rather than posed or spontaneous emotional expressions. Attributes of study design appeared not to moderate the size of the in-group advantage. Psychologists have long debated whether emotions are universal versus whether they vary by culture. These issues have been extensively summarized elsewhere and we do not reiterate them

conditioning, etc.). Piaget spelled out a list of "formal operations," such as modus ponens, the probability schema, etc., which he regarded as the fundamental deductive and inductive rule schemas necessary to understand the world. The cognitive revolution, from its earliest incarnation in the work of such theorists as George Miller and Herbert Simon, until nearly the end of the 20 century, essentially embraced Piaget's position of extreme formalism and content independence of inferential rules. Cognitive scientists' endorsement of the formalist, universalistic position was undoubtedly encouraged by the analogy between the human mind and the computer: brain = hardware, cognitive procedures = operating principles and factory-installed software (Block, 1995). This analogy both encouraged the universality assumption and discouraged any assumption that cognitive procedures might be alterable. The heuristics and biases movement of Kahneman and Tversky (1974) and their colleagues in social

We investigated social inference practices of Koreans and Americans in two novel domains: behavioral predictions and folk theories of behavior. When dispositional and situational inferences were disentangled, Koreans showed dispositional thinking to the same extent as Americans. This was the case for behavioral predictions based on individual difference information (Study 1) and for endorsements of a dispositionist theory of behavior (Studies 1 and 3). Consistent with previous research in the causal attribution and attitude attribution paradigms, Koreans made greater situational inferences in behavioral prediction as long as situational information was salient (Study 2), and endorsed a situationist theory of behavior more (Studies 1 and 3). Koreans also differed from Americans in believing personality to be more malleable (Study 3). Cultural Similarities and Differences in Social Inference: Evidence from Behavioral Predictions and Lay Theories of Behavior "Lay dispositionism" (Ross & N...

Explicitly, humans can distinguish their own attitudes from evaluations possessed by others. Implicitly, the viability of a distinction between attitudes and evaluative knowledge is less clear. We investigated relations between explicit attitudes, cultural knowledge and the Implicit Association Test (IAT). In seven studies (158 samples, N 107,709), the IAT was reliably and variably related to explicit attitudes, and explicit attitudes accounted for the relationship between the IAT and cultural knowledge. We suggest that people do not have introspective access to the associations formed via experience in a culture. Ownership of mental associations is established by presence in mind and influence on thinking, feeling and doing. Regardless of origin, associations are influential depending on their availability, accessibility, salience, and applicability. Distinguishing associations as ‘‘not mine’ ’ is a self-regulatory act and contributes to the distinction between explicit evaluation, where such acts are routine, and implicit evaluation, where they are not. There is little debate over the source of intentional thoughts and actions. Intended acts are products of the self via psychological mechanisms like

This research argues that the meaning embedded in consumption symbols, such as commercial brands, can serve to represent and institutionalize the values and beliefs of a culture. Relying on a combined emic-etic approach, we conducted four studies to examine how the symbolic and expressive attributes associated with commercial brands are structured, and how this structure varies across three cultures. Studies 1 and 2 revealed a set of ‘brand personality ’ dimensions common to both Japan and the United States (Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, and Sophistication), as well as culturespecific Japanese (Peacefulness) and American (Ruggedness) dimensions. Studies 3 and 4, which extended this set of findings to Spain, yielded brand personality dimensions common to both Spain and the United States (Sincerity, Excitement, and Sophistication), plus non-shared Spanish (Passion) and American (Competence and Ruggedness) dimensions. The meaning of the culturally-common and-specific brand personality dimensions is discussed in the context of cross-cultural research on values and affect, globalization issues, and cultural frame shifting. “The Marlboro Man is an egoistic ideal; at home in

Two studies provide evidence for the role of cultural familiarity in recognizing facial expressions of emotion. For Chinese located in China and the United States, Chinese Americans, and non-Asian Americans, accuracy and speed in judging Chinese and American emotions was greater with greater participant exposure to the group posing the expressions. Likewise, Tibetans residing in China and Africans residing in the United States were faster and more accurate when judging emotions expressed by host versus nonhost society members. These effects extended across generations of Chinese Americans, seemingly independent of ethnic or biological ties. Results suggest that the universal affect system governing emotional expression may be characterized by subtle differences in style across cultures, which become more familiar with greater cultural contact. The individual who moves from one class to another or from one society to another is faced with the challenge of learning new “dialects” of facial language to supplement his knowledge of the more universal grammar of emotion. (Tomkins & McCarter, 1964, p. 127) To what extent is the recognition of emotion universal versus variable by culture? Researchers in psychology have spent decades in pursuit of this question. Extreme positions taken by early theorists have gradually given way to recent interactionist perspectives integrating evidence for both universality and cultural

Summary This paper describes an in-depth, qualitative exploration of helping behavior among software engineers doing the same type of work in the U.S. and India. Consistent with research describing American culture as more individualist and Indian culture as more collectivist, we find that engineers at the American site provide help only to those from whom they expect to need help in the future, whereas engineers at the Indian site are more willing to help whoever needs help. However, we further find that the differences are not due to the influence of individualistic or collectivist norms per se but rather to the ways in which helping is framed in the two contexts. At the American site, the act of helping is framed as an unwanted interruption. In contrast, helping at the Indian site is framed as a desirable opportunity for skill development. These different framings reflect the combined influence of national, occupational, and organizational layers of culture in the two settings. In each case, we find that engineers help others when doing so is framed in such a way as to be perceived as helpful in achieving their career goals. Our findings have important implications for better understanding helping behavior itself and also the mechanisms through which culture influences work behavior. Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Americans stereotype elderly people as warm and incompetent, following from perceptions of them as noncompetitive and low status, respectively. This article extends existing research regarding stereotyping of older people in two ways. First, we discuss whether the mixed elderly stereotype is unique to American culture. Data from six non-U.S. countries, including three collectivist cultures, demonstrate elderly stereotypes are consistent across varied cultures. Second, we investigate the persistence of the evaluatively-mixed nature of the elderly stereotype. In an experiment, 55 college students rated less competent elderly targets (stereotypeconsistent) as warmer than more competent (stereotype-inconsistent) and control elderly targets. We also discuss the type of discrimination—social exclusion—that elderly people often endure. Said the little boy, “Sometimes I drop my spoon.” Said the little old man, “I do that too.” The little boy whispered, “I wet my pants.” “I do that too, ” laughed the little old man. Said the little boy, “I often cry.” The old man nodded, “So do I.” “But worst of all, ” said the boy, “it seems Grown-ups don’t pay attention to me.” And he felt the warmth of the wrinkled old hand. “I know what you mean, ” said the little old man.

This article highlights a range of design and analytical tools for studying the cross-cultural communication of emotion using forced-choice experimental designs. American, Indian, and Japanese participants judged facial expressions from all 3 cultures. A factorial experimental design is used, balanced n × n across cultures, to separate “absolute ” cultural differences from “relational ” effects characterizing the relationship between the emotion expressor and perceiver. Use of a response bias correction is illustrated for the tendency to endorse particular multiple-choice categories more often than others. Treating response bias also as an opportunity to gain insight into attributional style, the authors examined similarities and differences in response patterns across cultural groups. Finally, the authors examined patterns in the errors or confusions that participants make during emotion recognition and documented strong similarity across cultures. Hillary Anger Elfenbein, Program in Organizational Behavior,