Entitativity Perceptions of Individuals and Groups across Cultures

Cross-cultural differences in social perceptions pose an intriguing puzzle. East Asians, in contrast to Westerners, tend to have the view that individuals lack coherent and thematically consistent characteristics and, therefore, are likely to exhibit cross-situationally inconsistent actions and reactions. This tendency is explained in terms of naïve dialecticism. However, from a different domain of perception, East Asians perceive groups as possessing more coherent and thematically consistent characteristics than ascribed by Westerners. Does this apparent contradiction mean that, unlike individual selves, groups are not dialectically construed by East Asians? One way to reconcile these findings is to say that naïve dialecticism is domain-specific—East Asian dialecticism applies to individuals, but not to groups. Another is to consider individualism–collectivism and argue that East Asians perceive groups as more entitative because they are collectivistic, and Westerners perceive individuals as more entitative because they are individualistic. Pros and cons for these explanations are examined in this chapter and future research directions are suggested.