CULTURE MODERATES THE SELF-SERVING BIAS: ETIC AND EMIC FEATURES OF CAUSAL ATTRIBUTIONS IN INDIA AND IN CANADA

2001 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. C. Higgins ◽  
Gira Bhatt
Keyword(s):  
Life Events ◽  
Attributional Style ◽  
Causal Attributions ◽  
The Self ◽  
Cultural Group ◽  
Causal Explanations ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
Attributional Style Questionnaire ◽  
The Two Cultures ◽  
Individualistic Culture

This study tested the hypothesis that individuals from a collectivist culture explain life events using more contextual causes than do those from an individualistic culture. Undergraduates' causal attributions about positive and negative life events were assessed in India (n = 195) and Canada (n = 162) using a revised Attributional Style Questionnaire. Analyses revealed the India participants generated more contextual causes for events, but also had a stronger self-serving bias than did the Canada participants. Further, each cultural group viewed achievement events as more controllable than interpersonal events, but the Canada sample differentiated between achievement and interpersonal events more strongly than did the India sample. The findings demonstrate that causal explanations for life events in the two cultures possess both etic (i.e., universal) and emic (i.e., culture-specific) features.

AN INTERACTIONAL APPROACH TO ATTRIBUTIONAL DIMENSIONS IN DYSPHORIA

1990 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet E. Eschen ◽  
David S. Glenwick
Keyword(s):  
Attributional Style ◽  
The Self ◽  
Regression Analyses ◽  
Self Blame ◽  
Attributional Style Questionnaire ◽  
Standard Manner ◽  
Stability Dimension ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Relationship

To investigate the possible contributions to dysphoria of interactions among attributional dimensions, 105 freshmen and sophomores were administered the Attributional Style Questionnaire and the Beck Depression Inventory. Analyses examined the relationship to dysphoria of (a) the traditional composite score; (b) multiple regression analyses including interactions among the various dimensions; and (c) indices of behavioral self-blame, characterological self-blame, and external blame. The results provided modest support for the specific hypothesized interactional model and, to a large extent, appeared to support the validity of the standard manner in which dysphoric attributional style is viewed. Refinements of the traditional model are suggested, involving the self-blame construct, the possible role of the stability dimension, and the relationship between controllability and positive event attributions.

scholarly journals Rapport management in Thai and Japanese social talk during group discussions

Pragmatics ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ataya Aoki
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Group Discussion ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
The Self ◽  
Personal Relationships ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
Rapport Management ◽  
The Two Cultures ◽  
Task Oriented

According to Hofstede’s (2003) often quoted survey, Japanese and Thai cultures rank high on the collectivist scale and both cultures attach the greatest importance to group harmony. Accordingly, we should see similar characteristics in Japanese and Thai speakers during discussions within their respective social groups. However, this is not the case. This paper examines social talk during the task-oriented interaction of Japanese and Thai speakers. The analysis focuses on how the speakers of Japanese and Thai present themselves and construct rapport in casual group talk. Using the concept of consciousness deployed in ‘idea units’ (Chafe 1980, 1994) and some semantic considerations, I identify three major differences in rapport construction between Japanese and Thai speakers. First, Japanese participants prefer to build common ground through discussion of communal topics and through dealing with the comprehensiveness and the orderliness of the situation, whereas Thai participants incline toward Individual-oriented topics and independent styles of talk. Second, the Japanese show a preference for using softening devices and conventionalized expressions in group discussion while the Thais tend to use intensifiers and spontaneous expressions to indicate involvement and create a friendly and fun atmosphere. Third, the Japanese like to demonstrate the minimization of self and the relevancy between the self and the collective whereas the Thais value the capitalization of the self and the strengthening of personal relationships. Japanese and Thai communicative styles can be viewed as reflection of the different way the two cultures conceptualize the notion of rapport and the self. With regard to the component of rapport management (Spencer-Oatey 2000), the Japanese place more emphasis on the observation of sociality rights, while the Thais incline toward the management of face. This suggests that rapport construction in collectivist cultures may possess totally different characters.

scholarly journals Bewältigungskapazitäten im deutsch-polnischen Kulturvergleich

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Malgorzata Schonder
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cultural Comparison ◽  
Job Market ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
Cultural Research ◽  
The Two Cultures ◽  
Individualistic Culture ◽  
Training Stress ◽  
University Degree

Malgorzata Schonder: Coping capacities in a German-Polish cultural comparison): Comparative cultural research reveals interesting differences in coping strategies between collectivist and individualistic cultures. However, there is no study in a German-Polish comparison so far. Therefore, the question of whether and to what extent coping capacities of young people from a more individualistic culture (such as Germany) and a more collectivist culture (such as Poland) differ from each other is examined here. According to the results, German students perceive stress more strongly than their Polish colleagues. One possible reason for this could be the training stress. With a university degree, Germans have better chances on the job market. This situation is associated with more competition and pressure to perform. Great importance is attached to individual career design. On the other hand, Poles notice that a graduation does not guarantee employment, and sometimes it even makes it difficult to find a job. The differences could also have their roots in the character of the two cultures, which were influenced by different attitudes to life and religious beliefs (protestantism vs. catholicism

scholarly journals Perception of group membership from spontaneous and volitional laughter

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roza Gizem Kamiloglu ◽  
Akihiro Tanaka ◽  
Sophie K Scott ◽  
Disa Sauter
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Group Identity ◽  
Group Membership ◽  
Cultural Group ◽  
Bayesian Analyses ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
Perceptual Features ◽  
Social Signal ◽  
The Two Cultures ◽  
Production Mechanisms

Laughter is a ubiquitous social signal. Recent work has highlighted distinctions between spontaneous and volitional laughter, which differ in terms of both production mechanisms and perceptual features. Here, we test listeners’ ability to infer group identity from volitional and spontaneous laughter, as well as the perceived positivity of these laughs across cultures. Dutch (n = 273) and Japanese (n = 131) participants listened to decontextualized laughter clips and judged 1) whether the laughing person was from their cultural in-group or an out-group; and 2) whether they thought the laughter was produced spontaneously or volitionally. They also rated the positivity of each laughter clip. Using frequentist and Bayesian analyses, we showed that listeners were able to infer group membership from both spontaneous and volitional laughter, and that performance was equivalent for both types of laughter. Spontaneous laughter was rated as more positive than volitional laughter across the two cultures, and in-group laughs were perceived as more positive than out-group laughs by Dutch but not Japanese listeners. Our results demonstrate that both spontaneous and volitional laughter that can be used by listeners to infer laughers’ cultural group identity.

Attributional style and delusions: an investigation based on delusional content

1997 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
HM Sharp ◽  
CF Fear ◽  
D Healy
Keyword(s):  
Attributional Style ◽  
Causal Attributions ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Primary Role ◽  
Negative Events ◽  
Persecutory Delusions ◽  
Positive Events ◽  
Attributional Style Questionnaire ◽  
Attributional Biases

SummaryIndividuals with persecutory delusions have been reported to make external and stable attributions for negative events and to have a tendency towards internal attributions for positive events. It remains unclear whether this abnormality is present in individuals with non-persecutory delusions. Using the Attributional Style Questionnaire, we assessed the attributional style of 19 individuals with persecutory or grandiose delusions (PG), 12 individuals whose delusional beliefs were non-persecutory and non-grandiose (NPG) and 24 controls. The PG group displayed externality in their causal attributions for bad events but those in the NPG group did not differ from controls. Both deluded groups were significantly more stable in their attributions for bad events in comparison to controls. Such findings argue against a primary role for attributional biases in the genesis of delusions, although a role in shaping delusional content and maintaining the disorder and a role for external attributions in defending against reductions in self-esteem cannot be excluded.

scholarly journals The Two Cultures Revisited. Stanisław Lem’s His Master’s Voice

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 463-478
Author(s):  
Dominika Oramus
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
The Self ◽  
The West ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Two Cultures ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Stanislaw Lem ◽  
The 1960S

I would like to take, as my starting point, the famous 1959 lecture of C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures, where science fiction is by and large ignored, and see how the consecutive points Snow is making are also discussed in the following decades of the 20th century by other philosophers of science, among them Stanisław Lem, Steven Weinberg, and Jonathan Gottschall. In 1959 Snow postulated re-uniting the two cultures through the reform of education. In the 1960s and 1970s Lem did not believe in any reform, but prophesied that science left alone would procure the final war and, probably, the self-inflicted technological death of the West. I am then going to juxtapose Snow’s argument with a science fiction novel concerned with the same civilizational crisis: Stanis law Lem’s His Master’s Voice.

Attributional Style and Life Events: A Diathesis-Stress Theory of Alcohol Consumption

2000 ◽  
Vol 87 (3) ◽  
pp. 949-955 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin I. Goldstein ◽  
Gregory M. Buchanan ◽  
John R. Z. Abela ◽  
Martin E. P. Seligman
Keyword(s):  
Alcohol Consumption ◽  
Life Events ◽  
Attributional Style ◽  
Negative Life Events ◽  
Stress Model ◽  
Stress Theory ◽  
Attributional Style Questionnaire ◽  
Diathesis Stress Model

The role of a cognitive diathesis-stress model in predicting changes in alcohol consumption was examined. This study evaluated the interaction of attributional style with negative life events in predicting changes in beer, wine, spirits, and overall alcohol consumption. 93 undergraduate participants completed the Khavari Alcohol Test, Negative Life Events Questionnaire, and Attributional Style Questionnaire. The interaction of attributional style with negative life events predicted increases in spirits consumption between Time 1 and Time 2.

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