The "Ripple Effect" : Cultural Differences in Perceptions of the Consequences of Events

概要

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Previous research has demonstrated that people from East Asian cultural backgrounds make broader, more complex causal attributions than people from Western cultural backgrounds. In the current research, the authors hypothesized that East Asians would also be aware of a broader, more complex distribution of consequences of events. Four studies assessed cultural differences in perceptions of the consequences of 1) a shot in a game of pool, 2) an area being converted into a national park, 3) a CEO firing employees, and 4) a car accident. Across all four studies, compared to participants from Western cultural backgrounds, participants from East Asian cultural backgrounds were more aware of the indirect, distal consequences of events. This pattern occurred on a variety of measures, including spontaneously generated consequences, estimations of an event’s impact on subsequent events, perceived responsibility, and predicted affective reactions. Implications for our understanding of cross-cultural psychology and social perception are discussed.