Culture and Social Behavior:
Cross-Cultural Social
Psychology
Interpersonal Communication
Context vs. Content Cultural Orientation
 Context of communication:
 level and tone of voice;
 looking or not looking into the eyes (contact);
 distance between bodies;
 posture and body orientation;
 extent of body touching, including what parts of the
body are being touched.
Culture and Communication

Context cultures - societies that are
homogeneous, relatively simple, and where
people have to maintain good long-term
relationships with others.

Content culture – everything is spelled out
(said) clearly and explicitly. Nothing is left open
to interpretation.
Social Behavior Patterns
Work by Fiske revealed four types of social
behavior patterns across cultures.
1. Community Sharing:

People know each other well;

family life is the closet metaphor;

what is mine is yours, intimacy, oneness,
cooperation and self-sacrifice are typical
behaviors.
Social Behavior Patterns (cont.)
2. Authority Ranking:

Obedience, admiration, and giving and
following orders without questioning are
typical behaviors.

The relationship between a general and a
soldier is the closest metaphor.
Social Behavior Patterns (cont.)
3. Equality Matching:

Social interaction between totally equal friends
is the best metaphor.

Typical behaviors – taking turns, dividing
things evenly, one person, one vote, etc.
Social Behavior Patterns (cont.)
4. Market Pricing:

Social relationships based on a cost-benefit
analysis

“I’ll be your friend if it pays to do so”
Collectivism vs. Individualism

As we have said again and again in this class,
this continuum provides a parsimonious yet
highly predictive culturally relevant construct for
understanding all sorts of behavior patterns
across cultures.
Perception and Attractiveness

Attractiveness
 Cultural differences in the definition of
attractiveness can influence the formation of
impressions.
 i.e. in Japan, attractiveness was correlated
with large eyes, small mouths, and small
chins. However, in Korea-large eyes, small
and high noses, and thin and small faces
define attractiveness.
Perception and Attractiveness
(cont.)

Person Perception
 Recognition of Faces
 People tend to recognize others of their
own perceived race more accurately.
Love and Intimacy

What attracts people to selecting a mate?


Early 1950 studies indicated proximity
Recent studies indicate physical attractiveness



Matching Hypothesis-people of equal physical
characteristics are likely to select each other.
Similarity Hypothesis-people similar in age, race, religion,
social class, education, intelligence, attitudes, and physical
attractiveness form intimate relationships.
Reciprocity hypothesis-people tend to like others who like
them.
Love and Intimacy (cont.)

Hatfield and Berscheid’s Theory of Love



Passionate Love - absorption of another that
includes sexual feelings and intense emotion.
Companionate Love - warm, trusting, and
tolerant affection for another whose life is
intertwined with yours.
Sternberg’s Theory

Seven different forms of love depending on the
presence or absence of passionate love,
intimacy, or commitment.
Love and Intimacy (cont.)

Differences Across Cultures


Romantic love valued more in America and
Germany than in Japan (Simmons et al., 1986)
Europeans value love more than South Africans
and Indians, the South Africans place higher
value on equality and peace (Furnham, 1984)
Cross Cultural Similarities:
Buss studies (1989 and 1994)
- More than 10,000 respondents in 37 different cultures
completed 2 questionnaires (factors in choosing a mate
and preferences concerning potential mates)
- In 36 of 37 cultures, females rated financial prospects as
more important than did males.
- In all 37, males preferred younger mates and females
preferred older mates.
- In 34, males rated good looks as more important
- In 23, males rated chastity as more important
Attributions for Social Behavior

Casual Attributions are the inferences people
make about the causes of events regarding and
their own and others’ behaviors.

Traditional American Attributions

Kelley’s Covariation Model - people attribute
behavior to causes that are present when the
behavior occurs and absent when the behavior
does not.
Attributions (cont.)

People consider 3 types of information when
making attributions:
 Consistency – is a person’s behavior
consistent across situation or is it situation
specific?
 Distinctiveness – is a person’s behavior
unique to the specific target?
 Consensus – would other persons faced
with the same situation behave is a similar
manner?
Attributions (cont.)

Weiner’s Theory of Stability






Describes four types of attributions for success and
failure: Stable and Unstable, internal and external
I.e. if didn’t get a job you could attribute it to:
1) stable internal factors (lack of ability),
2) stable external factors (too much competition),
3) unstable internal factors (lack of effort), or
4) unstable external factors (bad luck).
Attributions (cont.)



Fundamental Attribution Error - a tendency to
attribute negative behavior outcome in others to
internal factors (lack of ability) and to attribute
negative outcomes in ourselves to external
factors (unfair test).
Self Serving Bias - a tendency to attribute our
own successes to personal factors and our
failures to situational factors.
Defensive Attributions – a tendency to blame
victims for their misfortune.
Cross-Cultural Extensions of Causal
Attribution Theories and Research
This is an area where the limitations of American
and Western European Psychology have been
extremely apparent.
 Cultural differences abound.
 In fact, most of these theories have failed the
universalism test.

Aggression
Any act or behavior that hurts another person,
either physically or psychologically.
 Cross-Cultural Differences



Robbins et al (1972) - countries in hotter climates
are associated with higher murder rates.
Terav et al (1998) studied justifications for
aggression
Estonians chose instrumental justifications (means
to an end)
 Finish reported that aggression was fun.

Aggression (cont.)

Bond et al (1985) studied aggressive insults
and criticisms


Aggressive behaviors was more acceptable in
relationships where status and power were
unequal for Chinese participants than for
Americans.
Cross Cultural Similarities
Across cultures, overt physical and verbal aggression is
more prevalent among boys than girls (Tomada et al.)
 Acceptance of various forms of aggression are similar
across cultures from Spain, Finland, Poland, South Africa,
US, Japan, and Iran (Ramirez et al, 2001)

Conformity and Compliance
Conformity - yielding to real or imagined social
pressure.
 Compliance - yielding to social pressure in
one’s public behavior, even if one’s private
beliefs may not have changed.
 Obedience - when people follow direct
commands.
 Cooperation - ability to work together toward a
common goal.

Conformity and Compliance (cont.)

Cross-Cultural Research



American bias-negative feelings (Asians value
conformity)
Research on child rearing-indicates that Asians
and Puerto Ricans were found to value
conformity and obedience
Garza et. al. Studies