title: Culture and judgment of causal relevance.
abstract: The authors hypothesized that because the causal theories of East Asians were more holistic and complex than those of Americans, the amount of information considered before making a final attribution would be larger for East Asians than for Americans. This hypothesis was supported through 4 studies. When participants attempted to explain a deviant behavior (Study 1) or a prosocial behavior (Study 2), Korean participants took into consideration a greater amount of information than did either American or Asian American participants. Study 3 replicated the findings of Studies 1 and 2 within each culture. Finally, Study 4 established a link between the present findings and past research on culture and attribution. Namely, Study 4 found that Koreans made more external attributions than Americans because Koreans considered more information than did Americans.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea. ichoi@snu.ac.kr
authors.forename: Incheol
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.forename: Reeshad
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Dalal
authors.forename: Chu
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kim-Prieto
authors.forename: Hyekyung
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Park
mesh_terms: D003469:Culture; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment