Agreement in personality judgments within and between nonoverlapping social groups in collectivist cultures.
The social context hypothesis states that people behave differently in different social groups because group norms and context-specific interpersonal relationships uniquely affect behavior. Consequently, a person who is a member of different, nonoverlapping social groups (i. e., the members of different groups are unacquainted) should be judged consensually on personality traits within each group; however, between groups there should be less agreement in judgments. This research focused on cultural moderation of the social context effect in two collective cultures (China and Mexico) with different norms for interpersonal relationships. Among Chinese, there was greater consensus in trait judgments within groups than between groups, whereas in Mexico, agreement within and between groups was equivalent. Culturally based relationship norms that affect cross-context consistency of behavior and, in turn, the consistency of trait judgments across groups were described.
Malloy
Thomas E
TE
Department of Psychology, Rhode Island College, Providence 02908, USA. tmalloy@ric.edu
Albright
Linda
L
Diaz-Loving
Rolando
R
Dong
Qi
Q
Lee
Yueh Ting
YT
D000328:Adult; D002681:China / Q000208:ethnology; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D005260:Female; D033062:Friends / Q000208:ethnology*; D006126:Group Processes; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D008800:Mexico / Q000208:ethnology; D010551:Personality; D012945:Social Values