Culture as common sense: perceived consensus versus personal beliefs as mechanisms of cultural influence.
The authors propose that culture affects people through their perceptions of what is consensually believed. Whereas past research has examined whether cultural differences in social judgment are mediated by differences in individuals' personal values and beliefs, this article investigates whether they are mediated by differences in individuals' perceptions of the views of people around them. The authors propose that individuals who perceive that traditional views are culturally consensual (e.g., Chinese participants who believe that most of their fellows hold collectivistic values) will themselves behave and think in culturally typical ways. Four studies of previously well-established cultural differences found that cultural differences were mediated by participants' perceived consensus as much as by participants' personal views. This held true for cultural differences in the bases of compliance (Study 1), attributional foci (Study 2), and counterfactual thinking styles (Study 3). To tease apart the effect of consensus perception from other possibly associated individual differences, in Study 4, the authors experimentally manipulated which of 2 cultures was salient to bicultural participants and found that judgments were guided by participants' perception of the consensual view of the salient culture.
Zou
Xi
X
Organizational Behavior Group, London Business School.
Tam
Kim-Pong
KP
0000-0003-1485-1343
Department of Psychology, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Morris
Michael W
MW
Department of Management, Columbia University.
Lee
Sau-Lai
SL
Department of Psychology, Nanyang Technological University.
Lau
Ivy Yee-Man
IY
0000-0003-0036-2477
Department of Psychology, Singapore Management University.
Chiu
Chi-Yue
CY
Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002680:Chin; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003463:Cues; D003469:Culture; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D011044:Poland; D012938:Social Perception; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology; D014481:United States