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Attribution and Culture (Nisbett (2003) (Causal Attributions East and West…

- - - - evidence that the causal attribution differences mirror the attention differences
      - She asked her middle-aged, middle-class participants to describe behavior of an acquaintance that they "considered a wrong thing to have done" and behavior on the part of an acquaintance that they "considered good for someone else." She then asked her participants to explain why the people behaved as they did.
        
        Americans: explain the behavior in terms of presumed personality traits and other dispositions of the actor: "Sally is considerate, outgoing, and friendly."
        
        MADE TWICE AS MANY OF THESE ATTRIBUTIONS!
        
        Indians: Explain behavior in terms of contextual factors: "It was dark and there was no one else to help."
        
        TWICE AS MANY CONTEXTUAL ATTRIBUTIONS
        
        Miller showed that it takes time to learn how to explain behavior in the culturally sanctioned way.
        
        Children in the two cultures didn't differ in the sorts of explanations they gave. Not until adolescence did Indians and Americans begin to diverge in their explanations.
        
        Miller also questioned Anglo-Indians, whose culture is Westernized to a degree.
        
        Their attributions, both for dispositions and for contexts, were midway between those of Hindu Indians and Americans.
  - - - Americans saw outcomes as being due mostly to the abilities of individual players
      - Hong Kong athletes and coaches were more likely to refer to the other team and the context
  - - - Americans reported that they thought the movements were caused more by internal factors than did the Chinese.
  - - - After showing participants a set of pictures, Hong and her colleagues showed them a cartoon of one fish swimming in front of other fish and asked them what they thought was the major reason for the fish's swimming in front of the other fish.
        
        Participants who saw the American pictures gave more reasons having to do with motivations of the individual fish and fewer explanations having to do with the other fish or the context than did participants who saw the Chinese pictures. Participants who saw the neutral pictures were in the middle.
      - Peng & Knowles
        
        studied Asian Americans and found that they could "prime" either their participants' Asian selves or their American selves.