Individual differences in the motivation to comply across cultures: the impact of social obligation

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Abstract

This study investigated the hypothesis that similar behavior in different cultures may mask individual differences in the reasons for that behavior. Most previous research on culture and behavior has examined culture-based differences in overt behavior. In contrast, the present research focused on cultural variation in reasons for identical behavior (that is, individual differences in motivation), rather than cultural variation in behavior itself. Specifically, we investigated the impact of personal individual–collective primacy, personal individualism–collectivism, and nationality on social obligation-based compliance in Poland and the United States. We found that, in both nations, collectivists were more likely to be motivated to comply with the same request for other-oriented rather than self-oriented reasons and that collective-primacy persons reported a greater tendency to comply with a request to help a stranger for reasons of social obligation to their group than did individual-primacy persons. Our research (1) indicates that individual differences in motivation may underlie similar behavior in different cultures; (2) points to an important new direction for research into individual differences across cultures; and (3) demonstrates the value of circumscribed measures of cultural orientation in the prediction of behavior above and beyond a global measure.

Introduction

Most investigations into the culture–behavior relationship have focused on variations in behavior as a function of culture. In contrast, the present research takes a different approach to this relationship by examining culture-based individual differences not in the behavior itself but rather in the reasons given by actors with divergent cultural orientations for performing the same behavior. D’Andrade (1992) noted, in the context of anthropology, that there is a need to incorporate the concept of motivation into the study of culture. This sentiment is also applicable to social psychology, and the current research represents an example of the type of effort D’Andrade (1992) called for. The domain of social influence is particularly apropos for research on motivation and culture in part because the impact of culture on social influence processes has not been extensively studied, and in part because social influence research has generally not examined individual differences in people’s stated reasons for compliance.

Despite some conceptual and methodological difficulties regarding its precise nature and dimensionality (e.g., Fijneman, Willemsen, & Poortinga, 1996; Kagitcibasi, 1994; Rhee, Uleman, & Lee, 1996), individualism/collectivism (IC) and related constructs, such as individual–collective primacy (ICP: Chen, Brockner, & Katz, 1998) and independent/interdependent self-construal (Singelis, 1994), continue to be useful in understanding a wide variety of cross-cultural differences in behavior and cognition (Cialdini, Wosinska, Barrett, Butner, & Gornik-Durose, 1999; Hofstede, 2001; Oyserman, Kemmelmeier, & Coon, 2002; Triandis, 1995). Although initially conceptualized as culture- or nation-level variables (Hofstede, 1980), IC and related constructs have been operationalized at the individual level and have been labeled idiocentrism and allocentrism (Triandis, Bontempo, Villareal, Asai, & Lucca, 1988; Triandis et al., 1993) or independent and interdependent construals of the self, respectively (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Within any given society, regardless of whether it is broadly construed as individualistic or collectivistic, people differ in their personal level of IC and related constructs (Chen, Brockner, & Chen, 2002).

Furthermore, the high level of generality of the IC construct can weaken its ability to successfully predict behaviors in specific domains (Levine, Norenzayan, & Philbrick, 2001; Smith & Bond, 1999). Therefore, researchers have been spurred to develop constructs and measures that examine specific aspects of IC or that focus on specific domains. For example, instruments have been developed for the assessment of independent and interdependent self-construals (Singelis, 1994), aspects of personhood in Israeli society (Oyserman, 1993), and likelihood of participation in rehabilitation services (Thompson, 1999). Similarly, Chen et al. (1998) constructed a circumscribed measure of IC, called individual–collective primacy, which taps the extent to which a person is willing to sacrifice personal benefits or interests to further the interests of the ingroup when the two sets of interests clash. In principle, specific attitudinal and dispositional measures should more closely relate to actual behavior than should more general ones. In fact, one of the reasons that early research on attitude–behavior relationships found weak correlations was that attitude measures were often vague and/or diffuse in nature, whereas the paired behavioral measures were more specific (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980).

The present research focused on the impact of two cultural constructs on the reasons of individuals to comply with a request: (1) IC as a broader construct underlying cross-cultural differences, and (2) ICP as a specific construct focusing on group vs. self-benefits. We selected ICP for inclusion in the present study of the reasons people comply with a request because we believed its more specific focus on group vs. self-benefits would better predict willingness to help a stranger––one of the behaviors of interest in the present study––than would a more general IC measure. That is, we sought to test the hypothesis that ICP would more clearly reflect this willingness than would IC.

Despite the veritable explosion of research demonstrating the impact of culture on human behavior, relatively little attention has been devoted to the relationship between culture, on the one hand, and social influence and persuasion, on the other (Cialdini et al., 1999; Han & Shavitt, 1994; Wosinska, Cialdini, Barrett, & Reykowski, 2001). The limited extent research has uncovered both similarities and differences across cultures in the conditions under which people may accede to a request (Bond & Smith, 1996; Cialdini, Wosinska, Barrett, Butner, & Gornik-Durose, 2001; Han & Shavitt, 1994; Kilbourne, 1989). Although this research may be informative regarding people’s reasons for complying, these reasons have not been explicitly examined. The purpose of the present research was to investigate the nature of one such reason to comply with a request: the pressure of social obligation.

Although research regarding the effects of culture on social influence processes has been relatively sparse (see Smith & Bond, 1999, for a summary), Cialdini et al. (1999) examined the effects of IC on compliance with a request to participate in a consumer preference survey resulting from two social influence principles: (1) social proof (a tendency to use others’ prior responses as the standard for one’s own future responding) and (2) commitment/consistency (a tendency to use one’s own prior responses as the standard for one’s future responding). Cialdini et al. (1999) found that individualists’ decisions to comply with a survey participation request were based primarily on information regarding their own history of compliance with similar requests: the more they had agreed in the past to such requests, the more they were willing to agree again. Collectivists’ decisions, in contrast, were based primarily on information regarding the prior compliance of their peers: likelihood of compliance rose with the percentage of classmates who had previously complied. In general, Cialdini et al. (1999) found support for the central distinction of the IC concept: the tendency for individualists to consider the personalized self in their decision-making more than collectivists, who tend to consider others relatively more. This distinction manifested itself in the tendency of individualists to use their own compliance histories as the basis for subsequent compliance decisions, whereas collectivists tended to use their peers’ histories.

This fundamental distinction between orientation toward the self versus toward others can be seen to manifest itself in other ways within the compliance process. For instance, in keeping with the inclination to consider the personalized self more than others in decision making, individualists’ motivations to help should be more egoistic, whereas collectivists’ motivations should be more other-oriented. Suggestive evidence in this regard comes from research by Moorman and Blakely (1995) indicating that collectivist tendencies were related to greater citizenship behaviors in an organizational setting. Similarly, Oyserman, Sakamoto, and Lauffer (1998) found a positive relationship between collectivism and sense of social obligation. To explicitly test this hypothesis regarding the relationship between IC and reasons for providing assistance, we examined the stated motivations of individualists and collectivists for complying with a request for aid. Our prediction was that the motives of individualists and collectivists for exhibiting the identical behavior would be different: individualists’ motives should be more self-oriented, whereas collectivists’ motives should be more other-oriented.

Furthermore, there may be social influence implications of a specific dimension within the general IC concept. As we discussed earlier, Chen et al. (1998) have constructed an index of individual–collective primacy, which measures the extent to which persons are willing to sacrifice their own interests or goals for the sake of furthering the interests or goals of their group, when the two are in conflict. The ICP concept maps on to one of the fundamental features of IC as described by Triandis, 1995, Triandis, 1996: the difference between the relative importance assigned to group and personal goals by individualists and collectivists. Within certain contexts, ICP may more precisely predict compliance with a request for assistance when group interests are consistent with the request. For example, if the group’s reputation is at stake, and failure to comply with a request would adversely affect it, then collective-primacy persons should be more willing to comply than should individual-primacy persons. Providing such assistance to others––that is, helping them––is one way in which people can manifest other-orientedness. As a result of its (1) greater specificity and (2) its stronger emphasis on choosing between group and self interests, ICP should better predict such behavior.

In general, existing research suggests that collectivists help more than do individualists (Bontempo, Lobel, & Triandis, 1990; Clark, Oullette, Powell, & Milberg, 1987; Moorman & Blakely, 1995). Nevertheless, since the former tend to make sharper ingroup/outgroup distinctions than do the latter (Brewer & Gardner, 1996; Triandis, 1995), and may apply different distributive rules to each (e.g., Leung & Bond, 1984), collectivists should be less willing than individualists to help strangers who might be considered outgroup members. However, given that collectivists tend to identify more closely with ingroups than do individualists, they may be more prone to helping strangers when their ingroup reputation depends upon such helping. In particular, those collectivists for whom ingroup identification is especially salient––persons high on ICP––should be more willing to help under these conditions.

The overall purpose of the present research project was to examine the role of social obligation in reasons for compliance with a request across cultures. First, we examined how agreement to comply with a request would be differentially related to specific individual differences in motivation (i.e., self-oriented vs. other-oriented motivations). We asked participants to indicate whether they would comply with a request for survey participation (1) in order to learn something for yourself vs. learn something for your friends; (2) in order to have fun vs. to be a good citizen; and (3) in order to feel good vs. to help the interviewer. The first item of each pair reflected self-oriented reasons for complying, whereas the second indicated other-oriented reasons. We hypothesized that collectivists would place greater emphasis on pro-social or other-oriented reasons for complying with a request than would their more individualistic counterparts, and thus the latter would favor self-oriented reasons. Although we believed it possible that ICP would similarly predict responding, we focused primarily on IC for this set of dependent measures. We reasoned that the more global IC construct would be related to self- vs. other-focus more generally, whereas ICP’s greater specificity and closer association with choosing between competing goals weigh against such a relationship. Finally, we expected that Poles, because they tend more toward collectivism than do Americans, would more frequently depict their compliance as due to other-oriented reasons. Consistent with Cialdini et al.’s (1999) findings, we predicted that nation differences would be accounted for by IC differences.

Second, we assessed the extent to which feelings of personal obligation to help a complete stranger would vary with IC primacy, and how those feelings would be impacted when the reputation of one’s ingroup is contingent upon whether or not assistance is proffered. We expected that feelings of personal obligation to comply with a request from a stranger would be lower for collective-primacy persons than for individual-primacy persons. However, feelings of personal obligation should be greater among collective-primacy persons than among individual-primacy persons if helping this person would uphold the reputation of the ingroup. The latter’s compliance with a request from this person should be less sensitive to the manipulation of ingroup reputation. We further expected that the more circumscribed ICP measure––because of its conceptual closeness to group membership––would predict differential responding better than would IC when group reputation depended on such compliance than when it did not. Finally, we predicted that ICP would be more strongly related to responses on the personal obligation with group reputation items than to responses on those not mentioning group reputation.

Although we did not include hypotheses explicitly dealing with national differences in the obligation to help a stranger dependent measures, we suspected that some would be found. Based upon the findings of Cialdini et al. (1999), we expected that much of this difference, if discovered, would be explained by underlying differences in IC or ICP. However, it is also possible that other national cultural factors, such as culture-bound norms of social obligation, may impact participants’ responding, independent of IC. Since we were not aware of any existing, relevant data regarding such cultural differences between the US and Poland, we refrained from generating specific hypotheses.

Section snippets

Participants

Participants were 355 undergraduates in several psychology classes at Arizona State University in the United States (N=166) and in education, management, and history classes at the University of Silesia in Poland (N=189). They were told that the experimenters were studying (a) willingness to participate in a survey, (b) helping someone who you (the participant) do not know at all, and (c) perceptions of social relationships (this section consisted of the IC and ICP measures). The US sample

Correlation between IC and ICP

As expected, IC and ICP were correlated (r(355)=0.32, p<0.001) across nations, and within nations (US: r(166)=0.38, p<0.001); Poland: r(189)=0.28, p<0.001, indicating that the two constructs are indeed related to one another.

Nation, personal IC orientation, and IC primacy

Surprisingly, the two nations did not differ on IC or on IC primacy. The means for the US and Poland for IC were, respectively, 3.48 (SD=0.46) and 3.51 (SD=0.34), t(353)=−0.68 ns. For IC primacy, the means were 3.01 (SD=0.65) for the US and 3.01 (SD=0.78) for Poland, t

Discussion

The current research explored important new social psychological territory. First, in contrast to most prior cross-cultural social psychological research, which has investigated culture-based differences in behavior, our research focused primarily on culture-based reasons for the same behavior. Psychologists and other researchers have previously uncovered innumerable discrepancies in overt behavior across cultures (for a comprehensive account, see Smith & Bond, 1999); however, we know very

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    This research was conducted while the first author was at Arizona State University.

    1

    Jonathan Butner is now at the University of Utah.

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