Midori Toyama

In this article, the authors advanced a cultural view of judgment biases in conflict and negotiation. The authors predicted that disputants' self-serving biases of fairness would be more prevalent in individualistic cultures, such as the United States, in which the self is served by focusing on one's positive attributes to "stand out" and be better than others, yet would be attenuated in collectivistic cultures, such as Japan, where the self is served by focusing on one's negative characteristics to "blend in" (S. J. Heine, D. R. Lehman, H. R. Markus, & S. Kitayama, 1999). Four studies that used different methodologies (free recall, scenarios, and a laboratory experiment) supported this notion. Implications for the science and practice of negotiation are discussed.

Cultural differences in individualism and collectivism (I-C) describe important variations in how the self relates to others, but existing scales may be too broadband to precisely measure this aspect of I-C. They also do not distinguish among particular ingroups and types of interdependence with them. The Circles of Closeness scale addresses these limitations. Initial results from Euro-American, Asian-American, Dutch, Turkish, and Japanese samples of college students are presented. The scales have high alpha reliability. Different results were obtained for three ingroups - immediate family, relatives, and friends - and six closeness types - emotional, supportive, identity, reputational, similarity, and harmony. These factors significantly interacted with each other, arguing for a more differentiated view of I-C.

Three experiments were carried out to test the discounting and augmentation principle in attributional inference of others' behavior.<BR>In Experiment I, subjects were given information about external forces which were facilitative (F), or neutral (N), or inhibitory (I) for the behavior. Though direct information about the internal condition was minimal, subjects drew inferences about internal factors of the stimulus person as predicted by the discounting principle. But the evidence for the augmentation principle was rather weak.<BR>Experiment II examined the effects of information of both internal and external factors in a 3×3 factorial design. Results indicated that subjects used both kinds of information, but internal information was more effective and inference about external forces was influenced by internal condition.<BR>In Experiment III, the effects of internal information upon the judgment of external forces were examined. There were three kinds of internal condition: facilitative (f), neutral (n), and inhibitory (i). Ratings of external factors were highest when internal condition was inhibitory, and lowest when internal condition was facilitative. Thus subjects inferred external forces from internal condition.