Social Psychology Actor Observer And The Cross Cultural Differences

Question: Discuss about the Social Psychology Actor Observer Bias And The Cross Cultural. Answer: Introduction One very important aspect of social psychology is the Actor-Observer bias that has been looked upon as a very deciding factor in determining a persons behavior or attitude. This is a psychological state that describes the various attributes of a persons behavior. The same person takes the role of the actor at times, and sometimes he takes the role of the observer. This is generally applicable when a person judges his own behavior from a certain angle and he becomes the actor then. At this time, he becomes ignorant of his own mistakes and he puts the blame of the negative things on a particular situation he has been in. In other words, a person tries to avoid his own mistakes and does not think himself to be the wrong doer at any point of time. In other cases, a particular person becomes the observer when the time comes to judge some other persons works. The particular person then puts the blame of some wrong doing on that another person when he is judging his activities. He overlooks the situation and consciously puts the blame of the work on the other man, coming to the conclusion that the other man is responsible for the thing. There are some cross-cultural references too in this incident. This varies from one nation to another. In this assignment, the aim is to go through a thorough study about this actor-observer bias in the context of social psychology, considering the cross-cultural scenario in this matter. Discussion: Different aspects of Actor-Observer Effect Actor-Observer is a natural phenomenon (Nisbett et al., 1973). It originates from the fact people very often attribute ones behavior very easily on ones nature rather than judging the situation (Weary, Stanley Harvey, 2012). It deals with the personal aspects of the persons. This kind of behavior arises in human beings because they do not like to see themselves as the guilty person so they do not attribute their mistakes to themselves (Shaver, 2012). In some cases, people always tend to overlook the situational factors and overestimate the role of the personal factors in case of the other persons. According to the social psychology experts, this thing is termed as the Fundamental Attribution Error (Li et al., 2012). There are several theories that are related with this fundamental attribution error. These theories include the Just-world phenomenon, Just-world phenomenon This just-world phenomenon deals with the belief that everything that happens in the world is just and therefore, there should be no disposition about it. Everything is fair and all the people have control over their lives. It centers with the fact that human beings get what they deserve and what they deserve they get. The need is to see the world as a just place because it would help to reduce the possible threats that one might face in the future. This thought gives the people a sense of security in the mind and help them to find peace in the most difficult of times. This helps people to stay motivated psychologically. Salience of the Actor This theory focuses on the fact that a person always tends to overlook the situational factors that may have caused something to another person. The person is looked upon as the guilty whereas the situation or the circumstance is not at all taken into considerations. This works behind the actor-observer bias. Lack of effortful adjustment Sometimes the things happen when people are aware of the situational factors that may have caused the effect but they still not admit it consciously. This happens from the fact that they do not look upon the situational and the behavioral factors seriously. Actually, these things help to characterize the dispositions of the actor here. In this case, the only remedy available for the observers is to make conscious efforts in taking these situational factors under consideration so that they can assess the circumstances properly. Culture In this world there are basically two prominent cultures to be known of. These are the individualistic cultures that belong to the western culture and the collectivist culture that belong to the eastern culture. There is a strong proneness to the cross-cultural factors of the fundamental attribution error. Most importantly, the individualistic cultures may refer to the people of the United States and the people from the collectivist culture may refer to the Asian countries like Japan or Korea. The Concept of Individualism and Collectivism The concept of the terms individualism and collectivism has a deep contextual meanings (Ralston et al., 2014). It depicts two spheres of the earth and the behavior of the residents. It surely has a connection with the cognitive behavior of a person. The influences of the surroundings and their culture also play an important part in it. These are influenced by the individual persons and the ethnic groups to which they belong. Individualism is the concept that belongs to the western cultures. The people are assembled with the social groups to which they belong. The individual cultures will look upon the people as the ones who have the belief of the self in a more developed way. The idea of developing the self and the developing of the self theories are discussed. The people in the western cultures have a more self-cognitive behavior as they are treated as an independent person (Pennington, 2014). In contrast to that the people of the Asian countries the people are treated as parts of t he culture and the concerned society. They are not set apart from the society; rather they take active parts in the workings of the society. Self-other asymmetries in explanation It is a very important aspect in the context that the individualists always tend to assert more on the self and they always separate themselves from the other people and want to establish an individual identity by which they can differentiate other people from themselves. This is a very notable aspect as this form segregation from the constraints of the society. The collectivists are generally very much connected with the society they live in and do not like to be separated from the society (Van Hoom, 2015). They are much likely to attribute the effects of some event on the situational factors rather than attributing it to the dispositional causes (Lu, Xie Xu, 2012). Cross cultural differences The interpretation of the self is an important part of the fundamental attribute error that helps to determine the factor by which a certain country or its culture is driven. In the proposed pan-cultural model of the self, it is regarded that every people have a different cultural background but irrespective of that, people do have different self-cognitive thoughts and most importantly these cognitions are different. There are three major components that form ones self-cognitions and they are private, public and collective cognitions (Norenzayan Nisbett, 2000). These help a person to react in different ways in different situations. In this context it can be said that in a country like Malaysia, the cognitive behavior of the people indicates that they are more likely to be called collectivists as their participation in the social context is active and they consider themselves to be responsible people of their society who have a duty to perform. In ways, a country like Australia follo ws the western culture and they are very much individualistic in their cognitive behavior (Fiske Taylor, 2013). They look upon themselves as separate identities and they set themselves apart from the social constraints. The description of a person depends on the casual theory of behavior of that person (Choi, Nisbett Norenzayan, 1999). If a person behaves independently or without any connection to his group where he belongs, he can be called an individualist. Actually, the Asian theory of behavior is much collectivist in nature than the Western one (Becker et al., 2012). Cultural and Situational Salience Another important aspect of this Actor-Observer bias is the factor dependent on the cultural and situational salience (Choi Nisbett, 2012). The question of the cultural difference is closely related with that of the cognitive behavior of the persons belonging to the certain countries, regions or continents. The eastern culture is quite different with that of the western culture in many ways. The thinking process of the self belonging to these regions differs a lot (Bochner, 1994). The people from eastern culture tend to attribute the fundamental attribution errors on the situational factors when it can be seen that a person has been facing some distress he may be a victim of the circumstances (Coleman, 2013). In sharp contrast, the people of the western culture will look to find the fault of the person instead of the situation and thus forcing on the situational factors. The aspect of situational salience can be better understood by the attitude attribution method by which the parti cipants are given a situation and they have to discuss. The participants include candidates of both the eastern culture and the western cultures (Aknin et al., 2013). Method In this lab report, some ways had been chosen so that the process could be conducted smoothly. In order to conduct the method, the essential things like the participants, materials and procedures have to be discussed. Participants The participants taken for conducting the report were thirty people from both the countries of Australia and Malaysia. The intention was to see how the people of those countries behave or react to different situations. The research was done on fifteen people from Australia and fifteen people from Malaysia. They were divided between some groups to help the process conveniently. Materials The materials used for this research work were both the primary and secondary materials. The primary materials used for this research were the information collected from the behavior of the participants and their reactions to prove the hypothesis. The secondary materials used for the research work were the journals and articles written by the other researchers like R.E. Nisbett, A. Norenzayan and C. Caputo and others. The secondary data were collected were collected from there and abstracts of journals have been attached in the appendices part of the report. Procedure The procedure of the research was something like this. Fifteen Australians and fifteen Malaysians were divided between groups and they were put under some situations that would best suit the actor-observer situations. Both the groups were first treated as the actors and observers alternatively. After that their reactions were recorded accordingly. Results The results found were discussed and put under a thorough analysis later. It was noted that the Malaysians reacted to the situations as the actors in a collectivist way whereas the Australians reactions were individualistic. The case was the same when the research was conducted on the other group. As the observers, the Australians wanted to retain a separate identity from the others but the Malaysians came together to support their fellow people and posing the responsibility on the situational factors. The fundamental attribution error is thus understood by the research work done by the researchers and the participants reactions. Conclusion In the concluding part it can be said that after a long, thorough study of the entire matter, the behavioral approach is a very crucial part of a persons life. The background and the probable future actions of a person can be determined from that. It is apparent from the above discussion that cognitive behaviors vary from one region to another. Two definite approaches have been found from the discussion, which are responsible for reshaping the behaviors of the people of the two regions. The behavioral approach of the people of Asia and the Western countries due to their contrary collectivist and individualist approaches. The people of these regions look upon things from different angles and their viewpoint is absolutely on the opposite. This cross-cultural difference in the context of behavior depicts how they approach some incident. This provokes the factor of the fundamental attribute errors. It is, indeed, a determiner of the human behavior. References Aknin, L. B., Barrington-Leigh, C. P., Dunn, E. W., Helliwell, J. F., Burns, J., Biswas-Diener, R., ... Norton, M. I. (2013). Prosocial spending and well-being: Cross-cultural evidence for a psychological universal.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,104(4), 635. Becker, M., Vignoles, V. L., Owe, E., Brown, R., Smith, P. B., Easterbrook, M., ... Camino, L. (2012). Culture and the distinctiveness motive: constructing identity in individualistic and collectivistic contexts.Journal of personality and social psychology,102(4), 833. Bochner, S. (1994). Cross-cultural differences in the self concept: A test of Hofstede's individualism/collectivism distinction.Journal of cross-cultural psychology,25(2), 273-283. Choi, I., Nisbett, R. E. (1998). Situational salience and cultural differences in the correspondence bias and actor-observer bias.Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,24(9), 949-960. Choi, I., Nisbett, R. E., Norenzayan, A. (1999). Causal attribution across cultures: Variation and universality.Psychological bulletin,125(1), 47. Coleman, M. D. (2013). Emotion and the ultimate attribution error.Current Psychology,32(1), 71-81. Fiske, S. T., Taylor, S. E. (2013).Social cognition: From brains to culture. Sage. Li, Y. J., Johnson, K. A., Cohen, A. B., Williams, M. J., Knowles, E. D., Chen, Z. (2012). Fundamental (ist) attribution error: Protestants are dispositionally focused.Journal of personality and social psychology,102(2), 281. Lu, J., Xie, X., Xu, J. (2012). Desirability or feasibility selfother decision-making differences.Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 0146167212470146. Nisbett, R. E., Caputo, C., Legant, P., Marecek, J. (1973). Behavior as seen by the actor and as seen by the observer.Journal of personality and Social Psychology,27(2), 154. Norenzayan, A., Nisbett, R. E. (2000). Culture and causal cognition.Current Directions in Psychological Science,9(4), 132-135. Pennington, D. C. (2012).Social cognition. Routledge. Ralston, D. A., Egri, C. P., Furrer, O., Kuo, M. H., Li, Y., Wangenheim, F., ... Fu, P. P. (2014). Societal-level versus individual-level predictions of ethical behavior: A 48-society study of collectivism and individualism.Journal of business ethics,122(2), 283-306. Shaver, K. (2012).The attribution of blame: Causality, responsibility, and blameworthiness. Springer Science Business Media. Van Hoorn, A. (2015). Individualistcollectivist culture and trust radius: a multilevel approach.Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology,46(2), 269-276. Weary, G., Stanley, M. A., Harvey, J. H. (2012).Attribution. Springer Science Business Media. References