Faculty & Research Working Paper Running Head: The Ripple Effect Beneath the Surface of the “Ripple Effect”: Understanding the Underlying Nature of Cultural Differences in Perceptions of Event Consequences

_______________

William W. MADDUX Ivy LAU Cy CHIU Ying-Yi HONG Masaki YUKI 2007/52/OB

RUNNING HEAD: THE RIPPLE EFFECT Beneath the Surface of the “Ripple Effect”:

Understanding the Underlying Nature of Cultural Differences in Perceptions of Event Consequences

by

William W. Maddux*

Ivy Lau**

CY Chiu***

Ying-Yi Hong****

and

Masaki Yuki*****

(manuscript currently in revision, do not cite without author permission)

This paper can be downloaded without charge from the Social Science Research Network electronic library at: http://ssrn.com/abstract= 1021255

* Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD, Boulevard de Constance, 77305 Fontainebleau Cedex

** Singapore Management University *** University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana **** University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana ***** Hokkaido University A working paper in the INSEAD Working Paper Series is intended as a means whereby a facultyresearcher's thoughts and findings may be communicated to interested readers. The paper should beconsidered preliminary in nature and may require revision. Printed at INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France. Kindly do not reproduce or circulate without permission.

Abstract

The “ripple effect” refers to a robust cultural difference in how individuals make social judgments regarding the consequence of events, with East Asian individuals perceiving a greater distal impact of events than Western individuals (Maddux & Yuki, 2006). The present research offers the first investigation into the underlying psychological nature of this phenomenon, following stringent methodological requirements for establishing cultural mediation of a cognitive phenomenon. Study 1 demonstrated that the notion of distal causation is more widely circulated in the mass media in the East than in the West, whereas Study 2 provided evidence that the ripple effect reflects a culturally determined inferential bias and does not result from veridical perceptions. Studies 3-4 demonstrated the causal role of culture: Compared to bi-cultural individuals primed with American or Western cultural icons, bi-cultural individuals primed with Chinese or East Asian icons demonstrated an enhanced focus on downstream consequences. Finally, Studies 5 and 6 provided direct evidence that analytic versus holistic worldviews are an explanatory mechanism of cultural differences in such social judgments. Implications for our understanding of social perception and social judgment across cultures are discussed. Keywords: Culture, cognition, social perception, attribution, responsibility

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In the chaos theory, because of the sensitive dependence on initial conditions, it is

theoretically possible that the flap of a butterfly’s wings can create tiny changes in the

atmosphere that may ultimately be able to cause a catastrophic event, such as a tornado, to

appear at a time and place far removed from the initial event. Indeed, any given event may

produce a number of downstream, unintended consequences, and different perceptions of

these likely consequences will, in turn, guide individuals’ behavior. For instance, individuals

who are more sensitive to the causal chain linking natural gas consumption to CO2 emission,

the greenhouse effect, and global warming will pay more attention to a water heater’s energy

efficiency when planning to install one in their house. The awareness that one’s own actions

could ultimately produce a variety of downstream consequences, and that perceptions of

these differences might vary depending on the cultural context in which the perceiver is

embedded, has been referred to as the “ripple effect” (Maddux & Yuki, 2006). Despite its

apparent psychological significance, such perceptions of event-consequences have received

no empirical attention in social psychology until recently.

The lack of research attention given to cultural differences in how people think about

event-consequences perhaps reveals an Anglo-centric bias in the U.S.-dominated social

cognition research literature. In Western societies, the public discourse on moral and causal

responsibility centers around the notion that a person cannot be blamed for a consequence

unless he or she is the first cause of and intends to produce the particular consequence(s)

(Sverdlik, 1987). This rhetoric resonates with the “basic” psychological principle of

responsibility attribution in Heider’s (1958) attribution theory: Mere association of an action

with its consequences does not constitute sufficient ground for responsibility assignment. An

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individual can be held personally responsible for the consequence of his or her action only

when he or she is the first cause of the consequence, can foresee the consequence, and

intends to produce it. The resemblance of Heider’s theory and the dominant theme in the

public discourse in Western cultures is not a coincidence: Heider derived his attribution

theory from a systematic analysis of social cognitions in daily communication in Western

contexts.

In the present article, we present the argument that in Western cultures, the social and

physical world is typically seen as being governed by independent, disjoint, and holistic

forces, and each individual is conceived of as a discrete casual agent. Therefore, the

perceptions of consequences of a person’s actions are likely to be more limited to their direct,

proximal, and intended effects, beyond which the person is not typically held responsible by

himself/herself or others. Under the influence of this worldview or premise, individuals have

relatively little focus on, and are unprepared to see themselves as responsible for, their

actions’ distal, unintended, unanticipated, and unforeseeable consequences.

We further contend that the validity of this theory is culture-bound. In East Asian

contexts, the dominant worldview tends to characterize the social and physical world as

governed by interdependent, conjoint, and analytic forces, and thereby social and physical

events in East Asia are perceived as being causally linked in an interdependent web. Thus, a

person’s actions can trigger perceptions of extended “ripples” of related events that occur as

a consequence, rendering the person to be more focused on, and more responsible (by

himself/herself and others) for, the distal, unintended, downstream consequences. Under the

influences of their respective cultural worldviews, then, we propose that East Asians are

more likely than Westerners to focus on and take responsibility for the distal, downstream

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consequences of events and actions. More specifically, we propose that culture itself, as well

as the dominant ontological worldviews underlying different cultures, act as reliable causes

of these differences in perceptions of event-consequences.

This article reports a series of six studies designed to test this idea. We first tested the

assumption that assumptions of personal responsibility for distal, unintended consequences

are more widely distributed in the public discourse in East Asian contexts than in Western

contexts (Study 1). Second, we expected that Easterners (as compared to Westerners) would

have a greater tendency to perceive a broader impact of an event, even if there is no cultural

difference in perceptions that such consequences will ultimately occur following a given

event (Study 2).

Next, we examined how the culture-characteristic worldviews or premises described

above, when they are activated, constrain subsequent post-event inferences. Thus, among

bicultural individuals who have acquired the predominant worldviews and their attendant

ontological premises in both East Asian and Western contexts, we predicted that priming the

East Asian (versus Western) cultures (Studies 3 & 4) or their predominant underlying

worldviews (Studies 5 & 6) would lead to an accentuated (attenuated) ripple effect.

Culture, Cause, and Consequence

The past two decades of research in social psychology has documented marked

differences in causal attribution between people from East Asian countries (e.g. Japan, China,

Korea) and people from Western countries (the United States, Canada, Australia, Western

European countries) (for reviews, see Chiu & Hong, 2007; Lehman, Chiu, & Schaller, 2004;

Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001). Taken as a whole, the evidence suggests that East

Asians tend to make relatively broad, complex causal attributions, whereas Westerners make

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narrower attributions. For instance, many studies have demonstrated that Westerners have a

strong tendency to explain behaviors in terms of an actor’s personal characteristics; however,

subsequent research has shown that compared to Westerners, East Asians are more inclined

to explain behaviors in terms of situational factors influencing the actor (Miller, 1984; Morris

& Peng, 1994), they are more likely to hold groups or ingroup members accountable for a

given action (Chiu, Morris, Hong, & Menon, 2000; Menon, Morris, Chiu, & Hong, 1999;

Zemba, Young, & Morris, 2006), and they also take more information into account when

explaining an event (Choi, Dalal, Kim-Prieto, & Park, 2003).

More recent research has begun to look at the opposite side of the attribution coin. That

is, once an event has occurred and causal responsibility for the event is no longer in question,

to what extent do individuals from East Asian and Western cultural backgrounds focus on,

and to what extent do they feel responsibility for, the consequences that result from a given

event? In a recent exploration of this question, Maddux and Yuki (2006) demonstrated that

individuals from East Asian backgrounds have a heightened awareness of the indirect, distal

consequences of events compared to individuals from Western cultural backgrounds. For

example, Maddux and Yuki (2006, Study 4) found that, in a vignette involving a car

accident, compared to Japanese, Americans took more responsibility for having damaged

their own car, whereas Japanese took more responsibility than Americans for delaying

commuters in traffic and causing a subsequent accident back in traffic. In addition, when

asked which of several consequences participants felt worst about, American participants felt

the most negative affect about damaging their car, whereas Japanese participants felt the

most negative affect regarding delaying commuters in traffic.

Psychological Underpinnings of the Ripple Effect

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Although Maddux and Yuki (2006) provided an initial demonstration of the existence

of East-West differences in perceptions of event consequences, these previous results did not

pinpoint or even explore the underlying psychological mechanisms responsible for these

differences. To fill this knowledge gap, we draw on differences demonstrated between East

Asian and Western cultures that appear in a variety of theoretical frameworks on cultural

differences in cognition, namely independent and interdependent self-construals (Markus &

Kitayama, 1991), disjoint versus conjoint agency (Markus & Kitayama, 2003), and

analytic/holistic thinking (Nisbett et al., 2001; Spencer-Rodgers, Peng, Wang, & Hou, 2004).

The literature now boasts an impressive body of evidence that an interdependent sense

of self and conjoint sense of personal agency (Hernandez & Iyengar, 2001; Markus &

Kitayama, 1991, 2003) is highlighted in Eastern cultures, whereas an independent sense of

self and disjoint sense of agency (e.g., Markus & Kitayama, 1991, 2005; Markus, Uichida, &

Omoregie, 2006; Triandis, 1989) is emphasized in Western cultures. That is, in Western

cultures, the self tends to be conceived of as a separate, autonomous entity that is encouraged

to make its own way independent of the norms and expectations of other people. By contrast,

in East Asian cultures, personal identities tend to be created and defined by webs of social

relationships, and thus a sense of having strong sense of interconnectedness with others is

strongly emphasized in social life (e.g., Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Yuki, 2003; Yuki,

Maddux, Brewer, & Takemura, 2005). In addition, research shows distinct and reliable

cultural differences regarding perceptions of the social world as well as the physical and

metaphysical world. On the one hand, East Asian cultures have been shown to emphasize a

relatively holistic view of the world, which involves focusing on how objects and events are

interrelated with one another (Masuda & Nisbett, 2001; Miyamoto, Nisbett, & Masuda, 2006;

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Nisbett, 2003), having heightened awareness of how the surrounding context can influence

focal events (Choi & Nisbett, 1998), and being more aware of and accepting of contradiction

(Peng & Nisbett, 1999). On the other hand, Western cultures emphasize a more analytical

view of the world, focusing on the use of formal logic, and perceiving focal objects as

relatively detached and independent from the surrounding context (Miyamoto et al., 2006; for

a review, see Nisbett et al. 2001).

Extrapolating from commonalities present in the above theories, we contend that East

Asian cultures tend to highlight and emphasize the interrelationships that exist in the social

and physical world; by contrast, Western cultures are more focused on individuals and

individual objects and events as relatively detached from and independent of outside

influences. For example, a sense of interdependence with others in East Asian cultures leads

such individuals to stress the importance of interpersonal and intragroup relationships,

fulfilling obligations to others, and maintaining intragroup harmony, whereas Westerners are

culturally oriented to emphasize the importance of the individual relatively independent of

others’ influence (e.g., Fiske, Kitayama, Markus, & Nisbett, 1998; Markus & Kitayama,

1991; Yuki, 2003). The presence of the general idea of interrelatedness also emerges in

Spencer-Rodgers et al. (2004) theory of naïve dialecticism in East Asian cognitions. In this

theory, one of the three main principles of East Asian cognition is the “principle of

relationship or holism,” essentially the belief that everything in the universe is interrelated

with everything else (Spencer-Rodgers & Peng, 2005). In addition, the concept of

interconnectedness appears clearly in the theory of cultural differences in analytic versus

holistic thinking, with East Asians being more aware of the interrelationships in the social

and physical environment than Westerners (Nisbett et. al., 2001), such as those between focal

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objects and the surrounding context (Masuda & Nisbett, 2001; Miyamoto et al., 2006). This

analytic/holistic distinction has done much to explain previously found differences in causal

attribution, with East Asians being more likely to see actions as embedded in a web of

interrelated antecedents, all of which contribute to a given event or action; however,

Westerners are more likely to focus on single causes and ignore the broader social context

(Choi et al., 2003; Choi, Nisbett, & Norazayan, 1998). Finally, such an emphasis on

interrelatedness in approaching the world is also a core concept of Confucianism and Taoism,

(in which the principle of holism is a central concept), two of the strongest influences on East

Asian philosophy and thought (Cheung et al., 2006).

Thus, taken as a whole, the research literature suggests a reliable cultural difference in

the ontology of the social and physical world: Whereas the dominant ontology in East Asian

cultures promotes the perceptions of the individuals, objects, and events as relatively

interrelated, the dominant ontology in Western cultures fosters the perceptions of the

individuals, objects, and events as relatively independent. To capture the essence of this

cultural difference in the dominant ontology in the East and the West, particularly with

regard to the causes and consequences of events, we borrow the distinction set forth by

Nisbett and colleagues (2001) by describing the dominant worldview in East Asian cultures

as a holistic worldview, and dominant worldview in Western cultures as an analytic

worldview. Thus, compared to Westerners, Easterners should have a greater tendency to

impute causal connections between causally and spatiotemporally distant events.

Furthermore, among East-West biculturals who have acquired both worldviews, priming

Eastern (vs. Western) culture should lead to an enhanced ripple effect.

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We further hypothesize that the general (i.e., analytic/holistic) worldviews that underlie

cultural differences may be an important psychological mechanism responsible for the effect

of culture on perceptions of event consequences. Specifically, when perceivers believe that

events in a perceptual field are inherently connected (e.g., they subscribe to the holistic

worldview), perceivers are more cognitively prepared to impute causal connections among

these events even when they are spatiotemporally distant from each other. In contrast, when

perceivers believe that events in the perceptual field are more independent of one another

(e.g., they subscribe to more of an analytic worldview), the perceivers may be cognitively

unprepared or unable to discern causal connections among spatiotemporally distant events.

The Present Research

The present research sought to establish the underlying psychological nature of the

ripple effect keeping in mind the central methodological considerations necessary for

demonstrating psychological mechanisms in cross-cultural research. Because observed

psychological differences between two cultural groups can be often attributed to group

differences in both cultural and non-cultural variables (particularly when looking at culture at

the pre-existing, individual-difference level), neither culture nor analytic/holistic worldviews

can yet be definitively said to act as causal mechanisms of the ripple effect (see Matsumoto

& Yoo, 2006; Heine & Norenzayan, 2006, for discussions). For example, downstream

consequences may simply be seen as more likely to occur in East Asian societies than in

Western societies; thus, the observed East-West differences in the magnitude of ripple effect

may reflect veridical perceptions rather than culturally driven inferential biases.

To establish the mediating effect of culture on the ripple effect, several steps are

required (Chiu & Hong, 2006; Matsumoto & Yoo, 2006), and the six studies reported in the

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present article are designed to meet these procedural requirements. First, as culture is

instituted in shared communicative practices (Chiu & Chen, 2004), we need evidence that the

hypothesized effects are differentially distributed in the communicative practices of the two

cultures. Study 1 was designed to provide this kind of evidence. Second, there should be

robust differences between Easterners and Westerners in the perception of distal and

downstream consequences of events even after insuring that such differences are not due to

veridical perceptions. Thus, in Study 2, we had Japanese and Americans estimate the

likelihood of the distal, downstream consequences, as well how responsible they felt for such

consequences. We predicted robust cultural group differences in the ripple effect even after

controlling for the estimated likelihood of the distal, downstream consequences.

Third, culture priming studies should be conducted to demonstrate that the observed

group differences in the ripple effect are clearly culturally driven (Hong, Morris, Chiu, &

Benet-Martinez, 2000). Thus, in Studies 3 and 4, before bicultural individuals who have

acquired extensive knowledge in East Asian and Western cultures (e.g., Hong Kong Chinese,

Asians living in the United States and Asian-Americans) indicated their perceptions of event-

consequences, we primed them with either East Asian or American cultures; we predicted

that the effect of cultural primes would conceptually replicate the effect of individual-level

cultural differences.

Finally, the hypothesized cultural mediator should be experimentally activated and its

effect on the ripple effect evaluated to determine whether this mechanism replicates the

effects of cultural differences. To achieve this goal, Studies 5 and 6 offer the first attempt (as

far as the authors are aware of) to prime analytic/holistic worldviews in the lab. To this end,

we created primes of the analytic and holistic worldviews that underlie East-West differences

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in the “ripple effect.” We expected that the activation of a holistic worldview (typical of East

Asian cultures) would give rise to a stronger “ripple effect” than would activation of an

analytic worldview (typical of Western cultures).

Study 1

The main goal for Study 1 was to assess whether perceptions of the distal, downstream

impact of event consequences are more widely distributed in the public discourse in East

Asian contexts than in Western ones. Thus, in Study 1 we decided to employ an archival

design to investigate potential cultural differences in perceptions of consequences in a real-

world context.

It is important to note that a number of previous studies on cultural differences in

causal attribution have used archival designs to investigate cross-cultural differences in

causal attributions outside the lab (Lee, Hallahan, & Herzog, 1996; Menon et al., 1999;

Morris & Peng, 1994). For example, Menon et al. (1999) investigated media coverage of

investment banking scandals in one Japanese (Asahi Shimbun) and one American (New York

Times) newspaper, and found that although the Times articles tended to focus on the

personal responsibility of the actors, the Asahi Shimbun articles focused more on the group

as the primary causal agent in such instances. Thus, we sought to provide similar archival

evidence for cultural differences in perceptions of the consequences of events.

In the current study we investigated how newspaper journalists in different cultures

described the consequences of train accidents; this event was chosen given its similarity to

experimental scenarios investigated in previous research (Maddux & Yuki, 2006, Study 4).

Media reports from Japan, US, and Europe were compared, and we hypothesized that as

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opposed to American or European journalists, Japanese journalists would show an enhanced

focus on commuters delayed or otherwise inconvenienced by train accidents.

In order to make this a relatively conservative test, we focused exclusively on train

accidents involving fatalities. This was done because an accident involving a fatality is

especially serious and salient, and the focal event is unquestionably the accident and any

deaths or injuries that resulted. The presence of fatalities would be most likely to minimize

any focus journalists placed on the extent to which commuters or other individuals were

inconvenienced, as opposed to more minor accidents that do not involve any fatalities.

Should Japanese news sources mention inconvenienced or delayed individuals more often

than American articles in stories about fatal train accidents, this would provide evidence for

cultural differences in perceptions of event consequences in the public discourse.

Method

Keyword and article selection. Using the LexisNexis search engine, a final set of 150

articles (50 for each cultural sample) was examined between the years 1999 – 2006. Articles

were restricted to those from Japanese news sources available in English through the

LexisNexis search engine (e.g. Mainichi Daily News, Daily Yomiuri), from American news

sources available through LexisNexis (e.g. New York Times, Los Angeles Times), or

European news sources available in English through LexisNexis (e.g. BBC, London Times).1

Article selection was performed by a hypothesis-blind judge in reverse chronological order,

beginning with the most recent article available and working backwards in time until 50

articles per sample were obtained.

Three keywords were chosen based on the perceived likelihood of yielding articles

most closely matched to the present hypotheses. The words chosen were: “train,” “accident,”

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and “crash.” Keywords used to search for each type of article were constant for news

sources in all three cultural samples. Headlines were then initially prescreened for relevance

to the present research, and were required to suggest that the accident reported on involved

at least one fatality. When the headlines indicated that a retrieved article was most likely

unrelated to the type of event under study, such articles were bypassed without further

investigation. In addition, when multiple articles were found that reported on the same

accident (from either the same or different sources), only the first available article was

selected for coding.

Coding. Two hypothesis-blind judges read the selected articles and determined

whether, within the text of the article, journalists had mentioned whether commuters or

other individuals had been delayed or otherwise inconvenienced because of a fatal train

accident (this excluded injured persons or others directly involved in the accident). The

presence or absence of a mention of commuters delayed was the critical dependent variable.

In articles where journalists mentioned that commuters were delayed, coders also noted

whether the article specified the exact number of people delayed or not. Disagreement

between judges occurred on 5 articles. These disagreements were resolved after further

discussion between the two judges.

Results and Discussion

We tabulated the number of articles mentioning commuters delayed or inconvenienced

by fatal train accidents. Consistent with the present hypothesis, Japanese articles (27 out of

50, 54%) were significantly more likely to mention that fatal train accidents had delayed or

inconvenienced other individuals not specifically involved in the accident compared to

American articles (11 out of 50, 22%), χ² (1, N = 100) = 10.86, p = .001, as well as

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compared to European articles (7 out of 50, 14%), χ² (1, N = 100) = 17.83, p < .001. In

addition, a significantly higher percentage of Japanese articles that mentioned

inconveniences or delays provided an estimate of the number of people affected (16 out of

27, 59.2%) as compared to American articles (1 out of 11, 9.0%), χ² (1,38) = 7.96, p = .005,

and compared to European articles (0 out of 7, 0%), χ² (1,34) = 7.84, p = .005.

Thus, results from Study 1 provide initial support for the idea that considerations of

more distal event-consequences are more widely circulated in East Asian public discourse

(Japanese newspaper reports) compared to Western public discourse (American and

European newspaper reports). However, despite the realism of newspaper reports, it is

certainly possible that Japanese culture simply places a special importance on punctuality,

and thus any event (e.g. train accident) that disrupts transportation schedules may warrant

some mention of to what extent people were inconvenienced. In addition, the current design

only investigated a particular type of indirect consequence (people delayed or

inconvenienced) resulting from one particular focal event (train/subway accident).

Nevertheless, these effects were highly consistent with cultural differences regarding

perceptions of similar events and consequences in a previous laboratory study (Maddux &

Yuki, Study 4), and for the purpose of establishing the existence of this cultural difference in

the public discourse, it was important to provide evidence for the ripple effect outside the

lab.

Study 2

The main goal for Study 2 was to rule out the alternative explanation that East-West

differences in perceptions of event-consequences reflect veridical perceptions; in other words, we

expected that East Asians and Westerners do not differ in their estimations of the likelihood of

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what consequences will actually occur following a given event. Rather, as noted above, we argued

that the ripple effect stems from the fact that individuals from East Asian cultural backgrounds

perceive the social world as governed by holistic forces, and thereby social events are causally

linked in an interdependent web. Thus, East Asians should assess greater implications and

ramifications of their actions than do Westerners, and this difference should be driven by cultural

differences in assessing the broadness of the impact of an event, not because of different ideas of

the consequences that are likely to occur.

Method

Participants. Fifty-three American undergraduates (23 male, 30 female) at

Northwestern University and 72 Japanese undergraduates (25 male, 47 female) at Hokkaido

University participated. Individuals in the American sample voluntarily signed up for the

experiment on a university research website in exchange for a monetary payment of $10.

Japanese participants performed the experiment as part of a class exercise in an introductory

psychology class.

Procedure. Participants were told that the experiment concerned social judgments.

Participants were asked to first read a scenario, imagine themselves as the protagonist in the

situation, and then answer subsequent questions about it. The scenario described an

employee of an Internet company that provides legal music downloads for 99 cents per

song. The person writes a program with the goal of speeding up download times and

searches, but when the program is installed, the whole system crashes, and all of the

company’s customers are unable to download music for long stretches of time.2

A set of initial questions probed the extent to which participants thought it was likely

that a variety of direct and indirect consequences would occur as a result of this event.

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Participants were asked to estimate the likelihood that the following 10 consequences would

occur: a) the company would receive complaints, b) the protagonist’s personal reputation at

the company would be damaged, c) other computer malfunctions would occur, d) sales at

the company would decrease, e) some of his/her colleagues would get fired, f) some people

in upper-level management would get fired, g) the company’s reputation would be damaged,

h) the company would go out of business, and i) the music-download industry’s reputation

would be damaged, j) other music download companies would go out of business.

A second set of questions probed the extent to which participants felt responsible for

these same 10 consequences. On a separate page the questionnaire listed the same

consequences as those that were listed above for the likelihood questions. Instructions

indicated that participants should now assume that the events did in fact occur subsequent to

installing the program, and that they should indicate the extent to which they felt responsible

for each consequence occurring. Responses on both sets of questions were provided on 5-

point unipolar scales, with response options ranging from 1 (not likely at all/not responsible

at all) to 5 (extremely likely/extremely responsible). Following the completion of the

questionnaire, participants were debriefed and thanked for their time.

Results and Discussion

Perceptions of likelihood of events occurring. We first ran an omnibus, mixed-factorial

2 (culture) x 10 (consequence) ANOVA, with participants’ cultural background (American

or Japanese) as a between-subjects factor, and consequences as a within-subjects factor.

Results indicated a main effect for consequence, F(9,1116) = 224.47, p < .001, η2p = .644,

and a marginally significant 2-way culture x consequence interaction, F(9,1116) = 1.80, p =

.063, η2p = .014.

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We then examined mean differences for perceptions of likelihood for each

consequence across cultures. However, only one significant effect emerged, with Americans

(M = 4.41, SD = 0.74) indicating a greater likelihood that their personal reputation would be

damaged following the event as compared to Japanese (M = 3.93, SD = 0.93), F(1,124) =

9.49, p = .003, η2p = .071 (all other ps > .18). Thus, overall likelihood estimates for the

potential consequences clearly did not differ reliably across cultures and were not consistent

with the ripple effect.

Perceptions of responsibility for consequences of events. For the responsibility

measures, we again ran an omnibus mixed-factorial 2 (culture) x 10 (consequence)

ANOVA, with participants’ cultural background (American or Japanese) as a between-

subjects factor, and consequence as a within-subjects factor. Results indicated a significant

main effect for culture, F(1,124) = 9.04, p = .003, η2p = .068, and a significant main effect

for consequence, F(9,1116) = 105.29, p < .001, η2p = .459, qualified by a significant 2-way

culture x consequence interaction, F(9,1116) = 3.29, p = .001, η2p = .026.

We then examined mean differences in perceptions of responsibility for each

consequence across cultures. Unlike likelihood estimations, however, results from the

responsibility measures were highly consistent with the ripple effect, and results are

presented in Figure 1. Compared to Americans, Japanese took significantly more

responsibility for 8 of the 10 consequences, and these differences were most pronounced

regarding consequences that impacted others (colleagues, management fired, company’s

reputation damaged) and those consequences relatively far from the focal event (i.e., whole

music download industry affected; other music-download companies go out of business), all

Fs > 3.87, all ps > .049, all η2p’s > .030. No differences emerged for consequences regarding

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the protagonist himself/herself. Thus, results from Study 2 suggest that the ripple effect is

not the result of differing perceptions of event likelihood, but rather differing assessments in

the subsequent impact of a given focal event upon its consequences, consistent with the idea

that the ripple effect results from different cultural inferential tendencies.

Study 3

Study 3 aimed to establish culture as a distinct cause of the ripple effect, rather than

looking at differences as a function of participants’ pre-existing cultural backgrounds. Thus,

we sought to activate cognitions associated with East Asian versus Western cultures to

determine if cultural cognitions act as causal mechanisms for increasing/decreasing focus on

event consequences. To test this prediction, we borrowed the cultural priming methodology

invented by Hong and associates (Hong, Chiu, & Kong, 1997; Hong et al., 2000; Wong &

Hong, 2005). Specifically, this research has shown that participants who have been

extensively exposed to both East Asian and Western cultures (e.g., bicultural individuals)

possess the worldviews or knowledge systems of the two cultures and can flexibly and

dynamically use one system or the other depending on which system is more accessible at a

given point in time. To activate bicultural individual’s Chinese or American cultural

knowledge systems, Hong and colleagues (1997; 2000) presented to the participants icons

representing Chinese culture or icons representing American culture. Indeed, bicultural

individuals primed with the American icons tended to make more personal causal

attributions, consistent with the chronic attribution tendencies of Westerners, whereas

individuals primed with Chinese culture made more situational attributions, consistent with

the chronic tendencies of East Asian individuals.

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In this study, we sought to replicate the cross-cultural differences in the ripple effect

using these same cultural priming procedures.

Method

Participants. Following Hong et al. (2000), we recruited Hong Kong college students

as participants, who by virtue of the location of their upbringing have extensive exposure to

both Chinese and American cultures. Although Hong Kong is a Chinese society, it was also

a British colony until 1997. Education in Hong Kong typically uses almost an exclusively

Western curriculum, with students often using American textbooks in their courses. Thus

Hong Kong college students have extensive exposure, over the course of their upbringing, to

both Chinese and American culture. Forty-four Chinese undergraduate participants were

recruited from the University of Hong Kong (N=26) and Shue Yan College (N=18), both of

which were located in the city of Hong Kong. Participants received either course credits or

HK$30 (approximately US$4) for their participation.3

Procedure. Participants were randomly assigned to a Chinese prime or an American

prime condition in a between-subjects design. Participants in both conditions were informed

that they would be participating in two separate experiments. The first experiment consisted

of the cultural priming manipulation. Participants in the Chinese (American) prime

conditions were asked to write 10 sentences to describe the characteristics of Chinese

(American) culture if they were asked by someone who knew nothing about the culture. The

participants were then shown five pictures to assist them in their task. For the Chinese

condition, these pictures included images of a Chinese dragon, the Forbidden City, and the

Great Wall. For the American condition, the images included those of an eagle, the White

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21

House, and the Statue of Liberty. These procedures were the same as those used in previous

attribution research (Hong et al., 2000).

After completing the priming task, participants were told that the first experiment was

finished and they were to complete a second, unrelated task. Participants were instructed to

read a hypothetical scenario describing an individual going home on a crowded subway train.

The protagonist is described as quite tired and is standing and holding onto a rail for balance.

Suddenly the train corners sharply, and the protagonist loses his/her balance and accidentally

hits the emergency brake. The train stops for a long period of time, and the train conductor

eventually comes back to reset the emergency before the train can move again.

Following the scenario several close-ended questions probed the extent to which

participants felt the incident would affect a variety of target persons, including a) themselves

personally, b) the injured passengers, (c) the delayed passengers on the train, (d) the train

conductor, and e) passengers on other trains who were subsequently delayed. Responses to

these questions were provided on 11-point scales, ranging at 10-point intervals from 0% (no

effect on the target at all) to 100% (target completely affected).4

Results and Discussion

A 2 (cultural prime: Chinese, American) x 5 (target: oneself, injured passengers,

delayed passengers, train driver, passengers on other trains) mixed-factorial ANOVA was

performed on perceived impact of the event on the targets, with cultural prime as a between-

subjects variable and target as a within-subjects variable.5 The results indicated a main effect

for target, F(4,168) =25.74, p < .001, η2p=.380, a main effect for cultural prime, F(1,42)

=7.64, p = .008, η2p=.154, though there was a non-significant interaction effect, F(1,42) =

1.73, p = .253.

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However, we proceeded to conduct planned mean comparisons across priming

conditions for perceptions of event consequences for each target individually to examine

whether results supported our hypotheses. Indeed results were consistent with our

hypothesis regarding the causal impact of culture and are presented in Figure 2. Compared

to American culture-primed participants, Chinese culture-primed participants indicated that

four of the five targets would be affected significantly more by the event: The injured

passengers, F(1, 42) = 5.60, p = .023, η2p=.118; the conductor, F(1, 42) = 4.42, p = .042,

η2p=.095; the delayed passengers, F(1, 42) = 10.55, p = .002, η2

p=.201; and passengers on

other trains that were subsequently delayed, F(1, 42) = 4.69, p = .036, η2p=.100. However,

no difference in perception of the impact on the protagonist him/herself was observed across

conditions, p > .66. Thus, consistent with our hypothesis, Chinese culture-primed

participants perceived a greater impact of the focal event on other individuals, and in

particular a greater impact of the event on the more indirect, distal consequences of the

event than did American culture-primed participants.

Study 4

Study 3 offered the first demonstration that activation of culturally relevant

cognitions does indeed serve as a reliable causal mechanism for the ripple effect. In this

study, bicultural participants primed with Chinese cultural icons perceived a greater impact

of an event on the more indirect, distal consequences than did bicultural participants primed

with American icons. Our hypotheses involving the ripple effect however are not limited to

specific East Asian and/or Western cultures, that is, Japan or Hong Kong or the United

States, and therefore we expected that the cognitions associated with East Asia and the West

in general should produce similar effects to those observed in Study 3.Therefore the goal of

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Study 4 was to replicate the cultural priming effect using primes of East Asian cultures in

general versus Western cultures in general, as well as a more general type of bicultural

subject population. In this study our participant sample included individuals from East Asian

cultural backgrounds who were currently living in the US. Such individuals necessarily had

exposure to both East Asian (by virtue of their cultural background) and Western (by virtue

of their current living situation) cultures.

Method

Participants. Fifty-one (21 male, 30 female) undergraduate participants of various East

Asian cultural backgrounds participated. All participants were undergraduates at

Northwestern University who voluntarily signed up for the experiment on a university

research website in exchange for US$10. All participants described their ethnic background

as Asian. Of these participants, 31 were American citizens, and 20 were from foreign

countries: 6 were Chinese citizens, 6 were from Singapore, 2 were from Taiwan, while there

was one person each from Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, and Vietnam.

Procedure. Participants were told they would be performing two separate studies on

social judgments. The first part of the experiment consisted of 1 of 2 sets of cultural primes,

East Asian or Western, and participants were randomly assigned to receive one or the other

type of prime in a between-subjects design. According to the cover story, the first

experiment (the actual priming phase) was a recall experiment. Similar to the procedure of

Study 3, participants in the East Asian prime condition were asked to suppose they were

asked about the characteristics of an East Asian culture (e.g., China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan)

by someone who knew nothing about it. Participants were asked to choose the one particular

Asian culture they knew the most about and write ten statements to describe this particular

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culture. Participants were also provided with pictures related to various East Asian cultures,

and told that those pictures might help give them some ideas; however, participants were

told that they need not describe or even mention these pictures in their answers. Fourteen

pictures were presented and included images from a variety of Asian cultures, including a

Chinese dragon, a woman in a Kimono, a bowl of rice with chopsticks, and a rendering of

Confucius.

In the Western prime condition, participants were asked to suppose they were asked

about the characteristics of a Western culture (e.g., American, Canada, Britain, Australia) by

someone who knew nothing about it. Participants were asked to choose the one particular

Western culture they knew the most about and write ten statements to describe this

particular culture. For the Western prime, 14 pictures were also presented and included

images from a variety of Western cultures, including the Statue of Liberty, Big Ben, a

picture of George Washington, and a Koala bear.

Following the completion of the priming phase of the experiment, participants were

told that they would now be performing a second, unrelated experiment on social perception.

Participants were then presented with a scenario describing a car accident. The scenario

described an individual who was driving on a busy road and was late for a meeting (Maddux

& Yuki, 2006, Study 4). While not paying close attention to the road s/he accidentally rear-

ends a car in front of him/her. Participants were instructed to read the scenario, imagine

themselves as the protagonist, and then answer questions about their perceptions of the

potential consequences of the event.

Following the scenario several close-ended questions probed the extent to which

participants felt responsible toward a variety of target persons and events. Participants were

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25

asked how responsible they were for a) damaging their own car, b) damaging the car of the

person they hit, c) delaying other commuters in traffic, and d) for an accident that occurred

back in traffic. Responses to these questions were provided on 5-point unipolar scales, with

responses ranging from 1 (not at all responsible) to 5 (completely responsible.)

Results and Discussion

A 2 (cultural prime) x 4 (consequence) mixed-factorial ANOVA was conducted as an

initial analysis, with culture as a between-subjects variable and consequence as a within-

subjects variable. The results indicated a significant main effect for consequence, F(3,147) =

57.12, p < .001, η2p = .538 and a significant main effect for cultural prime, F(1,49) = 8.89, p

= .004, η2p = .154, qualified by a significant 2-way prime x consequence interaction,

F(3,147) = 2.86, p = .039, η2p = .055.

Subsequent mean comparisons of perceptions of responsibility for each consequence

were consistent with the ripple effect. Compared to Western-primed participants, East

Asian-primed participants indicated they felt significantly more responsibility for the

damage to the car of other driver, F(1,50) = 9.19, p = .004, η2p = .158, more responsibility

for delays to commuters in traffic, F(1,50) = 4.61, p = .037, η2p = .068, as well as more

responsibility for an accident that occurred farther back in traffic, F(1,50) = 6.88, p = .012,

η2p = .123. However, no cross-cultural differences emerged regarding responsibility for the

damage to one’s own car (see Figure 3). Thus, participants primed with the East Asian icons

subsequently took more responsibility for the consequences affecting others than did

participants primed with Western icons, and in particular this effect emerged regarding the

consequences that were indirectly related to and downstream from the focal event (i.e.,

delaying commuters in traffic, responsibility for an accident that happened back in traffic),

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26

effects which replicate those from previous research looking at how Japanese and American

individuals perceived the consequences of the same type of scenario (Maddux & Yuki,

2006, Study 4).

Study 5

Results from Studies 2-4 suggest that culture acts as a reliable causal mechanism in

producing differential ways of perceiving the consequences of events, and these effects

reflect cultural differences in inferential tendencies. Indeed the present results seem to

reflect some fundamental, underlying structural difference in the way people from East and

West think about the very nature of the impact of focal events on their subsequent

consequences. However, we have yet to test the specific types of general ontological

worldviews that give rise to cultural differences in ripple effect. At the outset, we

hypothesized that general analytic worldviews (typical of Western cultures) versus general

holistic worldviews (typical of East Asian cultures) may be an important underlying

psychological mechanism responsible for the effect of culture on perceptions of event-

consequences. Given the inherent problems using extant individual difference scales of

culture to detect mediation and underlying psychological mechanisms in cross-cultural

research (Brewer & Chen, 2007; Chiu & Hong, 2006; Heine, Lehman, Peng, & Greenholtz,

2002; Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002), we used a priming/experimental approach

to demonstrate the psychological mechanisms hypothesized to be responsible for the ripple

effect (e.g., Chiu & Hong, 2006; Gardner, Gabriel, & Lee, 1999; Hong et al., 2000;

Matsumoto & Yoo, 2006), an approach which is often methodologically preferable to

traditional mediational analyses using individual difference, self-report measures of

psychological constructs (Spencer, Zanna, & Fong, 2005).

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Previous research has shown that it is possible to prime psychological structures

underlying cultural differences, and that such primes are able to conceptually replicate

cultural effects at the individual-difference level (e.g. Gardner et al, 1999; Lee, Aaker, and

Gardner, 2000; van Baaren, Maddux, Chartrand, de Bouter, and van Knippenberg, 2003). In

the present research, we adopted a similar priming paradigm to activate analytic and holistic

worldviews, which are hypothesized to be at the root of our cultural effects.

As noted earlier, holistic thinking involves a worldview (predominant in East Asian

cultures) where individuals tend to focus on how objects and events are interrelated with one

another (Masuda & Nisbett, 2001; Spencer-Rodgers & Peng, 2005). Under the influence of a

holistic worldview, individuals also have a heightened awareness of how the surrounding

context can influence focal events (Choi & Nisbett, 1998), and are more aware of and

accepting of contradiction (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). In contrast, Western cultures emphasize a

more analytical view of the world, perceiving focal objects as relatively detached and

independent from the surrounding context (for a review, see Nisbett et al., 2001). Our

particular focus in the present research is specifically with regard the idea of the

interrelatedness of events, a concept which is also emphasized in Spencer-Rodgers and

Peng’s (2005) theory of naïve dialecticism in the “principle of holism,” essentially the belief

that everything in the universe is interrelated with everything else.

As far as the authors are aware, however, psychologists have yet to develop a paradigm

for priming analytic and holistic worldviews. Thus, we decided to create primes to capture

and re-produce these concepts as well as possible in a laboratory context. However, it is

important to note that our goal was not to exactly replicate the essence of Eastern and

Western cultures in a set of primes; rather, we sought to recreate a critical feature of the

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ontology hypothesized to give rise to cultural differences in perceptions of event-

consequences. The critical test is to determine, then, whether priming such analytic and

holistic worldviews can replicate previous effects when looking at cultural differences at the

individual-difference level.

Should such a priming paradigm produce a reliable ripple effect, this would be

compelling evidence for analytic/holistic worldviews as a critical psychological process

responsible for cultural differences in social perception.

Method

Participants. Thirty undergraduate participants (15 male, 15 female) of various East

Asian cultural backgrounds participated. (Again, individuals from Asian backgrounds living

in the US were recruited because, with both cultural knowledge systems intact, they should

be responsive to the priming of the two different worldviews.) All participants were

undergraduates at Northwestern University who voluntarily signed up for the experiment on

a university research website in exchange for US$10. All participants described their ethnic

background as ‘Asian’ or ‘South Asian.’ Of these participants, 20 were American citizens,

and 10 were citizens of foreign countries: 3 were from China, 2 were from Singapore, and

there was one each from Britain, New Zealand, Japan, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

Procedure. Participants were told they would be performing two separate experiments:

the first was ostensibly a memory experiment (actually the priming phase) and a second

experiment was ostensibly on social perception (actually the measure of perceptions of event

consequences). Participants were assigned to one of two conditions in our between-subjects

design: an analytic worldview prime condition, or a holistic worldview prime condition.

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29

Participants were told to read the scenario carefully as they would be asked subsequent

questions about it.

In the analytic worldview condition, participants read about a woman who has a

spiritual epiphany while meditating. In this epiphany, she comes to the realization that the

universe is essentially a system of independent, separate forces that are all unique, self-

contained, and which do not exert any meaningful impact on other elements or events. She

realizes that all entities have their own distinct and unique properties, that birth and death

are finite and permanent, and that everything is kept separate from everything else by a

larger spiritual presence. In the holistic worldview condition, participants read a similar

scenario about a woman who has a spiritual epiphany while meditating. However, in this

epiphany, the protagonist comes to the realization that the universe is essentially a system of

interdependent, connected forces that are inherently bound together, all of which are part of

the same essence and influence everything else. She realizes that all entities are inseparable

from each other, that birth and death are simply part of a longer journey, and that everything

is one with everything else, linked together by a single, unifying presence.

Following the priming scenario and as part of the cover story, participants were

instructed to write a brief summary of the scenario without looking back at it. The

instructions indicated that once this task was finished, that the experiment was complete and

that they should turn over the first packet and turn to a second, separate questionnaire which

was (ostensibly) an unrelated experiment on social perception.

The scenario used in Study 5 was taken from Maddux and Yuki (2006, Study 1) and

contained a photograph of a woman making a shot in a game of pool. In the picture the

woman has just struck the cue ball, which is moving toward a number of other balls at the

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30

end of the table. Participants were asked to look at the picture and to estimate to what extent

the shot would affect, a) the next shot, b) the third subsequent shot, c) the sixth subsequent

shot, and d) the overall outcome of the game. Participants were given 11 response options

for each question ranging, at 10-point intervals, from 0% (did not affect at all) to 100%

(completely affected.) Following the completion of the questionnaire, participants were

debriefed and thanked for their time.

Results and Discussion

Impact of focal shot. We ran an initial 2 (prime) x 4 (shot) mixed-factorial ANOVA,

with prime as a between-subjects factor and shot as a within-subjects factor. Results

indicated significant main effects for shot, F(3,84) = 17.44, p < .001, η2p = .384, and for

priming condition, F(1,28) = 7.80, p = .009, η2p = .218. However, these effects were

qualified by a significant prime x shot interaction, F(3,84) = 5.17, p = .002, η2p = .156.

We then conducted planned comparisons of means across cultures in order to examine

hypothesized differences of the effect of the prime on perceived impact on subsequent shots.

Results from these planned comparisons were consistent with predicted effects. Compared

to participants primed with an analytic worldview, participants primed with a holistic

worldview thought the focal shot would have a significantly greater impact on the third shot

taken, F(1,28) = 10.24, p = .003, η2p = .286, the sixth shot, F(1,28) = 8.93, p = .006, η2

p =

.242, and the overall outcome of the game, F(1,28) = 7.66, p = .010, η2p = .215. However,

no difference emerged regarding perceptions of the impact on the next subsequent shot, p >

.57, (see Figure 4). These results replicate those of previous research which demonstrated

that Asian-Americans thought a pool shot would have a broader overall impact on

subsequent events than European-Americans (Maddux & Yuki, 2006, Study 1). Overall,

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31

these results show that analytic/holistic worldviews act to produce the same outcomes in

social judgment compared to effects examining individual differences in cultural

background, suggesting such worldviews as a plausible mechanism between culture and

perceptions of event-consequences.

Study 6

Results from Study 5 provided initial evidence for analytic/holistic worldviews as an

underlying mechanism of cultural differences in perceptions of event-consequences, and

these results also provide some of the first evidence that experimentally priming individuals

to think about the world analytically versus holistically can conceptually replicate

individual-difference level effects of culture. However, the nature of the pool-shot scenario

leaves open the question of whether analytic/holistic worldviews are also valid mechanisms

when individuals are contemplating social consequences, that is, outcomes for themselves as

well as other individuals in a distinctly social context. Thus, Study 6 employed a design

involving an explicitly social scenario and social consequences.

Method

Participants. Fifty-six undergraduates (22 males, 34 females) of Asian ethnic

backgrounds participated. All participants were undergraduates at Northwestern University

who voluntarily signed up for the experiment on a university research website in exchange

for US$10. All participants described their ethnic background as Asian or South Asian. Of

these participants, 39 were American citizens, and 17 were citizens of foreign countries: 6

from China, 3 from Singapore, 2 from Taiwan, while there was one person each from Japan,

Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and the Philippines.

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32

Design. Participants were again told they were participating in two separate

experiments, one on memory and a second on social perception. Participants were randomly

assigned to receive either the analytic or holistic worldview primes which were used in

Study 5, and the cover story was the same as in the previous study. Following the priming

phase participants were told that the first experiment was complete and that they were to

perform a second, unrelated experiment on social perception. Participants then read the same

music-download scenario and completed the same likelihood and responsibility

consequence questions as in Study 2. Following the completion of the questionnaire,

participants were debriefed and thanked for their time.

Results and Discussion

Perceptions of likelihood of events occurring. We first ran an omnibus, mixed-factorial 2

(worldview prime) x 10 (consequence) ANOVA, with prime as a between-subjects factor,

and consequences as a within-subjects factor. Results indicated a main effect for

consequence, F(9,486) = 161.58, p < .001, η2p = .750, but a non-significant prime x

consequence interaction, p > .15. Planned comparisons of mean differences for perceptions

of likelihood for each consequence across type of worldview-prime revealed no significant

differences for any of the 10 consequences across cultures, all ps > .09. Thus, likelihood

estimates for the potential consequences did not differ depending on the worldview prime

participants received, consistent with results from Study 2.

Perceptions of responsibility for consequences of events. For the responsibility

measures, we again ran an omnibus mixed-factorial 2 (worldview prime) x 10 (consequence)

ANOVA, with prime as a between-subjects factor, and consequence as a within-subjects

factor. Results indicated a significant main effect for prime, F(1,54) = 7.26, p = .009, η2p =

The Ripple Effect

33

.119, and a significant main effect for consequence, F(9,486) = 110,98, p < .001, η2p = .673,

qualified by a significant 2-way prime x consequence interaction, F(9,1116) = 2.40, p =

.012, η2p = .042.

We then examined mean differences in perceptions of responsibility for each

consequence across priming condition. As was the case in Study 2, results from the

responsibility measures were highly consistent with the ripple effect, and results are

presented in Figure 5. Compared to analytic worldview-primed participants, holistic

worldview-primed participants felt significantly more responsibility for 7 of the 10

consequences, and these differences were again most pronounced regarding consequences

that impacted others (colleagues, management fired) and those consequences relatively far

from the focal event (i.e., music download industry affected; other companies go out of

business), all Fs > 4.16, all ps > .048, all η2p’s > .072. There were no differences regarding

consequences for the protagonist personally. Thus, it is quite striking that, with the single

exception of the non-significant result for perceptions of responsibility for a sales decrease

(which was significant in Study 2), these results from priming bicultural individuals with

different worldviews exactly replicated the cultural differences comparing Japanese and

Americans in Study 2.

General Discussion

Based on keen observations of recurrent themes in the public discourse in Western

cultural contexts, Heider (1958) proposed a set of cognitive principles governing the way in

which people think about the social world. This set of principles has been accepted

uncritically for almost half a century as the “basic” principles of causality and responsibility.

A core assumption underlying these principles is the notion that individuals cannot be held

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34

causally responsible for (and thereby should not accept causal responsibility for) their

actions’ distal, unintended downstream consequences. We contend that the Heiderian

principles of causality and responsibility, which have been the foundational principles of

causal inferences in contemporary social psychology, are embedded in an analytic

worldview widely circulated in Western culture.

Across six studies, the present research offered the first investigation into the idea that

such principles are culturally constrained, and that a markedly different set of perceptual

tendencies rooted in an alternative, holistic worldview, is practiced in East Asian contexts,

producing inferential phenomena which have been largely ignored by social cognition

researchers until now. In an archival study of journalists’ descriptions of the consequences

of train accidents, Study 1 showed that Japanese journalists focused on commuters delayed

by fatal train accidents more than American or European journalists. Study 2 ruled out

differing estimates of the likelihood of consequences occurring as a critical component of

the ripple effect; cultural differences emerged regarding perceptions of responsibility for an

event but not for estimations of whether specific consequences were likely to occur. Studies

3 and 4 established that activation of culturally-relevant cognitions is a reliable causal

mechanism of the ripple effect. Study 3 used Chinese versus American icons as primes and

participants consisting of individuals living in Hong Kong, whereas Study 4 employed

general East Asian and Western icon primes and used as participants East Asian individuals

living in the US. Across both studies, individuals primed with East Asian or Chinese icons

indicated a greater awareness of the indirect consequences of events than did individuals

primed with Western or American icons, suggesting culture as a reliable causal mechanism.

Finally, Studies 5 and 6 demonstrated that analytic and holistic worldviews are one plausible

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35

underlying mechanism driving this effect. Individuals primed to think about the world

holistically (as opposed to analytically) showed an enhanced ripple effect within both a

social (music download) and relatively non-social (pool shot) scenario, replicating

previously demonstrated cultural differences at the individual-difference level. Thus, the

present research offers a range of studies that help elucidate our understanding of the way in

which culture impacts social perception following the occurrence of a given event.

Our results add to the growing body of literature on cultural differences in social

cognition and social perception in general (e.g., Hong et al., 2000; Menon et al., 1999;

Morris & Peng, 1994; Nisbett et al., 2001) and in particular contribute to our understanding

of the nature in which people from East Asian and Western cultures think about the

consequences of events. Indeed overall the results are quite consistent with previous

research in showing that, compared to cognition for Western individuals, East Asian

cognition tends to be broader and more interrelated in scope when considering the

fundamental nature of events. Such an emphasis on the world as a network of interrelated

parts, events, individuals, and actions is a core concept of Confucianism and Taoism

(Cheung et al., 2006), two of the most influential influences on East Asian philosophy and

thought, and the present research offers additional evidence of how these core philosophies

may be embedded in East Asian cultures and may manifest themselves in how individuals

from East and West perceive the social and physical world. In addition, the present research

is the first to elucidate the psychological mechanisms associated with differences in

perceptions of event consequences specifically. In particular, our findings demonstrate that

culture is a reliable causal mechanism for these effects, and offer evidence that the

underlying cognitive orientation of individuals from East and West (i.e., analytic and

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36

holistic worldviews) replicate such differences. Although previous research has identified

the ripple effect as a reliable phenomenon, particularly comparing cognition of Japanese and

American individuals (Maddux & Yuki, 2006), the present research offers significant

advances in our understanding of the ontology and generalizability of the mechanisms

underlying these effects across different populations and cultures.

It is important to note that the present research also offers one of the first

investigations into the underlying, cognitive mechanisms responsible for cultural differences

in social perception and offers (as far as the authors are aware) the first demonstration of

priming analytic versus holistic worldviews. The relative absence of demonstrations of the

underlying cognitive processes of cultural differences has been one criticism of the cultural

literature as a whole (Matsumoto & Yoo, 2006). In addition to comparing individuals based

on pre-existing differences in cultural background (Study 1 and 2), the present study also

demonstrated the causal influence of culture in general (Study 3 and 4) and a specific

underlying cognitive mechanism driving this cultural influence (Studies 5 and 6). These

results suggest that such general worldviews, which are common to many extant cross-

cultural theories as well as to the philosophical roots of Eastern and Western cultures, may

offer a unique understanding of the dynamics of culture and cultural belief systems.

Indeed, we believe it is quite striking that the results from a variety of experimental

primes consistently replicated effects at the individual difference-level of culture. For

example, the results from Study 4, which involved general primes of East Asian and

Western cultures, replicated effects obtained in earlier research looking at perceptions of

Japanese and Americans for the same consequences in the same car accident scenario

(Maddux & Yuki, 2006, Study 4). In addition, priming effects using the analytic/holistic

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37

worldview primes replicated previously demonstrated differences between European

Americans and Asian Americans in the pool shot scenario (Maddux & Yuki, 2006, Study 1).

Finally, and most remarkably, results from Studies 2 and 6 in the present paper showed

nearly identical effects for comparisons of Japanese and American participants (Study 2),

and for bicultural Asian individuals primed with analytic or holistic worldviews (Study 6.)

Overall our results suggest that distinct levels of access to culture and cultural systems

produce highly similar psychological effects. Such results also speak to the commonality of

the ontology of East Asian thought and Western thought regardless of whether cultural

differences are chronically or temporarily accessible.

Limitations and Directions for Future Research

Although the present research enhances our understanding of cultural differences in

social perception, a variety of open questions and caveats remain. First, although our results

demonstrate a distinct similarity to previous research on cultural differences in causal

attribution, but these two phenomena have yet to be linked. Much research has shown that

East Asians make broader attributions for behaviors than Westerners, and results from the

current research suggest a similar ‘broadening’ phenomenon concerning the consequences

of behaviors. Thus, it seems highly likely that these effects may be two sides of the same

cognitive process. Those individuals who think about the world as more holistic make

broader causal attributions, and they may also perceive a relatively wide array of

consequences. Those individuals who think about events as more analytic make more

narrow causal attributions, and perceive a smaller number of consequences. Thus, an

interesting question for future research is to explicitly investigate the interrelatedness of

perceptions of cause and consequence to determine the extent to which the two are truly the

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38

result of the same process, as well as the extent to which affecting one phenomenon affects

the other.

In addition, although the ripple effect, like cultural differences in causal attribution,

appears to be a fundamentally cognitive phenomenon that exerts a primary impact on

perceptions and judgments, future research should look at the decision-making and

behavioral ramifications of such effects. In particular, although Study 1 addressed this issue

indirectly by focusing on types of articles journalists publish in different cultures, the

experimental studies included in this paper only assessed participants’ judgments the

outcomes of certain scenarios. Thus, it is currently unclear to what extent these differences

in cognition impact concrete behavioral outcomes and decision-making tendencies. It seems

possible, then, that highlighting different types of event-consequences may result in very

different behavioral outcomes when individuals are or are not aware of the broad, indirect

ramifications of their actions.

Conclusions

The way in which we perceive the consequences of given events can have a profound

impact on how we think about ourselves and the world around us. In fact, part of the special

nature of being human is the ability to have foresight, to be able to reason through the likely

unfolding of events that will subsequently occur if we follow different courses of action, and

to plan accordingly so that the consequences of our actions (ideally) have the maximum

beneficial impact for ourselves and others. The fact that culture has such a significant impact

on such perceptions suggests the critical importance of understanding a phenomenon like the

ripple effect. Especially in a world that is becoming more and more globalized every day

(e.g., a recent earthquake in Indonesia temporarily knocked out internet and phone

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39

connections to much of the rest of Southeast Asia, leading to major disruptions in

commercial and governmental activities) it is important not only to understand the objective

ramifications of these cause-event-consequence links, but also the more subjective

ramifications as well; for example how individuals from East and West differentially

perceive how the same events are linked, and how they may look at the world in very

different ways as a consequence.

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40

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Figure Captions

Figure 1. Mean levels of perceived responsibility for each consequence as a function of participants’

cultural background, Study 2.

Figure 2. Perceptions of degree to which targets affected by subway stoppage as a function of cultural

prime, Study 3.

Figure 3. Perceptions of responsibility for consequences of a car accident as a function of cultural

prime, Study 4.

Figure 4. Perceptions of impact on subsequent pool shot as a function of worldview prime, Study 5.

Figure 5. Mean levels of perceived responsibility for each consequence as a function of worldview

prime, Study 6.

The Ripple Effect

46

1 2 3 4 5

*Other companies gounder

**Industry damaged

**Other computermalfunction occur

*Company goes out ofbusiness

*Company's reputationdamaged

**Upper-levelmanagement fired

*Collegeaues fired

**Sales decrease

Reputation damage

Customer complaints

Americans Japanese

Note: * p < .05 **p < .01

The Ripple Effect

47

1 2 3 4 5

*other companies gounder

**Industry damaged

**Other computermalfunctions

*Company goes under

*Company's reputationdamaged

*Upper-levelmanagement fired

*Collegeaues fired

Sales decrease

Own reputation damage

Customer complaints

Analytic Prime Holistic Prime

Note: * p < .05 **p < .01

The Ripple Effect

48

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Oneself Injuredpassengers

Conductor Delayedpassengers

Other trains

degr

ee to

whi

ch a

ffect

ed

Chinese prime

American prime

The Ripple Effect

49

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

self driver commuters accident

resp

onsi

bilit

y

Asian Prime

Western Prime

The Ripple Effect

50

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Next Shot 3rd shot 6th shot Game

exte

nt to

whi

ch a

ffect

ed

Holistic Prime

Analytic Prime

The Ripple Effect

51

Footnotes

1 Most of the major Japanese newspapers are available in English through LexisNexis, or

have English language subsidiary publications which are available in LexisNexis.

2 The scenario and questions were written in English then translated into Japanese. The

Japanese version was back-translated into English to compare with the original and any

major discrepancies were corrected.

3 Due to an administrative error, participant gender was not recorded in this study.

4 The scenario and questions were written in English then translated into Chinese. The

Chinese version was back-translated into English to compare with the original and any major

discrepancies were corrected.

5 A preliminary cultural prime by target by college mixed factorial ANOVA with cultural

prime and college as between-subjects variables and target as a within-subjects revealed

neither main nor interaction effect of college. Reported analyses were therefore collapsed

across the two colleges.

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