The authors investigated at the country level the effects of four cultural orientations identified and studied by Hofstede on two commonly recognized response biases: extreme response style and acquiescent responding. Data are presented from approximately 18,000 survey questionnaires completed by employees in 19 nations on five continents (Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, India, Japan, Malaysia, Portugal, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Mexico, the Philippines, Poland, Singapore, Hong Kong, France, and Italy). Hierarchical linear modeling was employed to examine the associations between personlevel response styles and country-level cultural orientations. Consistent with theoretical expectations, power distance and masculinity were found to be positively and independently associated with extreme response style. Individualism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, and masculinity were each found to be negatively associated with acquiescent response behavior. Further research is needed to identify how question characteristics might interact with cultural orientations to influence response behavior.
Research suggests that collectivists are more likely to engage in deception and socially desirable responding to maintain good relationships with others. In contrast, individualists are portrayed as candid and sincere because individualism encourages people to "be yourself." The authors propose that people with both types of cultural orientations or backgrounds engage in desirable responding, albeit in distinct ways. In Study 1, respondents from the United States compared with those from Singapore, and European Americans compared with Asian Americans, scored higher on self-deceptive enhancement (SDE)-the tendency to see oneself in a positive light and to give inflated assessment of one's skills and abilities- but lower on impression management (IM) by misrepresenting their self-reported actions to appear more normatively appropriate. In Studies 2 to 4, horizontal individualism as a cultural orientation correlated with SDE but not with IM, whereas horizontal collectivism correlated with IM but not with SDE. Further analyses examining (a) individual differences in the tendency to answer deceptively and (b) responses to behavioral scenarios shed additional light on the culturally relevant goals served by these distinct types of socially desirable responding.
We argue for the importance of a relatively new cultural distinction in the horizontal (valuing equality) or vertical (emphasizing hierarchy) nature of cultures and cultural orientations. A review of the existing cross-cultural literature is presented suggesting that, although the contribution of the horizontallvertical distinction is sometimes obscured by methods that conflate it with other dimensions, its impact is distinct from that associated with individualism-collectivism. We present studies that highlight several sources of value for the horizontallvertical distinction-as a predictor of new consumer psychology phenomena and as a basis for refining the understanding of known phenomena. Results support the utility of examining this distinction for the understanding of personal values, advertising and consumer persuasion, self-presentational patterns, and gender differences. Methodological issues in studying the horizontallvertical distinction are also discussed.
Five studies indicate that conceptualizations of power are important elements of culture and serve culturally relevant goals. These studies provide converging evidence that cultures nurture different views of what is desirable and meaningful to do with power. Vertical individualism is associated with a conceptualization of power in personalized terms (i.e., power is for advancing one's personal status and prestige), whereas horizontal collectivism is associated with a conceptualization of power in socialized terms (i.e., power is for benefiting and helping others). Cultural variables are shown to predict beliefs about appropriate uses of power, episodic memories about power, attitudes in the service of power goals, and the contexts and ways in which power is used and defended. Evidence for the cultural patterning of power concepts is observed at both the individual level and the cultural-group level of analysis.
Research on the effects of personalized messages on consumers' behavioral responses has yielded mixed findings. We explore how e-mail personalization influences click-through intentions. Our results suggest that consumers experience personalization reactance in response to highly personalized messages when the fit between the offer in the message and consumers' personal characteristics is not explicitly justified by firms. Consequently, consumers are less willing to respond favorably to the offer. Results of two studies suggest that this effect primarily emerges for consumers who perceive the utility of the service to be relatively low. For those consumers with higher perceived utility, justification of personalization is less important because highly personalized messages are less likely to elicit reactance.
This review covers research on attitudes and attitude change published between 2010 and 2017. We characterize this period as one of significant progress toward an understanding of how attitudes form and change in three critical contexts. The first context is the person, as attitudes change in connection to values, general goals, language, emotions, and human development. The second context is social relationships, which link attitude change to the communicator of persuasive messages, social media, and culture. The third context is sociohistorical and highlights the influence of unique events, including sociopolitical, economic, and climatic occurrences. In conclusion, many important recent findings reflect the fact that holism, with a focus on situating attitudes within their personal, social, and historical contexts, has become the zeitgeist of attitude research during this period.
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