Does Culture Really Matter? A Comparison Between Victims’ Cognitive and Communicative Responses to Cultural In-Group Versus Out-Group Perpetrators in Social Predicaments

Abstract

Currently, few studies have examined whether people who experience an undesirable social predicament in an intercultural context would perceive this predicament the same way—and act in the same manner—in an intracultural situation. The authors of this study investigated how perpetrators’ cultural backgrounds impacted victims’ cognitive assessments of, and communicative responses to, social predicaments. Through a survey with three scenarios of other-caused predicaments, participants ( N = 384) were asked to respond to social predicaments caused by either a cultural in-group or out-group perpetrator. The findings showed that victims differed in their perceived severity and attribution of these predicaments depending on the perpetrators’ cultural background. However, cultural background indirectly, rather than directly, influenced victims’ responses by interacting with attributed intent and uncertainty.