Culture and the Process of Person Perception: Evidence for Automaticity among East Asians in Correcting for Situational Influences on Behavior

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Abstract
The authors evaluate three models of the cognitive processes underlying person perception (i.e., the processes perceivers use to judge whether an actor’s behavior reflects a personal disposition), each of which implies a different way in which culturally instilled lay theories of behavior affect attributions. The models make distinctive predictions concerning how cognitive busyness will affect dispositional inference among members of different cultures. To test the models, the authors compared attributions of U.S. and Hong Kong perceivers for an expressive act under conditions of high and low cognitive busyness. Whereas cognitive busyness increased dispositionism among U.S. participants, it did not for Hong Kong participants. Findings from numerous measures combine to support the automatized situational correction model, which posits that holders of a situation-based lay theory of behavior (such as members of Chinese culture) have automatized the ability to correct attributions to personal dispositions to take into account situational influences.