서강대학교

초록/요약

The present research examined cultural differences in one’s belief regarding how to take responsibilities when something of a fault has been found in a person. Although it may be thought that one should not remain in charge of the situation any longer, what it really means to be responsible could be interpreted differently depending on how people attribute the fault. Considering the findings in East-West thinking style differences, a wrongdoer may not be viewed as innately bad in the eyes of a holistic thinker because of considering factors other than the actors’ own dispositions. On the other hand, analytical thinkers are more disposed to internal attribution, so they would view the actor as culpable by nature. A cultural difference was predicted on this basis regarding what is viewed as more responsible between immediate resigning and trying to resolve. A series of surveys found that the judgement of how people should take responsibilities for a problem differed between Eastern and Western cultures. People from East-Asian background viewed that the foremost thing to do is resolving the situation before stepping down from the position compared to European-Americans who believed immediate resignation is more apt, and this effect was mediated by holism (Study 1). When the protagonists in the vignettes denied accusations though, European-Americans also became to view resolving the situation more apt when the actors denied the allegations (Study 2). Extending from previous cross-cultural researches on responsibility judgement, present research contributed to finding the effect of thinking styles on responsibility judgement.