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Beliefs, Value Orientation, and Culture in Attribution Processes and Helping Behavior
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Two experiments were conducted to investigate: (a) the influence of the "subjugation control over nature" value orientation, a dimension of cultural variation, on attribution processes; and (b) the effect of activation of beliefs associated with this value orientation on attribution processes and helping behavior. In Experiment 1, introductory psychology students were classified as either "control" or "subjugation" oriented according to scores obtained from a measure of the value orientation. Results suggest an effect of value orientation on attributions for a behavioral outcome. In Experiment 2, an attribution empathy model of helping behavior was examined in relation to activation of beliefs associated with the "control over nature" value orientation. This model was tested using Bentler's program for the analysis of structural equations. Results show that beliefs interact with empathy to influence helping behavior. Overall, the two studies suggest the importance and feasibility of investigating cultural factors in models of social behavior even when studies are conducted within a single culture.
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... A value orientation describes the values and beliefs individuals rely on to shape their orientation toward the world and related motivations (Betancourt et al., 1992;McClintock & Allison, 1989;Messick & McClintock, 1968). A value orientation stems from formal learning, informal learning, and membership in different cultural groups (Cox et al., 1991;McClintock & Allison, 1989;Murphy & Ackermann, 2014). ...
... For example, Black and Latinx communities have a strong value orientation toward education, where parents often convey the message that getting an education is about freedom and equality (Franklin, 2002;Valencia, 2002). Adult models and messages from adults and peers can convey what is right versus wrong, norms, and build a value orientation (Betancourt et al., 1992;Lee et al., 2010). Consider how children who grew up in a home where they received constant messages about the importance of going to college may retain this belief in adulthood and have different values toward education versus someone who does not grow up in that environment. ...
... Theoretically, students can begin to shift their values toward social justice if they experience injustice directly or begin learning about and witnessing injustice in their social world (Einfeld & Collins, 2008;Lee et al., 2010). For many Black, Latinx, Asian, and Native American students, experiences and observations of racism, racial marginalization, and injustice will shape their orientation toward the world and related motivations (Betancourt et al., 1992;McClintock & Allison, 1989;Messick & McClintock, 1968). Higher education institutions offer pathways for students to gain formal and informal learning, knowledge, and skills that prepare them to pursue goals (Cox et al., 1991;McClintock & Allison, 1989;Murphy & Ackermann, 2014). ...
The discipline of psychology offers a primed context to infuse social justice education, given its popularity as a field of study with Students of Color and psychology’s broad interest in promoting well-being. Specifically, promoting favorable attitudes and behaviors toward social justice among Black/African American and Latinx students may be particularly beneficial when such values align with their value orientation. Moreover, infusing principles of social justice education into teaching and learning can create opportunities for Students of Color to exercise agency through engagement with local and diverse communities and organizations. This chapter introduces readers to the theory of value orientation. It discusses the infusion of a value orientation toward social justice in core elements of learning, pedagogy, syllabus and assignment design, and assessment.
... A set of values, beliefs define a value orientation; a value orientation influences how one orients themselves to their social world and related motivations (Betancourt et al., 1992;McClintock & Allison, 1989;Messick & McClintock, 1968). Formal, informal learning and membership in different cultural groups build a value orientation (Cox, Lobel, & McLeod, 1991;McClintock & Allison, 1989;Murphy & Ackermann, 2014). ...
... Formal, informal learning and membership in different cultural groups build a value orientation (Cox, Lobel, & McLeod, 1991;McClintock & Allison, 1989;Murphy & Ackermann, 2014). Messages conveyed about what is right versus wrong, accepted norms, and observations that take place in settings like the family and schools can influence a value orientation (Betancourt, Hardin, & Manzi, 1992;Lee, Beckert, & Goodrich, 2010). For instance, the child who grew up in a home where they received constant messages about the importance of taking care of one's environment and who retains this belief in adulthood will have different values toward the world versus someone who does not grow up into that environment. ...
The discipline of psychology offers a primed context to infuse social justice education given its popularity with students of color and its broad interest in promoting well-being. Promoting favorable attitudes and behaviors toward social justice among students of color may be particularly beneficial when such teaching and learning align with their value orientation. Moreoever, infusing principles of social justice education into teaching and learning can create opportunities for students of color to exercise agency through engagement with local and diverse communities and organizations. This chapter provides a model for social justice education in undergraduate psychology and aims to connect its relevance to learning for students of color. A focus on pedagogy, syllabus and assignment design, and assessment seeks to illustrate causal links between value orientation toward social justice and student learning.
... These beliefs are not uniquely American, but self-determination and internal control are signal North American values (Betancourt, Hardin, & Manzi, 1992). In countries such as Brazil, Chile, or Mexico, where these beliefs are not so strong (Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck, 1961), antifat attitudes should be uncorrelated with belief in willpower, and ultimately both the Willpower and Dislike scales should not be highly endorsed. ...
Prejudice against fat people was compared with symbolic racism. An anti-fat attitudes questionnaire was developed and used in several studies testing the notion that antipathy toward fat people is part of an “ideology of blame.” Three commonalities between antifat attitudes and racism were explored: (a) the association between values, beliefs, and the rejection of a stigmatized group, (b) the old-fashioned antipathy toward deviance of many sorts, and (c) the lack of self-interest in out-group antipathy. Parallels were found on all 3 dimensions. No in-group bias was shown by fat people. Fatism appears to behave much like symbolic racism, but with less of the negative social desirability of racism.
... The present research was guided by the Betancourt Integrative Model for the Study of Culture, Psychology, and Behavior (Betancourt & López, 1993;Betancourt et al., 1992), which was adapted for the study of health behavior and outcome (Betancourt & Flynn, 2019;Betancourt et al., 2010Betancourt et al., , 2011Flynn et al., 2011). This adapted version of the integrative model (see Fig. 1) specifies how culture relates to health behavior and mediating psychological factors as well as their relation to social structural factors conceived as sources of cultural variation. ...
The aim of this research was to examine the role of negative cultural beliefs about exercise and their relation to diabetes distress as determinants of exercise treatment adherence among culturally and socio-economically diverse patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Participants included 193 Latin American (Latino) and non-Latino White patients with T2DM from a region of Southern California, with high rates of T2DM. The research was guided by Betancourt’s Integrative Model of Culture, Psychology, and Behavior which specifies the structure of relations among socio-structural, cultural, and psychological factors as determinants of health behavior. As hypothesized, structural equation modeling revealed that negative cultural beliefs about exercise predicted higher levels of diabetes distress (ß = 0.32, p < 0.05), which in turn predicted lower exercise treatment adherence (ß = − 0.34, p < 0.05). Findings suggest a critical need for interventions that target both cultural and psychological factors in order to improve diabetes outcomes.
... Kotler (2005) showed that consumer perceptions vary based on their demographics. A large body of literature suggested that different beliefs, value orientations, and perceptions are influenced by individual differences in attribution thinking and cross-cultural orientation (Betancourt et al., 1992;Fletcher & Ward, 1988;Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck, 1961). Taylor (2000) noted the difference between high and low uncertainty avoidance countries' reactions to the Coca-Cola product harm crisis in Belgium in 1999. ...
Despite large body of research on product harm crisis, wide spreading of crises in the market place induce the study to scrutinize this burning issue through a new empirical angle. The main purpose of this study is to investigate how culture and gender shape consumers' moral reputation toward the troubled company during a company culpable crisis. A questionnaire containing a hypothetical crisis scenario was distributed among 200 Chinese and Sri Lankan respondents. ANOVA revealed a detrimental effect of crisis on consum-ers' moral reputation toward the affected company. Gender further triggers this link, when combines with culture. However, detrimental moral reputation toward the troubled company is comparatively lower with respect to male respondents and Chinese culture. This study provides useful theoretical and managerial implications and future research directions for a sustainable marketing environment.
... For instance, Mesurado and colleagues (2014), found that culture can influence the parental expectations of their children's behaviours, guiding lessons in what is acceptable and unacceptable. Research suggests that cultural differences exist in dispositional empathy (the tendency to empathise) in adults (Chopik, O'Brien, & Konrath, 2017), and that social behaviours such as helping may also be influenced by culture (Betancourt, Hardin, & Manzi, 1992). However, whilst literature supports the influence of culture on child development (e.g.: Roe, 1977), there has been very little research into the influences of culture on the development of empathy, nor which cultural elements may be related to empathy constructs. ...
Culture is important for the development of social skills in children, including empathy. Although empathy has long been linked with prosocial behaviors and attitudes, there is little research that links culture with development of empathy in children. This project sought to investigate and identify specific culturally related empathy elements in a sample of Dene and Inuit children from Northern Canada. Across seven different grade (primary) schools, 92 children aged 7 to 9 years participated in the study. Children’s drawings, and interviews about those pictures, were uniquely employed as empirical data which allowed researchers to gain access to the children’s perspective about what aspects of culture were important to them. Using empathy as the theoretical framework, a thematic analysis was conducted in a top-down deductive approach. The research paradigm elicited a rich data set revealing three major themes: sharing; knowledge of self and others; and acceptance of differences. The identified themes were found to have strong links with empathy constructs such as sharing, helping, perspective-taking, and self–other knowledges, revealing the important role that culture may play in the development of empathy. Findings from this study can help researchers explore and identify specific cultural elements that may contribute to the development of empathy in children.
... Although Weiner (2015) disagrees with critical elements of the study reported by Pilati and colleagues (2015), he acknowledges the importance of scrutinizing the potential effects of culture in attributional processes. As Betancourt, Hardin, and Manzi (1992) suggest, important elements of the culture such as values, social beliefs, and norms, may interact with emotional responses to perceived responsibility and influence behavioral outcomes as a result. ...
Although people with depression are stigmatized in many parts of the world, the negative prejudice and discrimination against individuals with depression may be particularly problematic for Chinese individ- uals. Previous attribution theory–guided studies indicate that reducing perceptions of controllability can indirectly increase willingness to provide social support to acquaintances and close others with depres- sion through increased sympathy and reduced anger. Moreover, these studies indicate that strengthening beliefs regarding the temporary nature of depression indirectly increases willingness to provide support for close others but not acquaintances. Although these findings offer insight into how the harms of stigma can be reduced in the United States, it is unknown whether these results will generalize to the Chinese population. In the current study, participants from an urban city in China (N 302) were randomly assigned to think of a close other or an acquaintance experiencing depression and then respond to measures of affect and help provision (willingness to provide social support, willingness to provide general support, and desire for social distance). Moderated mediation analyses indicated that participants were significantly less sympathetic when they perceived depression as controllable and this effect was significantly stronger toward acquaintances. Additionally, sympathy was significantly lower when participants perceived their close other’s depressive symptomatology as stable. This effect was not observed among participants who perceived their acquaintances’ experience with depression as stable. Findings suggest that Weiner’s attribution theory could be a useful framework in reducing stigmatization of depression in China, but interpersonal relationships should be taken into consideration.
We expand the experience of mediated relationships to include not only audience members’ perceptions of cognitive and emotional investments toward media figures, but also investment they believe these figures orient toward them in return (i.e., parasocial perception). This concept demonstrates how consumers experience a parasocial relationship more closely in line with interpersonal relationships. Expectations are examined in the context of artist-audience relationships and the communicative decisions made by media figures. The decisions artists make about the distribution of their music can affect audience attributions about how bands feel toward them and subsequent intentions to support these figures.
Guided by Weiner's attribution theory of help-giving, two experimental studies assessed whether emphasizing the temporary nature of postpartum depression (PPD; i.e., stability), the uncontrollable development of the ailment (i.e., onset controllability), and whether it appears someone is making an effort to overcome PPD—a form of offset controllability—would result in changes in anger, sympathy, and social support outcome expectations (SSOEs), and indirectly influence willingness to provide support. Participants were randomly assigned to one of eight conditions focused on the stability and controllability (onset and offset) of PPD, resulting in a 2 × 2 × 2 design. Study 1 used written vignettes and compared each attribution construct to its polar opposite (e.g., temporary vs. permanent). Many of the Study 1 hypotheses were supported, but the interactions offered minimal explanatory value. Study 2 used video messages that either did or did not explicitly mention each attribution construct. Study 2 results indicated that a message focused on the temporary nature of PPD increased SSOEs and was indirectly associated with willingness to provide support. A message focused on effort increased sympathy and by extension willingness to provide support. The onset controllability message had no significant effects in Study 2. The interaction of the different attribution constructs were not significant. Results indicate that offset controllability, operationalized as effort, the extent to which a situation is temporary, and the influence of SSOEs, might be underutilized in both theoretical and applied research.
In this chapter a theory of motivation and emotion developed from an attributional perspective is presented. Before undertaking this central task, it might be beneficial to review the progression of the book. In Chapter 1 it was suggested that causal attributions have been prevalent throughout history and in disparate cultures. Studies reviewed in Chapter 2 revealed a large number of causal ascriptions within motivational domains, and different ascriptions in disparate domains. Yet some attributions, particularly ability and effort in the achievement area, dominate causal thinking. To compare and contrast causes such as ability and effort, their common denominators or shared properties were identified. Three causal dimensions, examined in Chapter 3, are locus, stability, and controllability, with intentionality and globality as other possible causal properties. As documented in Chapter 4, the perceived stability of a cause influences the subjective probability of success following a previous success or failure; causes perceived as enduring increase the certainty that the prior outcome will be repeated in the future. And all the causal dimensions, as well as the outcome of an activity and specific causes, influence the emotions experienced after attainment or nonattainment of a goal. The affects linked to causal dimensions include pride (with locus), hopelessness and resignation (with stability), and anger, gratitude, guilt, pity, and shame (with controllability).
This investigation examined the perceived properties of causal attributions for success and failure and their consequences. Eight attributions or perceived reasons for success and failure, such as ability, effort, and luck, were rated by Chilean and U.S. samples for three causal properties—locus (internal versus external), stability (endurance over time), and controllability (degree to which the person can volitionally alter the cause). The ratings between the two cultures were quite similar and in accordance with attribution theory classifications, although Chilean subjects perceived the external causes as more external, the stable causes as less stable, and the controllable causes as less controllable than did subjects from the United States. In addition, predicted relations between causal stability-expectancy of success and controllability evaluation and liking were also generally confirmed in both cultures. Results were discussed in terms of the generality versus cultural specificity of attributional principles in the achievement domain.
Criticisms of normative explanations of helping behavior are examined, and an explanation responsive to these criticisms is proposed. This explanation specifies conditions which affect the activation of personal norms and hence their influence on behavior. One hypothesis based on the explanation was tested: the impact of norms on behavior is a function of the tendency to deny or to ascribe responsibility to the self (AR). AR and personal norms toward donating bone marrow to a stranger were measured in a mailed questionnaire. Three months later, 132 women received mailed appeals to join a pool of potential donors from an unrelated source. As predicted, volunteering was a function of the AR × personal norm interaction (p < .0001). Personal norms had no impact on volunteering among those low on AR (deniers), but a substantial impact among those high on AR. Neither intentions to donate, attitudes toward transplants, nor various sociodemographic variables added to the variance in volunteering accounted for by the AR × personal norm interaction.
For a long time I have had the gnawing desire to convey the broad motivational sig nificance of the attributional conception that I have espoused and to present fully the argument that this framework has earned a rightful place alongside other leading theories of motivation. Furthermore, recent investigations have yielded insights into the attributional determinants of affect, thus providing the impetus to embark upon a detailed discussion of emotion and to elucidate the relation between emotion and motivation from an attributional perspective. The presentation of a unified theory of motivation and emotion is the goal of this book. My more specific aims in the chapters to follow are to: 1) Outline the basic princi ples that I believe characterize an adequate theory of motivation; 2) Convey what I perceive to be the conceptual contributions of the perspective advocated by my col leagues and me; 3) Summarize the empirical relations, reach some definitive con clusions, and point out the more equivocal empirical associations based on hypotheses derived from our particular attribution theory; and 4) Clarify questions that have been raised about this conception and provide new material for still further scrutiny. In so doing, the building blocks (if any) laid down by the attributional con ception will be readily identified and unknown juries of present and future peers can then better determine the value of this scientific product."
In this article, the integration of an attribution approach and an empathy approach to helping behavior is pursued, and causal relationships among variables independently studied in these two areas are investigated. The data from two experiments (on judgments of help-giving and actual help offered, respectively) strongly suggest that causal attributions and empathy induced by manipulating the subjects' perspective in approaching a helping scenario additively determine helping behavior. The proposed mediating role of perceived controllability of attributions and empathic emotions was supported. In addition, the perspective of a potential helper (empathic vs. objective) was found to influence the perception of controllability of the causal attribution for a victim's need. A structural equations model was developed and tested, integrating causal attributions, induced empathy, and empathic emotions as determinants of helping behavior.
As prescribed by the culture of natural science, theories of social psychology are essentially intraindividual mechanisms or information-processing structures that, when activated by stimulus conditions, determine cognitive and behavioral responses. Such theories are conceived to operate independently of the sociocultural context in which people exist. We argue that without being connected to the biology of the organism, or to features of the ecology or social structure that are common to humankind, there is no a priori basis for assuming such theories to be universal. Further, for theories to be universal, the meaning of the stimulus conditions has to be constant across cultures, but since culture is the ultimate source of meaning, we cannot take meaning constancy for granted. On the other hand, cross-cultural variations in social behavior may be "surface" expressions of deep structure norms that are universal. Finally, we examine universalistic conceptual frameworks and models, which provide dimensions along which cultural comparisons can be made, to suggest and test general hypotheses.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the reproducibility of social psychological findings across cultures and subcultures in order to evaluate the cross-cultural validity of empirically based social psychological laws. Six studies were sampled from four major social psychological journals. Each study was replicated on two Israeli samples, one similar to that of the original study and the other differing in some respect. Results indicate that those original findings that were replicated primarily involved main effects. Interactions were generally not replicated. Those interactions that proved significant were usually in directions different from those obtained in the original studies. These findings indicate the necessity for replications on both cross-cultural and intracultural levels. Methodological aspects of such studies are discussed.