Situational Salience and Cultural Differences in the Correspondence Bias and Actor-Observer Bias

Abstract

Two studies examined the correspondence bias in attitude attributions of Koreans and Americans. Study I employed the classic attitude attribution paradigm of Jones and Harris and found that both Korean and American participants displayed the correspondence bias in the no-choice condition. This lack of difference might have been due to weak salience of the situational constraints. Study 2 was designed to make the situational constraints of the no-choice condition salient in two ways: (a) by asking participants to write an essay on a topic regardless of their genuine attitude toward the topic or (b) by also making it clear to participants that the essay by the target person was almost a copy of the arguments provided by the experimenter. The results showed that (a) American attributions were unaffected by the two salience manipulations, whereas Koreans' correspondence bias decreased with increasing salience of the constraints, and (b) Koreans were less susceptible to the actor observer bias.