Perceiver-induced constraint and attitude attribution in Japan and the US: A case for the cultural dependence of the correspondence bias

After observing someone s behavior, individuals often infer a corresponding attitude in the person even when the behavior is socially constrained. Convincing evidence for this phenomenon (called the correspondence bias) has been obtained in the perceiverinduced constraint paradigm, where participants ask a target person to read a pre-written attitudinal statement, and after observing the target comply, estimate the target s real attitude. This paradigm maximally highlights the causal role of the participants in producing the target s behavior. In Experiment 1, Americans exhibited a reliable correspondence bias under these conditions, but Japanese did not show any such bias. In Experiment 2, both Japanese and Americans inferred strong essay-consistent attitudes in a standard no-choice condition, where the target allegedly argued for a position that had been assigned to her. Implications for the cultural dependence of social cognition are discussed. 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.