CULTURE AND SOCIAL PREDICTION The Role of Information in Enhancing Confidence in Social Predictions in the United States and China

Human behavior under uncertainty has been an important area of inquiry in social, decision making, and cognitive psychology for the past few decades. The current research examined the role of different types of information in enhancing individuals’ confidence in making social predictions in a variety of uncertain situations across cultures. Chinese and American participants were given either individuating information (e.g., accomplishments) or relational information (e.g., social groups) about a target with whom they would have to interact. They were then asked for judgments regarding the usefulness of the information, as well as estimates of their confidence in making predictions about their own and the other person’s behavior in four hypothetical situations. The results indicated that for U.S. subjects, individuating information was deemed much more useful and enhanced confidence in making social predictions, as compared with relational information. The reverse was true for the Chinese participants. Implications for the individualism-collectivism theory and cross-cultural research on social prediction are discussed.