In what ways do accessible attitudes ease decision making? Examining the reproducibility of accessibility effects across cultural contexts.

Making attitudes more accessible via rehearsal has been shown to ease decision making by speeding the act of choosing and increasing the correspondence between one's attitudes and choices (e.g., Fazio, 1995; Fazio et al., 1992; Fazio & Williams, 1986). These effects are central to decades of attitude research and are citation classics in social psychology. We report 25 studies (N = 6,162), conducted in a diverse and culturally inclusive set of samples and contexts, that shed light on the reproducibility of these seminal findings. We examined the effects of attitude accessibility on decision latency, on the self-reported readiness to make a decision, and on attitude-choice correspondence. Results showed that the effect of attitude accessibility on decision latency is highly reproducible across multiple methods and cultural contexts, and that the effect on attitude-choice correspondence also appears robust in choice contexts that parallel the original experiments but not in choice contexts that highlight the need to consider others' preferences. Effects on self-reported readiness to decide did not emerge. No robust role for culture was observed in moderating these effects, though the limitations of the studies temper these conclusions. In sum, we build on prior research by showing which types of effects are likely to be reliably influenced by attitude accessibility. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Attitudes and Attitude Change.

This review covers research on attitudes and attitude change published between 2010 and 2017. We characterize this period as one of significant progress toward an understanding of how attitudes form and change in three critical contexts. The first context is the person, as attitudes change in connection to values, general goals, language, emotions, and human development. The second context is social relationships, which link attitude change to the communicator of persuasive messages, social media, and culture. The third context is sociohistorical and highlights the influence of unique events, including sociopolitical, economic, and climatic occurrences. In conclusion, many important recent findings reflect the fact that holism, with a focus on situating attitudes within their personal, social, and historical contexts, has become the zeitgeist of attitude research during this period.

Improving Medical Decision Making and Health Promotion through Culture-Sensitive Health Communication: An Agenda for Science and Practice.

This review introduces the concept of culture-sensitive health communication. The basic premise is that congruency between the recipient's cultural characteristics and the respective message will increase the communication's effectiveness. Culture-sensitive health communication is therefore defined as the deliberate and evidence-informed adaptation of health communication to the recipients' cultural background in order to increase knowledge and improve preparation for medical decision making and to enhance the persuasiveness of messages in health promotion. To achieve effective health communication in varying cultural contexts, an empirically and theoretically based understanding of culture will be indispensable. We therefore define culture, discuss which evolutionary and structural factors contribute to the development of cultural diversity, and examine how differences are conceptualized as scientific constructs in current models of cultural differences. In addition, we will explicate the implications of cultural differences for psychological theorizing, because common constructs of health behavior theories and decision making, such as attitudes or risk perception, are subject to cultural variation. In terms of communication, we will review both communication strategies and channels that are used to disseminate health messages, and we will discuss the implications of cultural differences for their effectiveness. Finally, we propose an agenda both for science and for practice to advance and apply the evidence base for culture-sensitive health communication. This calls for more interdisciplinary research between science and practice but also between scientific disciplines and between basic and applied research.

Culture and Consumer Behavior: The Role of Horizontal and Vertical Cultural Factors.

We examine the influence of culture on consumer behavior with a particular focus on horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism. Cultures vary in their propensity to emphasize hierarchy, a distinction captured by examining horizontal/vertical cultural orientations or contexts. These cultural factors pattern personal values and goals, power concepts, and normative expectations applied to the exercise of power. We review implications for how consumers respond to brands in the marketplace, service providers, and each others' needs.

Preferences don't have to be personal: expanding attitude theorizing with a cross-cultural perspective.

Attitudes, theorized as behavioral guides, have long been a central focus of research in the social sciences. However, this theorizing reflects primarily Western philosophical views and empirical findings emphasizing the centrality of personal preferences. As a result, the prevalent psychological model of attitudes is a person-centric one. We suggest that incorporating research insights from non-Western sociocultural contexts can significantly enhance attitude theorizing. To this end, we propose an additional model-a normative-contextual model of attitudes. The currently dominant person-centric model emphasizes the centrality of personal preferences, their stability and internal consistency, and their possible interaction with externally imposed norms. In contrast, the normative-contextual model emphasizes that attitudes are always context-contingent and incorporate the views of others and the norms of the situation. In this model, adjustment to norms does not involve an effortful struggle between the authentic self and exogenous forces. Rather, it is the ongoing and reassuring integration of others' views into one's attitudes. According to the normative-contextual model, likely to be a good fit in contexts that foster interdependence and holistic thinking, attitudes need not be personal or necessarily stable and internally consistent and are only functional to the extent that they help one to adjust automatically to different contexts. The fundamental shift in focus offered by the normative-contextual model generates novel hypotheses and highlights new measurement criteria for studying attitudes in non-Western sociocultural contexts. We discuss these theoretical and measurement implications as well as practical implications for health and well-being, habits and behavior change, and global marketing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

Female hurricanes are deadlier than male hurricanes.

Do people judge hurricane risks in the context of gender-based expectations? We use more than six decades of death rates from US hurricanes to show that feminine-named hurricanes cause significantly more deaths than do masculine-named hurricanes. Laboratory experiments indicate that this is because hurricane names lead to gender-based expectations about severity and this, in turn, guides respondents' preparedness to take protective action. This finding indicates an unfortunate and unintended consequence of the gendered naming of hurricanes, with important implications for policymakers, media practitioners, and the general public concerning hurricane communication and preparedness.

The Impact of Power on Information Processing Depends on Cultural Orientation.

Two studies show that different culturally based concepts of interpersonal power have distinct implications for information processing. People with a vertical individualist (VI) cultural orientation view power in personalized terms (power is for gaining status over and recognition by others), whereas people with a horizontal collectivist (HC) cultural orientation view power in socialized terms (power is for benefitting and helping others). The distinct goals associated with these power concepts are served by different mindsets, such as stereotyping others versus learning the individuating needs of others. Therefore, for high-VI individuals, making personalized power salient increases stereotyping in processing product information. That is, they recognize better information that is congruent with their prior product expectations, relative to their recognition of incongruent information. In contrast, for high-HC people, making socialized power salient increases individuating processes, characterized by better memory for incongruent information.

Horizontal and Vertical Cultural Differences in the Content of Advertising Appeals.

The distinction between vertical (emphasizing hierarchy) and horizontal (valuing equality) cultures yields novel predictions regarding the prevalence of advertising appeals. A content analysis of 1211 magazine advertisements in five countries (Denmark, Korea, Poland, Russia, U.S.) revealed differences in ad content that underscore the value of this distinction. Patterns in the degree to which ads emphasized status benefits and uniqueness benefits corresponded to the countries' vertical/horizontal cultural classification. These and other patterns of ad benefits are analyzed and the predictions afforded by the vertical/horizontal distinction versus the broader individualism-collectivism distinction are compared and tested.

Impression Management in Survey Responding: Easier for Collectivists or Individualists?

Three experiments indicate that when individualists and collectivists engage in impression management on self-reports, they do so through different psychological mechanism s. Collectivists do so through a relatively automatic process. Thus, they can impression manage even when cognitively busy. Individualists impression manage through a more effortful process. Therefore, they can do so only when the situation permits effortful processing. These findings highlight distinct conditions under which social norms may influence consumer self-reports across cultures.

Culture and concepts of power.

Five studies indicate that conceptualizations of power are important elements of culture and serve culturally relevant goals. These studies provide converging evidence that cultures nurture different views of what is desirable and meaningful to do with power. Vertical individualism is associated with a conceptualization of power in personalized terms (i.e., power is for advancing one's personal status and prestige), whereas horizontal collectivism is associated with a conceptualization of power in socialized terms (i.e., power is for benefiting and helping others). Cultural variables are shown to predict beliefs about appropriate uses of power, episodic memories about power, attitudes in the service of power goals, and the contexts and ways in which power is used and defended. Evidence for the cultural patterning of power concepts is observed at both the individual level and the cultural-group level of analysis.

The "me" I claim to be: cultural self-construal elicits self-presentational goal pursuit.

In 12 studies, respondents with an independent (vs. interdependent) self-construal showed an increased tendency and readiness to present themselves as skillful and capable and a decreased tendency and readiness to present themselves as socially sensitive and appropriate. This emerged in the form of differential scores on direct measures of self-presentation-self-deceptive enhancement and impression management (Study 1), differential social sensitivity in a gift-giving scenario (Study 2), differential performance on questions assessing general knowledge (Studies 5-6) and etiquette (Studies 7-8), and different choices between tests purportedly measuring one's self-reliance versus social-appropriateness (Studies 9A and 9D). These relationships were observed when participants focused on their own self-presentational concerns but disappeared when participants focused on others' outcomes (Study 3) or when they had a prior opportunity to satisfy their goals via self-affirmation (Studies 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9B, 9D). Finally, self-construal effects were eliminated or reversed when participants were led to doubt their ability to achieve their self-presentational goals (Study 9C).

Identity-Based Motivation: Constraints and Opportunities in Consumer Research.

This commentary underscores the integrative nature of the identity-based motivation model (Oyserman, 2009). We situate the model within existing literatures in psychology and consumer behavior, and illustrate its novel elements with research examples. Special attention is devoted to, 1) how product- and brand-based affordances constrain identity-based motivation processes and, 2) the mindsets and action tendencies that can be triggered by specific cultural identities in pursuit of consumer goals. Future opportunities are suggested for researching the antecedents of product meanings and relevant identities.

What is the relation between cultural orientation and socially desirable responding?

Research suggests that collectivists are more likely to engage in deception and socially desirable responding to maintain good relationships with others. In contrast, individualists are portrayed as candid and sincere because individualism encourages people to "be yourself." The authors propose that people with both types of cultural orientations or backgrounds engage in desirable responding, albeit in distinct ways. In Study 1, respondents from the United States compared with those from Singapore, and European Americans compared with Asian Americans, scored higher on self-deceptive enhancement (SDE)-the tendency to see oneself in a positive light and to give inflated assessment of one's skills and abilities- but lower on impression management (IM) by misrepresenting their self-reported actions to appear more normatively appropriate. In Studies 2 to 4, horizontal individualism as a cultural orientation correlated with SDE but not with IM, whereas horizontal collectivism correlated with IM but not with SDE. Further analyses examining (a) individual differences in the tendency to answer deceptively and (b) responses to behavioral scenarios shed additional light on the culturally relevant goals served by these distinct types of socially desirable responding.