Joan G. Miller

Culture and the Role of Choice in Agency

Three cross-cultural studies conducted among U.S. and Indian adults compared perceptions of helping friends in strongly versus weakly expected cases, views of helping family versus strangers, and responses to a self-determination motivation scale. Expectations to help family and friends were positively correlated with satisfaction and choice only among Indians and not among Americans. Also, whereas U.S. respondents associated lesser satisfaction and choice with strongly versus weakly socially expected helping, Indian respondents associated equal satisfaction and choice with the 2 types of cases. Providing evidence of the importance of choice in collectivist cultures, the results indicate that social expectations to meet the needs of family and friends tend to be more fully internalized among Indians than among Americans. Methodologically, the results also highlight the need to incorporate items that tap more internalized meanings of role-related social expectations on measures of motivation in the tradition of self-determination theory.

Including Deontic Reasoning as Fundamental to Theory of Mind

While recognizing major contributions of the contemporary theory-of-mind framework, we identify conceptual and cultural gaps with respect to its inattention to deontic considerations. The framework has tended to portray behavior as purely self-directed, thereby neglecting everyday reasoners’ understanding of behavior as normatively based. However, in everyday reasoning, belief-desire (theory of mind) and obligation-permission (deontic) concerns interrelate. Moreover, both belief-desire reasoning and obligation-permission reasoning are early developing, universal, and inseparable in children’s understanding of persons. Thus, for both conceptual and empirical reasons, deontic and mentalistic perspectives should be seen as interdependent and integrated in understanding theory of mind.

Developing conceptions of responsive intentional agents

We argue that folk psychology and folk morality both develop from the same core conception of persons, namely a concept of a responsive intentional agent. Key features of this conception are evident in infancy and develop universally in the preschool years across cultures and languages. Even these early understandings develop, shaped and specified via processes of cognitive construction intertwined with cultural constructs of persons provided within interactive culturally constituted, communicative experiences of childhood. The result is culturally variable endpoints of social cognitive development, that is, culturally variable folk psychologies and folk moralities. We underwrite this argument with data from studies of theory of mind understandings, moral judgments, person description and explanation, and autobiographical memory, research that spans from infancy to adulthood and includes a variety of cultural communities.

Parent–Adolescent Relationships in the Context of Interpersonal Disagreements View from a Collectivist Culture

The paper is based on a study that aims to understand adolescent–parent relationships in the context of interpersonal disagreements. The issue of disagreements or disputes between parents and adolescents is of interest because of its relevance to understanding universal versus culturally variable features of adolescent development and parent–adolescent relationships. The study focused on understanding the dynamics of dispute resolution in Indian families, particularly the strategies of resolution and the patterns of reasoning involved in the same. A sample of 60 adolescents and their parents from nuclear, Hindu, upper middle class urban families was interviewed to examine their understanding of adolescence, perceptions of mutual expectations, and views on resolving two hypothetical disagreements on marriage partner selection and heterosexual relationships. The findings revealed little acknowledgement of adolescence as a clearly demarcated stage of development. In general, both adolescents and parents had positive perceptions of themselves as adolescents and parents of adolescents. Resolution of disagreements included the active involvement of all parties. Mutual accommodation was the most commonly used strategy for resolving disagreements. Adolescents endorsed resolutions favouring compromise with parents, based on the reasoning that parents had the welfare of their children in mind. Parents on their part adopted an open–minded attitude toward the adolescents’ activities and allowed them space to articulate their own views. A primary motivation to sustain the values of family interdependence and harmony was clearly reflected in the sample.

The Moral Emotions of Guilt and Satisfaction: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

Major psychological theories of morality and motivation make the assumption that an inverse relationship exists between guilt and satisfaction. To the extent that feelings of guilt are linked to a particular motivational or moral stance, it is assumed that feelings of satisfaction are unlikely also be linked to that stance. Empirical findings in the areas of motivation and morality indicate that in collectivist cultural settings that assume less opposition as existing between the individual and the social order, these emotions do not tend to be viewed as opposed in regard to prosocial behavior. Rather, there is a greater tendency for individuals to associate duty and guilt with satisfaction in the context of being responsive to the needs of family and friends. Attention is also given to how these contrasting motivational and moral outlooks develop and influence outlooks on dissent, with conclusions drawn for ways to conduct more culturally sensitive research.

Cultural variation in communal versus exchange norms: Implications for social support.

Whereas an interdependent cultural view of self has been linked to communal norms and to socially supportive behavior, its relationship to social support has been called into question in research suggesting that discomfort in social support is associated with an interdependent cultural view of self (e.g., Taylor et al., 2004). These contrasting claims were addressed in 2 studies conducted among Japanese, Indian, and American adults. Assessing everyday social support, Study 1 showed that Japanese and Americans rely on exchange norms more frequently than Indians among friends, whereas American rely on exchange norms more frequently than Indians and Japanese among siblings. Assessing responses to vignettes, Study 2 demonstrated that Japanese and Americans rely more frequently on exchange norms than Indians, with greatest relational concerns and most negative outlooks on social support observed among Japanese, less among Americans, and least among Indians. Results further indicated that relational concerns mediated the link between exchange norms and negative social support outlooks. Supporting past claims that relational concerns explain cultural variation in discomfort in social support (e.g., Kim, Sherman, & Taylor, 2008), the findings underscore the need to take into account as well the role of exchange norms in explaining such discomfort. The findings also highlight the existence of culturally variable approaches to exchange and call into question claims that discomfort in social support can be explained in terms of the global concept of an interdependent cultural view of self.

Taking Culture into Account in Social Cognitive Development

Cultural explanations have often been ignored in developmental psychology. The reasons for rejecting them are discussed and it is maintained that theories of development need to be culturally dependent. These reasons include the belief in the redundancy of collective and individual information, the argu ment that cultural learning is a passive and deterministic process and that cultural explanations do not predict and are unable to account for context effects and that cultural relativism is morally and logically indefensible. A review of cross-cultural research on person perception and interpersonal mo rality is presented. It is noted that cross-cultural attributional differences can be interpreted as resulting from contrasting cultural conceptions of the person and normative expectations. Further, in the area of interpersonal morality, contextual and developmental variations have highlighted the significance of cultural perspectives. Directions for future work are suggested.

A Cultural Psychology of Agency: Morality, Motivation, and Reciprocity:

We highlight the need to culturally broaden psychological theories of social development in providing an overview of our programs of cross-cultural research on interpersonal morality, motivation, and reciprocity. Our research demonstrates that whereas Americans tend to treat interpersonal morality as a matter of personal choice, Indians tend to treat it as a role-related duty. Furthermore, Americans associate greater satisfaction with acting autonomously than with acting to fulfill social expectations, whereas Indians associate high levels of satisfaction with both types of cases. We also demonstrate that cultural variation exists in reliance on communal norms versus reciprocal exchange norms in everyday social support interactions among American, Indian, and Japanese populations, with these norms providing a background for contrasting experiences of agency. In conclusion, we highlight the contributions of cultural research to basic psychological theory. Although cultural research provides greater awareness of diversity in psychological functioning, its fundamental value is to contribute new insights into the theoretical formulations and methodological stances adopted in the discipline more generally.

Culture and the Self: Implications for Psychological Theory

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by J.G. Miller, volume 5, pp. 3139–4313,

The Importance of Timing in Reciprocity: An Investigation of Reciprocity Norms Among Indians and Americans

After receiving help, individuals tend to experience an immediate increase in obligation to be responsive to the helper. Cross-cultural research has shown that whereas this sense of obligation dissipates for Americans after reciprocation, it remains unchanged after reciprocation for Indians. Is this decrease in obligation felt by Americans temporary, or can it endure over years such that it provides immunity from responding to the helper? And is there a statute of limitations on the experience of obligation for Indians? If individuals do not reciprocate, can obligation expire? We addressed these questions in a vignette-based experimental investigation involving American and Indian adults. Study 1 (N = 153) demonstrated that Americans but not Indians felt less obligation to aid the helper after reciprocation than in situations in which they had not reciprocated years after receiving a benefit. Reciprocation thus provided Americans, but not Indians, with immunity from being responsive to the helper. Study 2 (N = 141) demonstrated that Americans but not Indians felt less obligation years after as compared with months after receiving a benefit. The passage of time thus expired obligation to be responsive to the helper for Americans but not for Indians. Study 3 (N = 129) provided ecological validity to our hypotheses by assessing real-life friendships, showing how both reciprocations and time passage affect obligation independently and in combination. The findings imply that prosocial behavior is affected by both time passage and reciprocation among Americans but not Indians.