.png){kind=icon}
.png){kind=icon}
Return
Cultural Differences in Vicarious Optimism
.png){kind=icon}
PRE
AI
DOI：10.1177/01461672251319566.png)
.png){kind=icon}
Original request for help.png){kind=icon}
Share.png){kind=icon}
Save
Abstract
En 中文
Prosocial behavior is affected by the beliefs people have about others. The maintenance of these beliefs is biased: people are vicariously optimistic when updating beliefs about the future of others they care about. This vicarious optimism influences prosocial behavior and might be shaped by the culture people live in. We investigated this question by measuring learning from good and bad news for oneself, friends, and strangers in a pre-registered study of Chinese and American participants (N = 963). American participants showed a stronger bias for better-than-expected good news over worse-than-expected bad news when learning about themselves (optimism bias) and others (vicarious optimism) compared to Chinese participants. Chinese participants showed vicarious optimism only when learning about a friend, while American participants showed the most vicarious optimism when learning about an identifiable stranger. Our results provide evidence that culture might shape social behavior by biasing learning about the future of others.
Keywords:
culture and cognition
learning
helping/prosocial behavior
optimism bias
vicarious optimism
Journal
IF:
2.9
Papers:
5.0K
Citations:
2.0W
Organization
View more organizations