Psychology - Correlation of Race, Attribution, and Culture - Essay Example

Discussion Social behaviour as indicated earlier are influenced by different attitudes, beliefs, culture, background, and ethni It is because ofthese aspects that govern individual thinking, behaviour, and make what they are. In studying the correlation of race, attribution and culture, it is imperative social behavioural dimensions must be taken into account in order to fully explore its implications, limitations and opportunities for future studies. The present study of ethnicity, attribution style, and racism attitudes, provide strong significant results and support for the predictions the study underline in various domains. First the results indicate that attribution style across cultures differed significantly between western and eastern culture. People who belonged to more western and individualistic cultures indicated to be more dispositional and less situational orientated than people from more collectivistic and eastern cultures, signifying that culture does influence how people are initially inclined to elucidate a given situation. The culture differences in attribution style is not unexpected considering the widespread research showing that attributions in Western cultures tend to be more dispositional, whereas attribution in Eastern cultures tend to be more situational (Shweder & Bourne, 1984). Secondly, the present study also extended the existing cross-cultural research by exploring and examining, if there were any significant relations between attribution style and racism attitudes, predicting that people, who are more dispositional orientated and more prone in making the fundamental attribution error, would indicate more racism attitudes. However, the study failed to replicate and find significant results in this domain, as there was found no significant correlation between attribution style and racism attitude across dispositional and situational orientation. This failure perhaps originates from the fundamental method and approach of the research. While earlier empirical studies have based their results on controlled experiments, this research has emphasized on random responses and reactions from the participants. The participants have been recruited from various ethnic groups, diversified in religious beliefs, age group, and gender. This is clearly evident from the diversity in sample population which comprise of the majority Muslim participants, a significant group of Christians and a small group of minorities. As a result the only controlled element in the sampling, the equal distribution of gender among the population does not actually reflect the population at large. Instead, had the sampling been randomly chosen based on differences in culture, religious beliefs, and geographical orientation (from which country they belong to) and so on, there might have been a difference in the research outcomes. What this would have allowed the researcher to achieve is diversity in the sampling at multiple levels. This has not been done due to time constraints and the researchers inability to venture further than Copenhagen to recruit willing participants. Nonetheless, the present results propose that cultural belief and values must be measured as an influencing factor, when studying models of social behaviour involving attribution processes. Perceived attribution style across the domain of cross-cultural research between Western and Eastern culture is and should be essential in theoretical models of social behaviour. It is as Kluckhon and Strodtbeck (1961) identified, cross cultural variation influence emotion, motivation and action because perspectives of control of causal attribution among different cultures differ. For this reason, the study of relevant cultural norms and values regarding attribution style may contribute to a better understanding of these phenomena. Future researchers might find it easier to tabulate the results of their experiments by first limiting cultures to two or three to fully explore the dimensions of the particular culture and its implications on the social behaviour on theoretical models and influence on perceived attribution, and then venture to multiple cultures and their comparisons. However, despite the encouraging support for the construct validity of the organizational culture and attribution measures, the study had a number of limitations and the present study, though, replicated the results of previous research regarding the connection between cultural background and attribution style, several implications emerge from the present study. First, cross-cultural research on attributions and attribution style would do well to go beyond the simple dispositional-situational distinction. It simply does not capture the shade of meaning essential to reveal systematic differences in preference. Most important and obvious is that currently available measures of collectivism and individualism should not be treated as either equivalent or adequate. At the very least there is an urgent need for the scales that measures these dimensions to be separate with reference to in-group at the individual level. This includes the scales used in measuring individualism and collectivism across cultures and the scales should also specify the relevant in-group. Parents and siblings provide near-universal in-groups. Co-workers, schoolmates, social friends, as well as broader collectives such as political parties, religious affiliation, and countries are categorized as other candidates (Triandis, 1995). Secondly, the questionnaire measuring attribution style (ASQ) have been defined as a satisfactory instrument with evidence of efficiency and reliability (Burnett, 1978), it still represents some controversial aspects. The questionnaire has been criticized for not asking individuals to rate their provided causes along the dimension of internality versus externality. Previous research studies have indicated that these ratings are less reliable than those of the stability and globality dimensions (Peterson, 1999). So perhaps for future research studies in the same domain, the ASQ should be modified to include internality versus externality attributed questions. Moreover, the questionnaires shortfall limits the scope of the results to elaborate on cultures which follow two-fold dimension of collectivism and individualism such as the case of Japan studied by Yamagishi, Ida (1995) and Takano et al (1999). Though the theoretical framework studied in the beginning of the research indicates that individualistic and collectivistic dimensions within a nation have significant influence over the dispositional and situational attribution style, it is not necessarily true in all instances. Racism too can contribute towards attribution style. However, the study has failed to replicate significant results for its prediction regarding attribution style and racism attitudes. The study predicted that people attributing more dispositionalism and as a results making more fundamental attribution error, would score higher on racism attitudes measured using the Symbolic Racism Scale questionnaire. The insignificant results obtained in this domain of the study may be due to methodological implications and weak validity of the actual questionnaire used. Some researchers (Snider & Tetlock, 1986) have questioned the concepts of this scale’s lack of definitional clarity and consensus, item content in symbolic racism scales often relate to politically controversial issues. It is therefore worthwhile and considerable to use other measures and scales of racism such as more behavioural orientated in future studies. What do these results of the questionnaire imply on the relationship of attribution style and racism? While researches indicate that racism is dispositional attribution, from a social point of view its primary causes such as educational level, job opportunities, or bequest discrimination are situational. This leads the researcher to understand that people having racist attitudes do not necessarily demonstrate dispositional attribution but may also be influenced by situational attribution. This understanding is inferred from the result of the questionnaire which accepts the hypothesis that Westerners and Easterners differ in their attitude towards racism and attribution style. This is specifically emphasized among male and female gender as well as individuals belonging to different religious groups. The significance of 90 percent confidence level indicates that both the variables racism and attribution style are correlated. However, combined the result of the questionnaires fail to capture the link between racism, attribution and culture because there is no correlation between individual or collective behaviour with racism. Racism stems from individual perception, and even fails to have any correlation with Western or Eastern upbringing. This nullifies the result of the questionnaire, and again leads the researcher to suggest on the adoption of a more demographic specific questionnaire with scales to emphasize on attributes that are critical for determining attributional style and its relationship with the other variables. Furthermore, while gender and religious background has been discussed at some lengths, the researcher has not the time and space to explore other arenas of the demographic variables such as age groups, ethnicity and educational ground. These though have been recorded but their significance not related in the above research. The researcher hopes by exploring their correlation with racism, attribution style can also be established with racism. So far, the researcher has not been able to definitely link attribution style with racism, which perhaps other researchers may delve into in their future studies. Regardless of these weaknesses in the research schema, the researcher is of the view that the above empirical research has established parameters for further studies on the subject of attribution style and its relation with culture. As far as the hypothesis that situational people are more prone to make fundamental attribution error, the study has accepted the hypothesis that attribution style is influenced by cultural background and racial attitudes of individuals. However, exceptions do occur which are independent of the situational background and in such cases dispositional attribution is often characteristics of the individuals attitude. This multi-fold results merely open doors for future research to explore if dispositional people are bound by their religious, educational, gender or ethnic beliefs. These aspects leads the researcher to the initial theoretical argument that social behaviour is complex and understanding human behaviour in the social context may result in success or failure depending on the variables one consider for its performance - locus, stability and controllability. However, controlled studies as mentioned earlier, do not personify the population at large and cannot be used to authenticate a complex theory such as attribution style and its relationship with other elements of human disposition. What a study needs to emphasize on in the future is finding the linkage between social behaviour and psychological behaviour in order to find the resolution of the current dilemma of racism, attribution style and culture, and their interaction. Read More