CULTURED MINDS

DISPOSITIONISM/SITUATIONISM

 

It is unsurprising that the Situationist folk theory and Holistic style of thinking (hallmarks of more collectivistic cultures) overlap - both emphasise viewing individuals as part of a broader social context. The distinction between Entity and Incremental theory mirrors this emphasis on individual versus context, so East Asians would be expected to more frequently hold the entity view (Choi, Nisbett & Norenzayan, 1998). Researchers also noticed that although Koreans (collectivist, holistic) and Americans (individualist, analytic) seemed equally likely to endorse a dispositionist theory of behaviour, Koreans agreed with a situationist theory more. Furthermore, in conditions where situational information was easily accessible, Koreans were more likely to apply situationist social inferences/explanations (Norenzayan, Choi & Nisbett, 2002). 

 

These beliefs can impact the way individuals interact with brands and how they process brand symbolism as well as how people narrate stories or understand/interpret events (potentially resulting in correspondence bias, also called fundamental attribution error).

 

 

 

Brand

Entity theorists are more likely to feel that brand personalities 'rub off' on them. For example, after using an MIT pen Entity theorists but not Incremental theorists felt more intelligent, hard working and leader-like (Park & John, 2010). The authors suggested that Entity theorists use a brands’ symbolism as a way to signal their own  positive qualities; thus they “enhance self-perceptions in line with the brand’s personality”.

 

 

Correspondence Bias

Experiments on Western samples reveal that when listening to a story/news report people often over-assign causality to individuals’ dispositions (personality traits) and under-assign it to situational factors. However, further research has established that the bias is more prevalent in Dispositionist versus Situationist believers (Choi, Nisbett, & Norenzayan, 1998; Morris & Peng, 1994; Peñarrieta, Rivera, Martinez, Muñoz & Piñones, 2009; Miyamoto & Kitayama, 2002). In his textbook ‘Cultural Psychology’ Steven J. Heine also suggests that differences in language e.g how languages convey the passive tense “he broke the vase” in English versus “the vase broke itself” in Spanish might be linked to differences in perceived causality.

 

 

Planning Fallacy

Related to correspondence bias is the Planning Fallacy (Buehler, Griffin, & Ross, 1994; Buehler, Griffin & Peetz, 2010). It is described as the “tendency to underestimate the number of situational constraints and their power to subvert the strongest of intentions”(Choi, Nisbett, & Norenzayan, 1998). So It follows that the fallacy might not cause as severe a problem for people who naturally pay more attention to situation as they have a heightened sensitivity to the effects of contextual factors.