The “Ripple Effect”: Cultural Differences in Perceptions of the Consequences of Events

Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that people from East Asian cultural backgrounds make broader, more complex causal attributions than do people from Western cultural backgrounds. In the current research, the authors hypothesized that East Asians also would be aware of a broader, more complex distribution of consequences of events. Four studies assessed cultural differences in perceptions of the consequences of (a) a shot in a game of pool, (b) an area being converted into a national park, (c) a chief executive officer firing employees, and (d) a car accident. Across all four studies, compared to participants from Western cultural backgrounds, participants from East Asian cultural backgrounds were more aware of the indirect, distal consequences of events. This pattern occurred on a variety of measures, including spontaneously generated consequences, estimations of an event's impact on subsequent events, perceived responsibility, and predicted affective reactions. Implications for our understanding of cross-cultural psychology and social perception are discussed.