TY - JOUR
T1 - How effective are different accounts of harm-doing in softening victims' reactions? A scenario investigation of the effects of severity, relationship, and culture
AU - Fukuno, Mitsuteru
AU - Obuchi, Kenichi
PY - 1998/1/1
Y1 - 1998/1/1
N2 - In order to examine the effects of different types of accounts in terms of the victims' reactions, we presented 193 American and 186 Japanese participants with scenarios in which an actor unintentionally harmed someone and then gave one of five different accounts. We asked the participants to estimate how the victim would react (emotional alleviation, impression improvement, or forgiveness) to these accounts. The participants rated that the victims would make more positive reactions to the mitigative accounts (apology or excuse) but more negative reactions to the assertive accounts (the denial). Although the reactions to accounts became generally more negative when the harm was severe, the mitigative accounts were more likely to be accepted by the victim than the assertive ones. As compared with the Japanese, the Americans rated the victim as more increasing their impression improvement reactions to one type of justification but more decreasing it to the denial. However, these results did not match the cultural preference of accounts, thereby casting doubt over the validity of cultural efficacy theory.
AB - In order to examine the effects of different types of accounts in terms of the victims' reactions, we presented 193 American and 186 Japanese participants with scenarios in which an actor unintentionally harmed someone and then gave one of five different accounts. We asked the participants to estimate how the victim would react (emotional alleviation, impression improvement, or forgiveness) to these accounts. The participants rated that the victims would make more positive reactions to the mitigative accounts (apology or excuse) but more negative reactions to the assertive accounts (the denial). Although the reactions to accounts became generally more negative when the harm was severe, the mitigative accounts were more likely to be accepted by the victim than the assertive ones. As compared with the Japanese, the Americans rated the victim as more increasing their impression improvement reactions to one type of justification but more decreasing it to the denial. However, these results did not match the cultural preference of accounts, thereby casting doubt over the validity of cultural efficacy theory.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0032341417&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=0032341417&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/1467-839X.00011
DO - 10.1111/1467-839X.00011
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0032341417
VL - 1
SP - 167
EP - 178
JO - Asian Journal of Social Psychology
JF - Asian Journal of Social Psychology
SN - 1367-2223
IS - 2
ER -