School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University, Singapore.
Int J Psychol. 2011 Dec;46(6):463-74. doi: 10.1080/00207594.2011.578138. Epub 2011 Nov 10.
Negotiable fate refers to the idea that one can negotiate with fate for control, and that people can exercise personal agency within the limits that fate has determined. Research on negotiable fate has found greater prevalence of related beliefs in Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Eastern Europe than in Western Europe and English-speaking countries. The present research extends previous findings by exploring the cognitive consequences of the belief in negotiable fate. It was hypothesized that this belief enables individuals to maintain faith in the potency of their personal actions and to remain optimistic in their goal pursuits despite the immutable constraints. The belief in negotiable fate was predicted to (a) facilitate sense-making of surprising outcomes; (b) increase persistence in goal pursuits despite early unfavorable outcomes; and (c) increase risky choices when individuals have confidence in their luck. Using multiple methods (e.g., crosscultural comparisons, culture priming, experimental induction of fate beliefs), we found supporting evidence for our hypotheses in three studies. Furthermore, as expected, the cognitive effects of negotiable fate are observed only in cultural contexts where the fate belief is relatively prevalent. Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the intersubjective approach to understanding the influence of culture on cognitive processes (e.g., Chiu, Gelfand, Yamagishi, Shteynberg, & Wan, 2010), the sociocultural foundations that foster the development of a belief in negotiable fate, and an alternative perspective for understanding the nature of agency in contexts where constraints are severe. Future research avenues are also discussed.
可协商的命运是指一个人可以与命运协商以获得控制的想法，并且人们可以在命运确定的限制内行使个人能动性。关于可协商命运的研究发现，与命运协商相关的信仰在东南亚、东亚和东欧比在西欧和英语国家更为普遍。本研究通过探索对可协商命运的信仰的认知后果，扩展了先前的研究结果。假设这种信仰使个体能够保持对个人行动的力量的信念，并在目标追求中保持乐观，尽管存在不可改变的限制。可协商命运的信仰预计会：(a) 促进对意外结果的解释；(b) 尽管早期结果不利，仍能增加目标追求的坚持；(c) 当个人对自己的运气有信心时，增加冒险选择。使用多种方法（例如，跨文化比较、文化启动、命运信仰的实验诱导），我们在三项研究中发现了对我们假设的支持证据。此外，正如预期的那样，可协商命运的认知效应仅在命运信仰相对普遍的文化背景下观察到。这些发现的意义在与理解文化对认知过程的影响的主体间方法（例如，Chiu、Gelfand、Yamagishi、Shteynberg 和 Wan，2010）、促进可协商命运信仰发展的社会文化基础以及在约束严重的情况下理解能动性本质的替代视角有关。还讨论了未来的研究途径。
