Ishii Keiko, Eisen Charis
Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Informatics, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan.
Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Humanities, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan.
Front Psychol. 2018 Aug 8;9:1426. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01426. eCollection 2018.
One's generosity to others declines as a function of social distance, which is known as social discounting. We examined cultural similarities and differences in social discounting and the mediating roles of the two aspects of interdependence (self-expression and distinctiveness of the self) as well as the two aspects of independence (harmony-seeking and rejection avoidance). Using the same procedure that previous researchers used to test North Americans, Study 1 showed that compared to North Americans, Japanese discount more steeply a partner's outcomes compared to their own future outcomes, whereas the decrease in the subjective value of the partner's outcomes accelerates less as a function of social distance. To examine the cultural similarities and differences in social discounting in more detail, Study 2 tested Japanese and Germans and found that the hyperbolic with exponent model fitted the participants' discounting behaviors better than the other models, except for the loss condition in Germans where the utility of the -exponential model was indicated. Moreover, although the social discounting rate was higher in Japanese than in Germans, the cultural difference was limited to the gain frame. However, the decline in a person's generosity accelerated less as a function of social distance in Japanese than in Germans. Furthermore, the cultural difference in the social discounting in gains was mediated by the level of harmony-seeking, which was higher in Germans than in Japanese. Implications for individuals' generosity against the backdrop of cultural characteristics are discussed.
一个人对他人的慷慨程度会随着社会距离的增加而降低，这被称为社会折扣。我们研究了社会折扣中的文化异同，以及相互依存的两个方面（自我表达和自我独特性）和独立的两个方面（寻求和谐和避免拒绝）的中介作用。研究1采用了之前研究人员测试北美人时使用的相同程序，结果表明，与北美人相比，日本人在评估合作伙伴的结果与自己未来的结果时，折扣幅度更大，而合作伙伴结果的主观价值随着社会距离的增加而下降的速度则较慢。为了更详细地研究社会折扣中的文化异同，研究2对日本人和德国人进行了测试，发现除了德国人在损失条件下指数模型的效用得到体现外，指数双曲线模型比其他模型更能拟合参与者的折扣行为。此外，尽管日本人的社会折扣率高于德国人，但文化差异仅限于收益框架。然而，与德国人相比，日本人的慷慨程度随着社会距离的增加而下降的速度较慢。此外，收益方面社会折扣的文化差异是由寻求和谐的程度介导的，德国人比日本人更高。本文还讨论了文化特征背景下个人慷慨行为的影响。
