Faculty of Economics, Osaka University of Economics, Osaka, Japan.
Center for Information and Neural Networks (CiNet), National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Suita, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2022 May 17;12(1):8187. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-12163-y.
Guilt aversion, which describes the tendency to reduce the discrepancy between a partner's expectation and his/her actual outcome, is a key driving force for cooperation in both the East and West. A recent study based on functional magnetic resonance imaging and online behavioral experiments reported that men show stronger guilt aversion than women and also suggested that men's predominance in guilt aversion arises from stronger sensitivity to social norms. However, since the participants of that study were all Japanese, it remains unaddressed how common the gender difference in guilt aversion is. Here, we conducted online behavioral studies on people from Korea and the UK (Korea; n = 294, UK; n = 347) using the same trust game. We confirmed that men exhibit stronger guilt aversion than women in both countries. Furthermore, consistent with the Japanese study, our Lasso regression analysis for UK participants revealed that Big Five Conscientiousness (rule-based decision) correlated with guilt aversion in men. In contrast, guilt aversion in Korean men correlated with Big Five Neuroticism. Thus, our results suggest that gender differences in guilt aversion are universal but the underlying cognitive processes may be influenced by cultural differences.
内疚规避，即描述减少伴侣期望与其实际结果之间差距的倾向，是东西方合作的关键驱动力。最近一项基于功能磁共振成像和在线行为实验的研究表明，男性比女性表现出更强的内疚规避倾向，并且还表明男性在内疚规避方面的优势源于对社会规范更强的敏感性。然而，由于该研究的参与者均为日本人，因此尚不清楚内疚规避的性别差异有多普遍。在这里，我们使用相同的信任游戏，对来自韩国和英国的人（韩国：n=294，英国：n=347）进行了在线行为研究。我们确认了在这两个国家中，男性比女性表现出更强的内疚规避倾向。此外，与日本的研究一致，我们对英国参与者的套索回归分析表明，大五人格中的尽责性（基于规则的决策）与男性的内疚规避倾向相关。相比之下，韩国男性的内疚规避倾向与大五人格中的神经质相关。因此，我们的研究结果表明，内疚规避的性别差异是普遍存在的，但潜在的认知过程可能受到文化差异的影响。
