Browsing by Subject "cultural differences"

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    Differences in Empathic Concern and Perspective Taking Across 63 Countries
    (Sage, 2017-01) Chopik, William J.; O'Brien, Ed; Konrath, Sara H.; School of Philanthropy
    Cultural practices socialize people to relate to others in different ways. One critical way in which these interpersonal bonds are formed and maintained is via empathy, our emotional reactivity toward others’ experiences. However, the extent to which individuals from different cultures vary in their dispositional empathy, and the correlates of these differences, are relatively unknown. Thus, the current study explored cultural variation in empathy, and how this variation is related to psychological characteristics and prosocial behavior across cultures. Evidence from an original sample of 104,365 adults across 63 countries reveals that higher empathy countries also have higher levels of collectivism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, self-esteem, emotionality, subjective well-being, and prosocial behavior. These findings reveal that empathy is situated within a broader nomological network of other psychological characteristics, emotional expression and experiences, and prosocial behavior across cultures. The current study expands our understanding about how psychological characteristics vary across cultures and how these characteristics can manifest in broader national indicators of prosocial behavior.
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    PRODUCT RECALL STRATEGIES: UNITED STATES VS. CHINA
    (Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2012-04-13) Cross, LaKeisha; Rayner, Gabrielle; Flynn, Barbara B.; Feng, Hua
    A product recall is defined as an action by a manufacturer or distributor to remove a product from the market because it may possibly cause health problems or death (Zhao & Hu, 2011). Product recalls occur because of in-adequate inspection techniques, employees who are unfamiliar with the pro-cess, improper product design, etc. Companies can make decisions concern-ing their proactiveness/reactiveness (procedure) and compensation (out-come) toward the affected consumers when dealing with product harm cri-ses. Will there be national cultural differences in consumer responses to the-se decisions and in the proposed moderating effect of the degree of product hazard? Based on the above analysis, a quantitative analysis using ques-tionnaires was performed. The methodology was a controlled experiment, manipulating 2 levels of compensation (high vs. low), 2 recall strategies (proactive vs. reactive) and 2 levels of product hazard (high vs. low). A group of 200 undergraduate business students in the U.S. and Hong Kong were given surveys that assessed their purchase intention and other factors, based on the manipulated variables. Using t-test and one-way ANOVA anal-yses in SPSS 16.0, the results show that, when companies are proactive in their recall strategy, consumers care less about the outcome, no matter how severe the product hazard is, while, when companies use a passive recall strategy, consumers care more about the outcome. Although companies are not able to avoid recalls completely, it is important that they develop an ef-fective method to increase consumer repurchases and recover quickly when dealing with a product harm crisis. The results also demonstrate that both procedure and outcome have significant effect on consumers’ attitudinal and behavioral reactions. Further data is being collected to see if there is a sig-nificant difference between respondents in mainland China versus the U.S.