The Effect of Cultural Adaptation on Perceived Trustworthiness

Abstract

This study is an experimental investigation of the effect of cultural adaptation by American business people on their trustworthiness as perceived by Chinese business people in the People's Republic of China. The sample consists of 124 Chinese professionals, who read either one of the four stories that differ in degrees of Americans' cultural adaptation: none, moderate, high using English language, and high using the native language (i.e., Chinese language). The results show that the high adaptation using the native language condition results in higher disconfirmation of the adaptor's stereotypes than does the no adaptation condition, and the high adaptation using English condition leads to more disconfirmation than do the moderate adaptation and the no adaptation conditions. The high adaptation using the native language condition is perceived to be more situationally caused than is the high adaptation using English condition, which in turn is perceived to be more situationally caused than is the no adaptation condition. The moderate adaptation was not perceived to be more situationally caused than was the no adaptation. Although the no adaptation condition is attributed to relatively more dispositional (i.e., less situational) causes than are the two high adaptation conditions, it is rated lowerin perceived trustworthiness than is high adaptation using the native language, contradicting the findings of some earlier studies in the case of Japanese adapting to Americans but replicating the results of Pornpitakpan's (1998) study in the case of Americans adapting to Thais and Japanese.