To Accept One's Fate or Be Its Master: Culture, Control, and Workplace Choice.

Charis Eisen,Yuri Miyamoto,Xiaoming Ma,Hidefumi Hitokoto,Keiko Ishii

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00936

Charis Eisen, Yuri Miyamoto + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00936

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Abstract

Utilizing three student (Study 1) and non-student samples (Study 2), we examined cultural differences in workplace choice for North Americans, Germans, and Japanese. We focused on the desire for control as a potential mediator (i.e., the underlying mechanism) to explain cultural differences in this important life decision. Given culturally divergent embodiments of independent vs. interdependent models of agency, we expected and found that, compared to North Americans and Germans, Japanese were more likely to prefer a workplace with a payment system that maintains social order rather than one that rewards individual achievement. Furthermore, we found that Japanese tend to give greater consideration to family opinions in their choice of workplace. As predicted, desire for control (i.e., the motivation to have control over various events) was stronger for North Americans and Germans than Japanese, and explained cultural differences in choice of workplace.

Highlights

Previous studies have documented cultural differences in decision-making and the apparent motivations for these decisions (Heine and Lehman, 1997; Iyengar and Lepper, 1999; Kim and Markus, 1999; Kim and Drolet, 2003; Kitayama et al, 2004; Savani et al, 2008)
We examined whether the desire for control, which is expected to be higher in Western people such as North Americans and Germans than in East Asians such as Japanese, would lead people to choose a workplace that emphasizes individual achievements, and conform more to their own career aspirations than to the opinions of family members
To see the mechanism that underlies the cultural differences, we investigated whether the desire for control mediates the differences between Japanese and Westerners (Germans and North Americans, respectively) in their workplace choice

Summary

Introduction

Previous studies have documented cultural differences in decision-making and the apparent motivations for these decisions (Heine and Lehman, 1997; Iyengar and Lepper, 1999; Kim and Markus, 1999; Kim and Drolet, 2003; Kitayama et al, 2004; Savani et al, 2008). The present research addresses whether these cultural differences can be observed in choices that have significant implications in individuals’ real lives, such as the choice of one’s workplace (hereafter, referred to as workplace choice). We explore a possibility that cultural differences in choice are associated with different levels of desire for control over events. We examined whether the desire for control, which is expected to be higher in Western people such as North Americans and Germans than in East Asians such as Japanese, would lead people to choose a workplace that emphasizes individual achievements, and conform more to their own career aspirations than to the opinions of family members

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