There is recognition that an understanding of the situation is essential to our understanding of behavior, but that there is a scarcity of resources for situational analysis. Most studies use individual perceptions of behaviors as input for situational analysis. Such analyses, however, make the situation a projection of personality processes. To identify one aspect of the objective situation, this study extends the work of Marwell and Hage by developing culture-level taxonomies of role dyads, defined in terms of objective context variables, in two cultures: Hong Kong and Australia. The results reveal similarity of culture-level relational space defined by four dimensions: complexity, equality, adversarialness, and containment. Cultural differences are expressed in the location of role dyads within this space. These differing positions of any given role dyad may be combined with personality variables in the future to help explain differences in social behavior.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Biddle, B. J. , & Thomas, E. J. (1966). Role theory: Concepts and research. New York: Wiley.
2.
Bond, M. H. (1998). Managing culture in studies of communication: A futurescape. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 8, 31-49.
3.
Chuang, Y. C. (1998). The cognitive structures of role norms in Taiwan. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 1, 239-251.
4.
Forgas, J. P. (1976). The perception of social episodes: Categorical and dimensional representations in two different social milieus. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 199-209.
5.
Forgas, J. P. , & Bond, M. H. (1985). Cultural influences on the perception of interaction episodes. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 11, 75-88.
6.
Gao, G. (1996). Self and other: A Chinese perspective on interpersonal relationships. In W. B. Gudykunst, S. Ting-Tomey, & T. Nishida (Eds.), Communication in personal relationships across cultures (pp. 81-101). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
7.
Goldberg, L. R. , & Digman, J. M. (1994). Revealing structure in the data: Principles of exploratory factor analysis. In S. Strack & M. Lorr (Eds.), Differentiating normal and abnormal personality (pp. 216-242). New York: Springer.
8.
Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s consequences: International differences in work-related values. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
9.
Hofstede, G. (1995). Multilevel research of human systems: Flowers, bouquets and gardens. Human Systems Management, 14, 207-217.
10.
Hofstede, G. , Neuijen, B., Ohayv, D. D., & Sanders, G. (1990). Measuring organizational cultures: A qualitative and quantitative study across twenty cases. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35, 286-316.
11.
Jaccard, J. , & Dittus, P. (1990). Idiographic and nomothetic perspectives on research methods and data analysis. In C. Hendrick & M. S. Clark (Eds.), Research methods in personality and social psychology (pp. 312-350). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
12.
James, L. R. , Demaree, R. G., & Wolf, G. (1984). Estimating within-group interrater reliability with and without response bias. Journal of Applied Psychology, 69, 85-98.
13.
Linton, R. (1936). The study of man. New York: Appleton-Century.
14.
Marwell, G. , & Hage, J. (1970). The organization of role-relationships: A systematic description. American Sociological Review, 35, 884-900.
15.
Pervin, L. A. (1976). A free-response description approach to the analysis of person-situation interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 465-474.
16.
Pervin, L. (1986). Persons, situations, interactions: Perspectives on a recurrent issue. In A. Campbell & J. J. Gibb (Eds.), Violent transactions: The limits of personality (pp. 15-26). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
17.
Pervin, L. A. (1996). Personality: A view of the future based on a look at the past. Journal of Research in Personality, 30, 309-318.
18.
Seeman, M. (1997). The neglected, elusive situation in social psychology. Social Psychology Quarterly, 60, 4-13.
19.
Shoda, Y. , & Mischel, W. (1996). Towards a unified, intra-individual dynamic conception of personality. Journal of Research in Personality, 30, 414-428.
20.
Ten Berge, J. M. F. (1986). Rotatie naar perfecte congruentie en de multipele groep methode. Nederlands Tijdschrift voor de Psychologie, 41, 218-225.
21.
Triandis, H. C. (1977). Interpersonal behavior. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.
22.
Triandis, H. C. , McGuire, H., Saral, T., Yang, K., Loh, W., & Vassiliou, V. (1972). A cross-cultural study of role perception. In H. C. Triandis (Ed.), The analysis of subjective culture (chap. 8). New York: Wiley.
23.
Triandis, H. C. , Vassiliou, V., & Nassiakou, M. (1968). Three cross-cultural studies of subjective culture. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Monograph, 8(Pt. 2), 1-42.
24.
Tucker, L. R. (1951). A method of synthesis of factor analysis studies (Personnel Research Section Report No. 984). Washington, DC: Dept. of the Army.
25.
van de Vijver, F. J. R. , & Poortinga, Y. H. (1994). Methodological issues in cross-cultural studies on parental rearing behavior and psychopathology. In C. Perris, W. A. Arrindell, & M. Eisemann (Eds.), Parental rearing and psychopathology (pp. 173-197). Chichester, UK: Wiley.
26.
Yang, K. S. (1970). Authoritarianism and evaluation of appropriateness of role behavior. Journal of Social Psychology, 80, 171-181.
