Responses of Taiwanese graduate students to favor requests from different social targets (peer vs. superior) were compared across two scenarios. Factors influencing the decision to accept or reject the request were also explored. When the favor request was consistent with the relational context (academic research), participants were more likely to accept the request from a professor than from a classmate. Those who accepted the professor’s request were more likely to report authority-oriented reasons. When the content of the favor request was inconsistent with the relational context, participants tended to reject the request from both a professor and a classmate. Those who rejected the professor’s request reported more self-assertive reasons for their decision. Although participants rated Rational Reciprocity as the most important factor in making their decision, interpersonal closeness seemed to be a major concern in deciding to do a favor for a peer. Social interactions for acquaintances in a Confucian society are influenced by Confucian ethics advocating the principle of respecting the superior and the principle of favoring the intimate, rather than solely by the principle of social exchange.
Blau, P. (1964). Exchange and power in social life. New York: Wiley .
2.
Chadwick-Jones, J. K. (1976). Distributive justice, injustice and reciprocity. In Social exchange theory: Its structure and influence in social psychology (pp. 242-276). New York: Academic Press .
3.
Choiu, J. (2001). Horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism among college students in the United States, Taiwan, and Argentina . Journal of Social Psychology, 141, 667-678 .
4.
Emerson, R. (1981). Social exchange. In M. Rosenberg & R. Turner (Eds.), Social psychology: Sociological perspectives (pp. 30-65). New York: Basic Books .
5.
Fiske, A. P. (1991). Structures of social life: The four elementary forms of human relations. New York: Free Press .
6.
Fiske, A. P. (1992). The four elementary forms of society: Framework for a unified theory of social relations . Psychological Review, 99, 688-723 .
7.
Gouldner, A. W. (1960). The norm of reciprocity: A preliminary statement . American Sociological Review, 25, 161-178 .
8.
Greenberg, M. S. (1980). A theory of indebtedness. In K. Gergen , M. Greenberg , & R. Wills (Eds.), Social exchange: Advances in theory and research (pp. 3-26). New York: Plenum .
9.
Greenberg, M. S. , Block, M. W. , & Silverman, M. A. (1971). Determinants of helping behavior: Person’s rewards versus other’s costs . Journal of Personality, 39, 79-93 .
10.
Greenberg, M. S. , & Frisch, D. M. (1972). Effect of intentionality on willingness to reciprocate a favor . Journal of Experimental Social Personality, 8, 99-111 .
11.
Heine, S. J. , & Lehman, D. R. (1999). Cultural, self-discrepancies, and self-satisfaction . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 915-925 .
12.
Heine, S. J. , Lehman, D. R. , Markus, H. R. , & Kitayama, S. (1999). Is there a universal need for positive self-regard?Psychological Review, 106, 766-794 .
13.
Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s consequences: International differences in worked-related values. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage .
14.
Homans, G. (1961). Social behavior: Its elementary forms. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World .
15.
Hong, Y. Y. , & Chiu, C. Y. (2001). Toward a paradigm shift: From cross-cultural differences in social cognition to social-cognitive mediation of cultural differences . Social Cognition, 19, 181-196 .
16.
Hong, Y. Y. , Morris, M. W. , Chiu, C. Y. , & Benet-Martinez, V. (2000). A dynamic constructivist approach to culture and cognition . American Psychologist, 55, 709-720 .
17.
Hwang, K. K. (1987). Face and favor: Chinese power game . American Journal of Sociology, 92, 944-974 .
18.
Hwang, K. K. (2000). Chinese relationalism: Theoretical construction and methodological considerations . Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 30, 155-178 .
19.
Hwang, K. K. (2001). The deep structure of Confucianism: A social psychological approach . Asian Philosophy, 11(3), 179-204 .
20.
Kashima, Y. , Yamaguchi, S. , Kim, U. , Choi, S. , Gelfand, M. J. , & Yuki, M. (1995). Culture, gender, and self: A perspective from Individualism-Collectivism research . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 925-937 .
21.
Kitayama, S. , Markus, H. R. , Matsumoto, H. , & Norasakkunkit, U. (1997). Individual and collective processes in the construction of the self: Self-enhancement in the United States and self-criticism in Japan . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 1245-1267 .
22.
Leung, K. , & Bond, M. H. (1984). The impact of cultural collectivism on reward allocation . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 793-804 .
23.
Li, M. C. (1993). From research results of fairness - Judgment to see the boundaries of Chinese self and others . Indigenous Psychological Research in Chinese Societies, 1, 267-300 [in Chinese].
24.
Liu, I. (1986). Chinese cognition. In M. H. Bond (Ed.), The psychology of the Chinese people (pp.73-105). New York: Oxford University Press .
25.
Markus, H. R. , & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation . Psychological Review, 98, 224-253 .
26.
Markus, H. R. , & Kitayama, S. (1994). A collective fear of the collective: Implications for selves and theories of selves . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 568-579 .
27.
Miller, J. G. (2002). Bringing culture to basic psychological theory - Beyond individualism and collectivism: Comment on Oyserman et al . (2002). Psychological Bulletin, 128, 97-109 .
28.
Oyserman, D. , Coon, H. M. , & Kemmelmeier, M. (2002). Rethinking individualism and collectivism: Evaluation of theoretical assumptions and meta-analyses . Psychological Bulletin, 128, 3-72 .
29.
Roloff, M. E. (1987). Communication and reciprocity within intimate relationships. In M. E. Roloff & G. R. Miller (Eds.), Interpersonal processes: New directions in communication research (pp. 11-38). Newbury Park, CA: Sage .
30.
Sampson, E. E. (1988). The debate on individualism: Indigenous psychologies of the individual and their role in personal and societal functioning . American Psychologist, 43, 15-22 .
31.
Spencer-Oatey, H. (1997). Unequal relationships in high and low power distance societies: A comparative study of tutor-student role relations in Britain and China . Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 28, 284-302 .
32.
Thibaut, J. W. , & Kelley, H. H. (1959). The social psychology of groups. New York: Wiley .
33.
Trafimow, D. , Silverman, E. S. , Fan, R. M. , & Law, J. S. (1997). The effects of language and priming on the relative accessibility of the private self and the collective self . Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 28, 107-123 .
34.
Trafimow, D. , Triandis, H. C. , & Goto, S. G. (1991). Some tests of the distinction between the private self and the collective self . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 649-655 .
35.
Triandis, H. C. (1989). The self and social behavior in different cultural contexts . Psychological Review, 96, 506-520 .
36.
Wei, C. F. , & Hwang, K. K. (1998). Positive duties and negative duties: A cross-cultural comparison of moral judgment between Taiwanese and American college students . Chinese Journal of Psychology, 40, 137-153 [in Chinese].
37.
Yang, K. S. (1992). Social orientation of Chinese: A perspective from social interaction. In K. S. Yang & A. B. Yu (Eds.), The psychology and behavior of the Chinese - Conceptions and methods (pp. 87-142). Taipei, Taiwan: Kuei-Kuan [in Chinese].
38.
Yang, K. S. (1996). The psychological transformation of the Chinese people as a result of societal modernization. In M. H. Bond (Ed.), The handbook of Chinese psychology!(pp. 479-498). Hong Kong: Oxford University Press .
39.
Zhang, Z. , & Yang, C. (1998). Beyond distributive justice: The reasonableness norm in Chinese reward allocation . Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 1, 253-269 .
