2003/08/01 by Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, Jeffrey Sanchez‐Burks, Fiona Lee +6 · 14 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Cognitive psychology #Collectivism #Cultural Differences and Values #Individualism #International Student and Expatriate Challenges #Psychology #Salience (neuroscience) #Social and Intergroup Psychology #Social psychology
paper · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.85.2.363
openalex publication_date 2003/08/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
Four experiments provided evidence that East-West differences in attention to indirect meaning are more pronounced in work settings compared with nonwork settings as suggested by prior research on Protestant relational ideology. Study 1 compared errors in interpreting indirect messages in work and nonwork contexts across three cultures. Studies 2 and 3 examined differences in self-reported indirectness with coworkers versus nonwork acquaintances across three cultures controlling for variation in individualism--collectivism. Study 4 examined self-reported indirectness in bicultural managers and experimentally manipulated the salience of Western versus Eastern culture. The results showed that Americans, but not East Asians, were less attentive to indirect cues in work than nonwork settings and that East-West differences in indirectness were greater in work than nonwork settings.