ATTRIBUTIONAL BIASES IN INDIVIDUALISTIC AND COLLECTIVISTIC CULTURES - A COMPARISON OF AMERICANS WITH SAUDIS

The individualism/collectivism distinction led to hypotheses that Saudis, in comparison with Americans, would engage in 1) fewer internal attributions, 2) less self-serving bias, 3) more in-group-serving bias (both family-serving and in-group nationality-serving), and 4) more out-group-derogating bias. It was also predicted that in both cultures, immoral behavior and successful achievement would result in more internal attributions than would moral behavior or failure. A sample of university students in each country made attributions from eight vignettes. As expected, Americans were more internal and Saudis showed more out-group-derogating and intergroup bias. Both cultures also showed the predicted difference in attributions for morality and achievement. Although individual-level measurements showed Saudis to be more collectivistic than Americans, these measures had no significant effect on attributions, once culture was controlled.