Unpacking Cultural Differences in Interpersonal Flexibility

This research aimed to unpack cultural differences in interpersonal flexibility by examining the impact of culture on interpersonal flexibility via self-construal. In Study 1, a cross-cultural comparison in levels of interpersonal flexibility was performed and the hypothesized mediating role of an interdependent self-construal was tested. Participants included 92 Chinese and 87 Caucasian American university students. Results showed that Chinese participants generally reported greater interpersonal flexibility than their Caucasian American counterparts. Interdependent self-construal accounted for country differences in interpersonal flexibility. Study 2 adopted a cultural-priming paradigm to determine the causal role of culture in context-dependent information processing and interpersonal flexibility. In the experiment, 120 Chinese participants were presented with Chinese cultural, American cultural, or control primes. The dependent measures were context dependency and flexible responses across different negotiation tasks. Compared with participants presented with American primes, those presented with Chinese primes reported more context-dependent thoughts and displayed greater discriminative responses across interpersonal situations.