Negotiable Fate

Social Ecological Foundation and Psychological Functions

Au, Evelyn W. M.
Chiu, Chi-yue
Zhang, Zhi-Xue
Mallorie, LeeAnn
Chaturvedi, Avinish
Viswanathan, Madhu
Savani, Krishna

¹Singapore Management University, Singapore
²Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
³Peking University, Beijing, China
⁴University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois, USA
⁵Columbia Business School, New York, New York, USA

Evelyn W. M. Au, 90 Stamford Road, Level 4, School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University, Singapore, 178903. Email: [email protected]

Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 43(6):p 931-942, August 2012. | DOI: 10.1177/0022022111421632

Individuals can negotiate with fate for control through exercising personal agency within the limits that fate has determined, a belief that is referred to as negotiable fate. The current study examined: (a) the social ecological factors that contribute to the prevalence of this belief in negotiable fate and; (b) the psychological functions it serves. The results from a cross-cultural study suggested that negotiable fate is more prevalent in contexts where individuals face many constraints in the pursuit of their goals (i.e., in Mainland China versus the United States), and it promotes active coping and positive self-views in those contexts. The importance of understanding how fate beliefs are linked to sociocultural contexts was discussed in reference to the psychological control literature and cultural psychology.