The cultural psychology of surprise: Causal theories, contradiction, and epistemic curiosity.

Abstract

The present dissertation examined the hypothesis that if a person holds an unspecified interactionist theory about the world, she tends to take inconsistency or contradiction for granted and consequently is less likely to experience such phenomenological states as surprise, which are crucial for epistemic curiosity. Four studies were conducted to test the hypothesis by contrasting Koreans, who are known to have a more interactionist epistemology, with Americans, whose epistemology is less interactional. Studies 1 and 2 investigated whether Koreans would show greater hindsight bias and experience weaker surprise for an unexpected behavior. When a very religious person did not help another person in need (Study 1), Koreans, unlike Americans, acted as if they could have predicted such a non-helpful behavior from the religious person and showed little surprise. Such reactions of Koreans were self-contradicting given their strong foresight expectation that the target person would help the victim. Study 2 replicated Study 1 by reversing the expectations about the target. When a selfish and less helpful person helped another person in need, Koreans, unlike Americans, acted again as if they knew it all along. More interestingly, Koreans' reactions to the target's behavior were little different regardless of whether the target person helped or did not help the victim. If helping was surprising, then non-helping should not be surprising and vice versa. Studies 3 and 4 further explored cultural differences in the experience of contradiction. Study 3 attempted to create a sense of contradiction by providing an alternative outcome along with a target outcome. This manipulation was expected to induce participants to realize that the alternative, not the target, outcome, could have occurred, resulting in a sense of contradiction. Study 4 created a contradiction in a more direct way by flatly reversing a belief participants had just been induced to hold. In both studies, American participants experienced such psychological states as feelings of surprise, interestingness, and novelty that are crucial in epistemic curiosity. However, Korean participants displayed these psychological states to a much lesser degree. Implications for the development of science and for many important social psychological phenomena were discussed.