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Roles, Responsibility, and Accounts Across Cultures

1992; Wiley; Volume: 27; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00207599208246873

1464-066X

V. Lee Hamilton, Shigeru Hagiwara,

Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies

In research on the attribution of responsibility, increasing attention is being paid to the fact that responsibility judgments are social negotiations, not just the cognitions of isolated individuals. In this negotiating process, accounts , including excuses and justifications, may diminish or even eliminate responsibility for wrongdoing. This paper presents a perspective on responsibility attribution and reviews recent literature on accounts. It emphasizes the way in which aspects of social roles—specifically, the solidarity or closeness of the parties and their hierarchical or equal status—may affect the choice and effectiveness of accounts. A second theme is the way in which the impact of various accounts may vary across cultures: In this case, the United States vs . Japan. We pay special attention to differences between roles and between cultures in use of three accounts: denial (e.g. “I didn't do it”); consensus (e.g. “everyone does it”); and apology . The paper draws on pilot research carried out in the U.S. and Japan. Results showed that solidarity, hierarchy, and culture each affected the use of accounts, but sometimes in complex ways. We conclude by offering speculations and suggestions for future cross‐cultural research into the social psychology of attributing responsibility and offering accounts.