Conceptual and methodological ambiguities surrounding the concept of perceived behavioral control are clarified. It is shown that perceived control over performance of a behavior, though comprised of separable components that reflect beliefs about self-efficacy and about controllability, can nevertheless be considered a unitary latent variable in a hierarchical factor model. It is further argued that there is no necessary correspondence between self-efficacy and internal control factors, or between controllability and external control factors. Self-efficacy and controllability can reflect internal as well as external factors and the extent to which they reflect one or the other is an empirical question. Finally, a case is made that measures of perceived behavioral control need to incorporate self-efficacy as well as controllability items that are carefully selected to ensure high internal consistency.

Summary and Conclusions
Perceived control over performance of a behavior can account for consider- able variance in intentions and actions. However, ambiguities surrounding the concept of perceived behavioral control have tended to create uncertainties and to impede progress. The present article attempted to clarify conceptual ambiguities and resolve issues related to the operationalization of perceived behavioral control. Recent research has demonstrated that the overarching concept of perceived behavioral control, as commonly assessed, is comprised of two components: self-efficacy (dealing largely with the ease or difficulty of performing a behavior) and controllability (the extent to which performance is up to the actor). Contrary to a widely accepted view, it was argued that self-efficacy expectations do not necessarily correspond to beliefs about internal control factors, and that controllability expectations have no necessary basis in the perceived operation of external factors. Instead, it was suggested that self-efficacy and controllability may both reflect beliefs about the presence of internal as well as external factors. Rather than making a priori assumptions about the internal or external locus of self-efficacy and controllability, this issue is best treated as an empirical question.

Also of theoretical significance, the present article tried to dispel the notion that self-efficacy and controllability are incompatible with, or independent of, each other. Although factor analyses of perceived behavioral control items provide clear and consistent evidence for the distinction, there is sufficient commonality between self-efficacy and controllability to suggest a two-level hierarchical model. In this model, perceived behavioral control is the overarching, superordinate construct that is comprised of two lower-level components: self-efficacy and controllability. This view of the control component in the theory of planned behavior implies that measures of perceived behavioral control should contain items that assess self-efficacy as well as controllability. Depending on the purpose of the investigation, a decision can be made to aggregate over all items, treating perceived behavioral control as a unitary factor, or to distinguish between self-efficacy and controllability by entering separate indices into the prediction equation.

Perceived Behavioral Control, Self-Efficacy, Locus of Control, and the Theory of Planned Behavior

Behavioral scientists routinely publish broad claims about human psychology and behavior in the world's top journals based on samples drawn entirely from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Researchers - often implicitly - assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that these "standard subjects" are as representative of the species as any other population. Are these assumptions justified? Here, our review of the comparative database from across the behavioral sciences suggests both that there is substantial variability in experimental results across populations and that WEIRD subjects are particularly unusual compared with the rest of the species - frequent outliers. The domains reviewed include visual perception, fairness, cooperation, spatial reasoning, categorization and inferential induction, moral reasoning, reasoning styles, self-concepts and related motivations, and the heritability of IQ. The findings suggest that members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans. Many of these findings involve domains that are associated with fundamental aspects of psychology, motivation, and behavior - hence, there are no obvious a priori grounds for claiming that a particular behavioral phenomenon is universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation. Overall, these empirical patterns suggests that we need to be less cavalier in addressing questions of human nature on the basis of data drawn from this particularly thin, and rather unusual, slice of humanity. We close by proposing ways to structurally re-organize the behavioral sciences to best tackle these challenges.

/pdf/the-weirdest-people-in-the-world-480wr4m3kb.pdf

The WEIRDest People in the World

Are Americans more individualistic and less collectivistic than members of other groups? The authors summarize plausible psychological implications of individualism-collectivism (IND-COL), meta-analyze cross-national and within-United States IND-COL differences, and review evidence for effects of IND-COL on self-concept, well-being, cognition, and relationality. European Americans were found to be both more individualistic-valuing personal independence more-and less collectivistic-feeling duty to in-groups less-than others. However, European Americans were not more individualistic than African Americans, or Latinos, and not less collectivistic than Japanese or Koreans. Among Asians, only Chinese showed large effects, being both less individualistic and more collectivistic. Moderate IND-COL effects were found on self-concept and relationality, and large effects were found on attribution and cognitive style.

/pdf/rethinking-individualism-and-collectivism-evaluation-of-47xorn4mh7.pdf

Rethinking individualism and collectivism: evaluation of theoretical assumptions and meta-analyses.

/pdf/weird-languages-have-misled-us-too-comment-on-henrich-et-al-57dmcdjt24.pdf

WEIRD languages have misled us, too [Comment on Henrich et al.]

The Social Psychology of Organizations.

Responses to religious norm defection: The case of Hui Chinese Muslims not following the halal diet

The Invisible Hand is an Ideology: Toward a Social Psychology of Neoliberalism

Bickhard (2004) has made the following comments on the development of science:
 Every science passes through a phase in which it considered its basic subject matter to be some sort of substance or structure. Fire was identified with phlogiston; heat with caloric; and life with vital fluid. Every science has passed beyond that phase, recognizing its subject matter as being some sort of process: combustion in the case of fire; random thermal motion in case of heat; and certain kinds of far from thermodynamic equilibrium in the case of life. (p. 122) In the case of cross-cultural and cultural psychology, decades of research have revealed many substantive differences among cultures (see Chiu & Hong, 2006, 2007; Lehman, Chiu, & Schaller, 2004). The field is now ready to transition into a new phase “that empirically establishes linkages between the active cultural ingredients hypothesized to cause between-country differences and the observed differences themselves” (Matsumoto & Yoo, 2006, p. 234).

Cultural Processes: An Overview

Advances in Culture and Psychology: Volume 3

An experiment investigating Chinese consumer complaint behavior was conducted in the Sports Center at the University of Hong Kong. Subjects were 53 male and 6 female college students. The dependent variable was whether or not the students would complain after buying a faulty product. It was hypothesized that, because of the salience of face concern in Chinese culture, students would be less likely to complain when the complaint situation involved direct confrontation with the responsible party than when it did not. Results supported the hypothesis. Three attitudes toward complaining were compared: perceived cost of complaining, norms of complaining, and perceived societal benefits of complaining. Only the cost of complaining discriminated between complainers and noncomplainers. This pattern of results is very different from that found in the West.

Chi-Yue Chiu

Papers

Responses to religious norm defection: The case of Hui Chinese Muslims not following the halal diet

The Invisible Hand is an Ideology: Toward a Social Psychology of Neoliberalism

Cultural Processes: An Overview

Advances in Culture and Psychology: Volume 3

The Role of Face Situation and Attitudinal Antecedents in Chinese Consumer Complaint Behavior