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.

Fundamental Questions in Cross-Cultural Psychology: Rethinking culture and the self: some basic principles and their implications

Hong Kong Chinese college students' cognitive responses to a person who gained some benefits from an unfair act for which he or she was not accountable were investigated. The results show that, despite it being evident to the subjects that the advantaged person was not responsible for the unfair act, they derogated that person's integrity. Moreover, though the one who benefited from the unfair act could attribute the benefit as unexpected gain, he or she still felt guilty. Subjects who imagined themselves to have lost in a fair competition for promotion also derogated the person who was promoted. This pattern of results suggests that blame assignment among Hong Kong Chinese college students may have been independent of causation and responsibility inferences.

Responses to Injustices by Hong Kong Chinese College Students

Although global brands entering local markets often use localized communication (i.e., incorporation of local cultural elements in their marketing communications), the fundamental question of when and why the local community would react favorably to this strategy is still not fully answered. This research draws on the communication accommodation theory to address this question. Results from four studies show that local consumers evaluate a global brand less positively when it incorporates high-symbolic (vs. low-symbolic) local cultural elements in its marketing communication. Notably, the positive effect of culturally polite communication on consumers’ evaluations of a global brand occurs only in the local market, but not when the communication occurs in another market. Moreover, localization efforts by a global brand result in a strong localness perception, which has a positive effect on brand evaluation. Indeed, a strong localness perception of the global brand could even overshadow the need for culturally polite communication

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0022022119893464

Culturally Polite Communication: Enhancing the Effectiveness of the Localization Strategy

Multicultural experiences and intercultural communication

https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1536&context=soss_research

Chi-Yue Chiu

Papers

Fundamental Questions in Cross-Cultural Psychology: Rethinking culture and the self: some basic principles and their implications

Responses to Injustices by Hong Kong Chinese College Students

Culturally Polite Communication: Enhancing the Effectiveness of the Localization Strategy

Multicultural experiences and intercultural communication

Do Multicultural Experiences Make People More Creative? If So, How?