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The term “team player” originated in a Western cultural context and can be summarized in the form of five task and two social roles. Yet, can these roles be replicated outside of a U.S. context and will their endorsement vary across cultures and employment status? To answer this exploratory question, we collected data from a total of 483 participants comprising 269 U.S. Americans, 110 Chinese, and 104 Koreans. Participants were asked to describe a team player in their native languages. Three coders per cultural group found more than 3,000 coding units based on the seven predetermined team player roles. The results, based on chi-square tests, show that participants from all three cultural groups consider a team player’s responsibilities to be multidimensional, possessing both task competencies and social skills. Nevertheless, the extent to which each culture emphasizes these two dimensions differs. Both U.S. American and Chinese participants prefer a balance between task roles and social roles, whereas Korean participants prioritize task roles over social roles. These findings provide empirical evidence that across the three cultural groups, broadly the same roles are expected of a team player; however, the U.S. and Chinese understandings were more similar than across the two Asian samples, questioning the often simplistic view of Asian cultures as being homogeneous and of Western and Asian cultures being at different ends of a spectrum of difference. Finally, findings suggest that incorporating explicit discussion about what being a team player entails is a necessary step in multicultural workplaces.

The current study was designed to examine the impacts of family communication patterns (FCP), relational closeness, and culture on adult children’s conflict styles with their parents. Participants ...

Spiritual beliefs shape ideas about the meaning of life, the moment of death, and the care that must be taken to deliver the body of the loved one to the spiritual realm. This study investigated spiritual beliefs about organ donation for participants in China (n = 364) and the United States (n = 384). Results showed that spiritual connection with the transplant recipient, spiritual concern about removing organs, and attitudes toward organ donation significantly predicted willingness to become an organ donor for participants in both countries. Americans reported being significantly more religious compared to Chinese. However, altruism and religiosity were not significant predictors of willingness to donate organs. Chinese participants showed significantly higher levels of spiritual connection with the potential recipient of transplanted organs. Even so, Chinese participants exhibited more reluctance to become organ donors compared to Americans. Gender differences in organ donation behaviors are also report...

This study investigated cultural differences in apology intentions moderated by the threatened face type and the relationship between interactants. With Chinese and U.S. undergraduate participants, this study revealed that (a) offending acts were more face-threatening toward a stranger than toward a friend; (b) apology intention was stronger for a stranger than for a friend; (c) for threatening negative face, Americans had stronger apology intentions than did Chinese, whereas for threatening positive face, Chinese had stronger apology intentions than did Americans; (d) situational variations in negative and positive face threats significantly related to apology intentions; and (e) Americans' apology intention, compared with Chinese, was more strongly related to amount of negative face threat in each act.

The current study examined the effects of national culture (U.S., China, and Korea) and interpersonal relationship type (a stranger and a friend) on apology. Findings revealed that participants ( N = 376) from the three cultures differed in their perceptions of the offended person's emotional reaction and their propensities toward apology use (i.e., desire, obligation, and intention to apologize, as well as their perception of normative apology use). Regardless of their cultures, participants showed stronger obligation and intention to apologize to a stranger than to a friend. With regard to the intention to apologize, both American and Korean participants showed a greater discrepancy between themselves and their estimate of most people in their own culture than did Chinese participants. Although participants from the three cultures did not differ in their propensities toward apology use for a friend, both American and Chinese participants showed greater discrepancy than did Korean participants for feeling obliged to apologize to a stranger. For intention to apologize to a stranger, both American and Korean participants, compared to Chinese, showed greater discrepancy between themselves and their estimate of most people in their own culture. Other findings and implications thereof are discussed in more detail in the paper.

Using the Theory of Reasoned Action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) and the Social Norms Approach (Berkowitz, 1997), this exploratory study examined effects of attitudes and norms on intent to become an organ donor for respondents in China and the United States. Norms were measured using four factors –subjective norm, societal descriptive norm, personal injunctive norm, and benevolent indebtedness to family. US respondents scored significantly higher than Chinese on measures of attitude, subjective norm, descriptive norm, injunctive norm, and intent to become a donor, whereas Chinese showed significantly greater agreement with indebtedness. Respondents in both countries had deficient knowledge about organ donation. Finally, results were analyzed through the lens of path modeling which plotted causal relationships predicting intent to become a donor.

The current study examined one's own independent and interdependent self-construals, as well as the estimation of others' independent and interdependent self-construals. Undergraduate students from the United States and China (n = 269) were recruited to test cultural differences in the relative valuation of attributes reflected in self-construal scale items. As hypothesized, Chinese participants perceived themselves as more interdependent than other Chinese, whereas U.S. participants perceived other Americans as more interdependent than themselves. Contrary to the prediction, both Chinese and U.S. participants viewed themselves as more independent than others in their own culture.

The current study examined national culture differences between US American and Chinese participants (N = 317) regarding face need concerns and apology intention, based on positive and negative face needs (Brown & Levinson, 1987) and concerns for self-face and other-face (Ting-Toomey, 2005). Participants read vignettes that varied in relationship types (in-group vs. out-group members) and situation types (negative face vs. positive face threatening) and responded to scales measuring realism of the vignettes, intention to apologize, and five types of face need concerns. The findings showed that Chinese participants, compared to US Americans, had stronger intentions to apologize when their acts threatened the other person's positive face, while US American participants, compared to Chinese, had stronger intentions to apologize when their acts threatened the other's negative face. Other findings and implications thereof are discussed.