Covariation Information Bicultural Identity Population Endowment Intergroup Attribution Cognitive Processing Preferences

Attribution refers to a psychological process during which individuals analyze the external behaviors of other people or themselves to infer and explain the reasons. Attribution is the intermediary and bridge of individual external world and the internal mental representation as well as the premise and basis of behavior prediction and intervention. In recent years, charitable donor behavior, as a kind of altruistic moral behavior of giving gratuitous property and help to others positively, has been paid more and more attention by researchers. Cognitive processing mechanism of donor behavior attribution have become one of the hot spots in psychological research.The research on attribution of human behavior focuses on the aspects of attribution theory of partial logic information and attribution bias of partial subjective belief. The logic attribution emphasizes that behavior attribution is a rational process, showing individuals combine covariant information including coherency, consistency together with distinction to infer the events cause. The attribution bias emphasizes that behavior attribution is inevitable with the system preference. However, the antagonistic difference of the East-West culture is an important evidence of influencing attribution bias. In recent years, researchers have proposed cultural frame switching model (CFS) and made the interpretation and validation on behavior attribution bias of bicultural identity group (BII) from the perspective of cultural dynamic consistency and multicultural adaptability. Whether behavior attribution is a rational cognitive process or an irrational self-serving bias has been a hot issue in research field of current social cognition scientific. Previous research has suggested rational attribution in covariant information coexisted with self-serving attribution in individual belief, but that not only lacked empirical study from the perspective of group in the context of Chinese culture, but even lacked local verification of attribution cultural frameworks conversion in minorities bicultural identity group.The study is based on cultural frame switching model, starting from interaction influence of covariant information and donor behavior attribution of bicultural identity, taking Hui BII groups influenced by the double impact of Islamic culture and Confucian culture as the research objects, and taking single cultural identity groups of Han MI as the control group, through a series of four studies to explore the cognitive processing mechanism of intergroup attribution about charitable donor behavior of BII groups in covariant information; to extend the cultural differences theory and construction theory of multicultural dynamic of behavior attribution and to improve the local fit of behavior attribution. This research aims at providing the reference for strengthening integration and harmony between national culture and the mainstream culture.Study1includes2experiments, mainly using Situation Vignettes, which is based on the explicit perspective to explore the intergroup attribution differences in charitable donor behavior of BII groups in covariant information. Experiment1confirmed the joint judgment of internal and external attribution about charitable donor behavior of BII groups in three covariant information: coherency, consistency together with distinction. It also confirmed the existence of corresponding bias and the prediction of internal and external attribution tendency. Experiment2manipulated the high and low degrees of consistency in order to examine the intergroup attribution differences in charitable donor behavior of BII groups. The experiment found the coexistence of rational attribution and intergroup attribution. It also discovered the applicability in the BII groups of ethnic minorities in the context of Chinese culture.Since Study1found explicit attribution bias in donor behavior of BII groups. The reason may lie in the different effects of implicit cultural beliefs. Study2continued to manipulate the high and low degrees of consistency in covariant information to explore intergroup attribution bias of donor behavior of BII groups under different culture implicit priming conditions. In single Cultural Priming, Experiment3tested the dynamic conversion of the cultural framework of donor behavior attribution of high BII and found external attribution bias of internal group of donor behavior of low BII. The reason was that high BII identify two kinds of cultures at the same time and they can make donor behavior attribution which adapts to the cultural context while low BII are difficult to convert between the two cultures due to implicit cultural beliefs. Therefore, Experiment4mixed the two cultures clues at the same time. The results of Experiment4further confirmed the consistency of unconscious processing between implicit cultural beliefs of low BII and behavior attribution while high BII have dynamic conversion of the cultural framework under the balance priming conditions. This showed two cultures clues priming at the same time to activate potential cultural constructs of high BII so as to draw behavior attributions. However, both Experiment3and4were carried out in the positive words priming to draw donor behavior attribution. Because individuals have different cognitive process of positive and negative words, Experiment5therefore used Affective Misattribution Paradigm, respectively in positive and negative words priming condition to study affection priming on donor behavior attribution of high BII. The results showed that the cultural framework of behavior attribution of high BII have situational dependence.Study2found threshold priming effect of intergroup attribution about donor behavior of BII groups and revealed the implicit characteristics of intergroup attribution about donor behavior of BII groups. Because threshold priming effect only remains in the level of unconscious perceptual processing, Study3will extend the focus to the level of unconscious semantic processing and explanation processing, studying cognitive processing preference of spontaneous attribution (SA) about donor behavior of BII groups. BII groups may have semantic processing preference of intergroup attribution of donor behavior,which was verified by Experiment6, but the experiment did not find the coexistence of rational attribution and intergroup attribution. The possible reason was that the tasks for the lexical decision were too simple. Experiment7based on explanation bias to find the coexistence of rational attribution and intergroup attribution. It also showed the attribution bias of low BII group donor behavior attribution.Studyl, Study2and Study3found explicit and implicit intergroup attribution preference of donor behavior of BII groups. Study4integrated explicit and implicit intergroup attribution preference of BII groups and explored the function of prediction of donor behavior made by explicit and implicit intergroup attribution preference of BII groups as well as the function of implicit personality and the social value orientation in it. Study4found that explicit intergroup attribution bias of BII groups has a mediating role for intergroup donor behavior. Social value orientation has the function of adjustment in donor behavior.Through the above empirical research, this paper could draw the following main conclusions:(1) BII groups exhibited the corresponding bias of donor behavior under different information types and degrees conditions. The degrees of tendency of intergroup attribution of donor behavior of BII groups are different. The result showed that donor behavior has the features of cultural internal consistency and diversities.(2) BII groups can make consistent behavior attribution with cultural clues according to cultural clues priming for inside and outside groups. The characteristics of cultural framework conversion of behavior attribution are verified in ethnic minorities bicultural group under the background of Chinese culture, but it is worth noting that the cultural dynamic transformation of donor behavior attribution of BII groups is situational dependence.(3) BII groups has coexistence in rational attribution bias and intergroup attribution bias of donor behavior, but the effect has been proved in Situation Vignettes task and explanation bias (EB). However, the rational attribution disappeared in lexical decision task. The possible reason is that lexical decision task simplifies the cognitive processing of donor behavior.(4) BII groups had the explicit and implicit intergroup attribution bias of donor behavior, but low BII groups tend towards external intergroup attribution bias and explanation bias of culture words of donor behavior. MI groups tend towards internal intergroup attribution bias and explanation bias of trait words of donor behavior. The result conformed cultural differences of intergroup attribution bias.(5) The explicit intergroup attribution of BII groups donor behavior has a mediating role for donor behavior. Social value orientation of BII groups has the function of adjustment for donor behavior. It also illustrated that to intervene explicit intergroup attribution and social value orientation can improve the donor behavior of BII groups.