Most people have done something bad at one point in their lives. Maybe they failed to help a friend. Or maybe they took credit for something that they didn’t do. Should these bad acts be punished?
Views on whether people should be punished for their wrongdoing differ across cultures. Compared to people from the United States, people from East Asian cultures, including China, are more likely to say the person who did something wrong should be punished.
Why are Chinese individuals more punitive than Americans? Does it matter if they or someone else did something bad?
### Cultural Differences in Self-enhancement
I asked 64 European American and Taiwanese college students to read approximately 100 different hypothetical scenarios that had either a positive or negative outcome. For example, participants were asked to imagine that they failed a test (a negative outcome) or passed a test (a positive outcome). Participants’ brain waves were recorded as they imagined these scenarios. After each scenario, they rated how much the event would affect their self-esteem or overall evaluation of themselves.
Taiwanese participants reported that negative events would affect their self-esteem than positive events. American participants showed the complete opposite—they reported that positive events would affect their self-esteem more than negative events.
The American findings appear to reflect self-enhancement, or the motivation to maintain positive self-views. In contrast, the Taiwanese findings seem to indicate self-criticism, or the motivation to focus on negative information about the self so one can improve.
My collaborators and I wanted to see whether these patterns of self-enhancement in Americans and self-criticism in East Asians extend to judgments of moral and immoral behavior. We also wondered if these differences explain why East Asian individuals are more punitive of wrongdoings than American individuals.
### How Do Cultural Differences in Self-enhancement Affect Moral Judgements?
We asked more than 1500 European American and Chinese participants to complete a survey where they imagined 6 scenarios. Participants read one of four types of scenarios describing either immoral or moral actions that were committed by either themselves or a stranger. After each scenario, participants rated whether the action would affect their self-esteem, and if so, by how much. Participants also reported how much the person who did something immoral should be punished.
Chinese and American participants were affected differently by the same situation. American participants said that the moral actions would affect their self-esteem more than the immoral actions. Chinese participants reported that immoral actions would affect their self-esteem more than moral actions. These patterns held both for their own and others’ actions.
These findings replicate the results of my earlier study and show that the same principles apply to moralized actions, not just positive and negative events. Why does this matter? Consistent with other research in the field, Chinese participants were more punitive across the board compared to American participants.
Why Chinese punish more is something that is not understood well in the field. However, we found one clue. People who said that their self-esteem would be more negatively affected by immoral behavior tended to report that the person should be punished more. The tendency for Chinese individuals to report that their self-esteem would be affected more by immoral behavior than Americans helps explain why Chinese tend to be more punitive of wrongdoings than Americans.
### Conclusion
In the United States, people tend to hold themselves in high regard. Their positive self-views are threatened when they learn that they did something wrong. Americans tend to discount the immoral action and say they are not very affected by it. Hence, they are less punitive. Because Chinese people don’t have the same tendency to self-enhance, they are less likely to discount immoral action. They are more affected by their wrongdoings which helps explain why they tend to be more punitive.
As we think of who is held accountable for their mistakes and how to serve justice, it's useful to reflect on our cultural biases and how they may affect our judgements.
**For Further Reading**
Salvador, C.E., Kraus, B.T., Kamikubo, A., Karasawa, M., Hu, J.F. & Kitayama, S. (2021) Self-referential Processing Accounts for Cultural Variation in Self-Enhancement vs. Criticism: An Electrocortical Investigation, _Journal of Experimental Psychology: General_. [https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001154](https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/xge0001154).
Salvador, C.E., White, C.W. & Ai, T. (2024) Who is your biggest critic? Cultural variation in moral judgements of the self and others. _Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology_. [https://doi.org/10.1177/00220221241255673](https://doi.org/10.1177/00220221241255673).
**Cristina E. Salvador** is an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University. She studies how culture influences the way we think, feel, and interact with others.