Culture moderates the self-serving bias: Etic and emic features of causal attributions in India and in Canada

This study tested the hypothesis that individuals from a collectivist cultu re explain life events using more contextual causes than do those from an i ndividualistic culture. Undergraduates' causal attributions about positive and negative life events were assessed in India (n = 195) and Canada (n = 1 62) using a revised Attributional Style Questionnaire. Analyses revealed th e India participants generated more contextual causes for events, but also had a stronger self-serving bias than did the Canada participants. Further, each cultural group viewed achievement events as more controllable than in terpersonal events, but the Canada sample differentiated between achievemen t and interpersonal events more strongly than did the India sample. The fin dings demonstrate that causal explanations for life events in the two cultu res possess both etic (i.e., universal) and emic (i.e., culture-specific) f eatures.