Cultural Differences in Forming Beliefs about Others

Prosocial behaviour is impacted by the beliefs people have about others. The maintenance of these beliefs is biased: people are vicariously optimistic when forming beliefs about the future of others they care about. This vicarious optimism impacts prosocial behaviour and might be shaped by the culture people live in. We investigated this question by measuring learning from good and bad news for oneself, friends, and strangers in a large, pre-registered study of Chinese and American participants (N=963). American participants updated their beliefs in response to better-than-expected “good news,” but neglected worse-than-expected “bad news” when learning about themselves (optimism bias) and others (vicarious optimism) compared to Chinese participants. Chinese participants showed vicarious optimism only when learning about a friend, while American participants showed the most vicarious optimism when learning about an identifiable stranger. Our results provide evidence that culture might shape social behaviour by biasing learning about the future of others.