Cultural differences in behavioural regulation under the collective threat of COVID-19: More adjustment in Japan and more influence in the US

Historical collective threat has been highlighted as a key factor behind the evolution of cultural differences, but little research has investigated how culture-threat links are reflected in concrete psychological and behavioural tendencies. Additionally, although it is well established that behavioural regulation strategies generally differ between cultures, they have scarcely been examined in the context of an ongoing collective threat. We tested whether the general findings that behavioural adjustment is more prevalent among East Asians and influence is more prevalent among European Americans extended to people’s perceptions of their own and others’ actions under the collective threat of the COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted two online surveys between August and December 2020 (n=1240 and 823, respectively) in Japan and the United States, and found that, compared to Americans, Japanese participants perceived higher levels of both normative and actual adjustment for both themselves and others. Furthermore, Americans felt that actors in their daily lives (friends, subordinates, superiors, and local governments) other than the national government, had influenced people’s behaviour significantly more than Japanese did. Finally, Americans reported that they were more likely than Japanese participants to use influence strategies in response to encountering someone not wearing a mask on the train.