This study tested Construal Level Theory and examined social desirability and cultural differences as factors affecting blood donation intention across different time frames. Findings showed that individuals indicated stronger intentions for the distant future (one-year and no-time indication frames) than for the near future (one-week and three-month frames). The relationship between social desirability rating of blood donation and intention was positive and significant for the no-time indication frame, but it was not significant for the one-week time frame and the three-month time frame. Koreans and Americans did not differ in the relationship between social desirability and intentions across different time frames.

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Cultures may differ in descriptive and injunctive norms about lying and telling the truth and also in terms of the extent to which individuals intend to tell a lie or the truth when a friend is in trouble. Study 1 (N = 460) showed that Koreans had stronger intentions to lie for a friend and weaker intentions to tell the truth than Americans. For lying, Americans indicated stronger perceptions of descriptive norms (e.g., many others would lie in this situation) than did Koreans. For truth-telling, Americans perceived stronger injunctive norms (i.e., people approve of truth-telling in this situation) than did Koreans. Study 2 (N = 207) showed that compared to Koreans, Americans had more favorable impressions about a person who told the truth. Implications of this study's findings are discussed.

In this study, we examined cultural differences in estimation of both the percentage of people who would donate organs to others when they died and the percentage of people who would discuss their decision to donate organs with their parents. Participants were 79 undergraduates at a Midwestern university in the USA and 116 undergraduates at a university in Seoul, Republic of Korea. Results showed that the South Korean participants exhibited a greater false consensus effect in regard to discussion with parents about organ donation than did the group from North America. Among those not willing to donate organs, the underestimation of the South Koreans was greater than that the North Americans regarding the willingness of others to discuss donation with their parents. These findings imply that campaigns promoting organ donation may need to be targeted at correcting people's misperceptions about relative prevalence of organ-donation-related behaviors, thereby motivating people to sign up for organ donation, and encouraging discussion by donors with their parents.