No abstract

Social influence strategies of 40 Japanese and 41 American college women were compared. With the use of a free‐response format, respondents were asked to describe how they get their way with their mother, father, male teacher/boss, female teacher/boss, male friends, and female friends. Contrary to expectations, content analysis indicated that Japanese women reported using strong and neutral strategies more frequently and weak strategies less freguently than American women. American women used manipulation (especially sexual manipulation) more frequently and reasoning less frequently than Japanese women. Analyses by target of influence indicated that these differences were not found when the target was a female friend but were demonstrated across most of the other targets.

The present study examined college student mock jurors' judgments of legal insanity, outcome severity, and death-penalty decisions in a filicide case. The sex and race of perpetrator (Black or White) and method of killing (shooting or smothering) were varied in a between-subjects design. A 3-way interaction was found for outcome severity, supporting Jones & Davis' (1965) attributional principle of stronger dispositional attributions for unexpected behaviors. As predicted, White women were judged more severely when they used a gun compared to when they smothered, whereas White men were judged more severely when they smothered compared to when they used a gun. The most severe judgments were made for Black male perpetrators who used a gun. Results are discussed in terms of sex and racial stereotypes.