Previous research investigating the influence of cultural variables on the psychological constructs of self-concept and causal attributions has employed responses of individuals within cultures. In the present research, ethnographies of 16 cultures were examined using the CD-ROM version of the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF). As predicted, self-concept was related to both cultural tightness and collectivism. Specifically, interdependent self-concepts were more likely to occur in tight and collective cultures, whereas independent self-concepts occurred in individualistic and loose cultures. Causal attributions for failure were found to be more external for more collective cultures, but no relation between failure attributions and cultural tightness was obtained. Causal attributions for success were

People have a more differentiated cognitive representation of in-groups than of out-groups. This has led to the prediction that memory should be better for in-group information than for out-group information. However, past research has provided equivocal support for that prediction. This article advances a differential processing hypothesis that offers a solution to this paradox. The hypothesis suggests that whereas in-group information is organized by person categories, outgroup information is organized through attribute categories. In-group membership alters the categorical basis of memory for person information, but these categories are not necessarily superior to the attribute categories that are used to organize out-group information. That is, both person and attribute categories elicit equal amounts of recall for the in-group and the out-group. Three experiments are reported that support the differential processing hypothesis.People respond to out-group members differently than they do to in-group members. There is an abundance of research on how in-group versus out-group membership influences a wide range of social responses, including resource allocation, ethnocentrism, attribution of stereotypical characteristics, perception of group homogeneity, and social influence. Reviews of much of this literature can be found in the articles by Abrams and Hogg (1990), Diehl (1990), Park, Judd, andRyan (1991), Messick and Mackie (1989), Ostrom and Sedikides (1992), Spears and Manstead (1990), and van Knippenberg and Ellemers(1990).One approach to understanding such phenomena is through investigating whether the cognitive representations developed for in-group information differ from those formed for outgroup information. To the extent that judgments, decisions, feelings, and actions toward others are mediated by the nature of the cognitive structures drawn on, an analysis of those representations is a precondition to theory development. This article explores differences between the structures used in representing in-group versus out-group information. Previous Conceptions In-Group Versus Out-Group RepresentationThere have been several attempts to specify the different structures that are used to store and process in-group and out-

This research compared the processing and retrieval of attribution-relevant information when the attributional inference is easy or difficult to make. Subjects attributed behavioral events to the person or to the situation, based on several items of context information. Each context sentence implied either the person or the entity as causal agent. When the attributional inference was difficult to make (an equal number of context sentences implied actor and entity as the causal agent), subjects recalled more of the behavioral events, recalled more context sentences, and were less confident in their attributions than when the attributional inference was easy to make (most context sentences implied the same causal agent). Subjects also recalled context information that was implicationally incongruent with the majority of the other context sentences with a higher probability than when that same information was implicationally congruent.

A factorial survey was used to assess perceptions of sexual harassment in the context of faculty‐student relations in a university setting. Results of a survey of undergraduate students and faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara, revealed a high degree of consensus in defining cases of sexual harassment. Across respondent populations, judgments of harassment were most influenced by the nature of the behaviors and intentions of the male instructor in the situation. Results also indicated that information about any past relationship between instructor and student and about suggestive behaviors on the part of the student tended to modify harassment judgments and to introduce disagreement among respondents as to whether an incident constituted a case of sexual harassment.

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