Coping with unpleasant group memberships in Japan and Germany: Cultural differences in disidentification, confrontation and emotion regulation

Abstract

Disidentification, the psychological distancing from unpleasant group memberships, has mainly been studied in individualistic societies. We tested whether disidentification is a coping strategy to deal with conflicts in small and large groups, in Japan and Germany. Study 1 (N = 79) illustrates that Japanese recalled more unpleasant situations related to small than large groups. Study 2 (N = 198) confirms that Japanese, but not German students’ disidentification varied with group size and was stronger after small‐group conflict. Study 3 (N = 132) shows that anger was related to disidentification in Japan but to confrontation in Germany. Study 4 (N = 335) shows that, after group conflict, Japanese felt relieved when imagining to disidentify, whereas Germans felt relieved when imagining to confront the source of conflict. Combining correlational and experimental designs with culture‐sensitive situation sampling, we show that disidentification exists as a psychological construct across cultures, albeit serving different psychological functions.

Shame and anger differentially predict disidentification between collectivistic and individualistic societies

“…First, our work informs research and theory on disidentification and broadens the perspective to a cultural context outside individualistic countries. So far, we knew that shame is related to disidentification [ 5 ] and that anger is not related to disidentification in individualistic contexts but that anger leads to confrontation intentions [ 19 ]. The current work shows that these findings cannot be generalized to other cultures, but are confined to rather individualistic countries.…”

“…Participants were randomly assigned to be presented with a scenario describing one of the following: a) an intragroup conflict concerning a small group (INTRA_small), b) an intergroup conflict concerning a small group (INTER_small) c) an intragroup conflict concerning a large group (INTRA_large), or d) an intergroup conflict concerning a large group (INTER_large). The material was adapted on prior work published in Bierle et al [ 19 ], and were developed to be applicable and relevant in their respective cultural contexts. In particular, we were interested in situations that are realistic in all three countries and are likely to trigger authentic emotions among Japanese and German / Canadian participants.…”

“…However, past research on emotional predictors of disidentification has been limited to studies of people in individualistic cultures. Recently, Bierle, Becker & Ikegami, explored whether emotional correlates of disidentification varied between individualistic and collectivistic cultures [ 19 ]. They found that disidentification exists in both individualistic and collectivistic countries but appears to serve different psychological functions: In more collectivistic cultures disidentification was used as a coping strategy to deal with intra- and intergroup conflicts.…”

“…In contrast, in more individualistic societies, such as Germany, direct confrontation with others was used as a coping strategy to deal with intra- and intergroup conflicts. For example, when German participants experienced anger because of a group conflict, they were more likely to openly confront members of their group [ 19 ]. These findings raise the question of why these different coping strategies are used across cultures.…”