Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Prior research documents that adults in Western cultures perceive others as more susceptible to social influence than themselves (Pronin et al., 2007). Study 1 (N = 318) investigated the cultural generalizability of this asymmetric perception effect by examining young adults in South Korea where conformity is relatively valued, and a comparison sample of young adults in the United States. The results documented that the self-other distinction was just as strong in South Korea as it was in the United States. Study 2 (N = 102) examined the development of this tendency among 6- to 12-year-old South Korean children and showed that this asymmetry increasingly emerges with age. These findings suggest that asymmetric perceptions of conformity are robust and emerge over the course of development.