Left Out But “In Control”? Culture Variations in Perceived Control When Excluded by a Close Other

Research and theorizing suggest two competing—yet untested—hypotheses for how European Americans’ and Asians’ feeling of being “in control” might differ when excluded by a close other (e.g., a good friend). Drawing on different national contexts (i.e., United States, Japan), cultural groups (i.e., Japanese, Asian/Asian Americans, European Americans), and exclusion paradigms (i.e., relived, in vivo), four separate experiments (N = 2,662) examined feelings of control when excluded by a close- or distant-other. A meta-analysis across these experiments indicated that Asians and Asian Americans felt more in control than European Americans when the excluder was a close other. In contrast, no consistent pattern emerged when the excluder was a distant other. This research has implications for cultural variations in aggressiveness as well as health and well-being following exclusion’s threat to perceived control.