Culture as automatic processes for making meaning: Spontaneous trait inferences

•People make spontaneous trait inferences (STIs) when observing others' behaviors.•STIs among Americans were more frequent and more automatic than among Japanese.•No cultural differences were found in estimates of controlled processes in STIs.•Results support the idea of culture as automatic procedures for making meaning.

Culture shapes how we interpret behavior, symbols, customs, and more. Its operation is largely implicit, unnoticed until we encounter other cultures. Therefore deep cultural differences should be most evident in automatic processes for interpreting events, including behavior. In two studies, we compared American and Japanese undergraduates' spontaneous (unintended and unconscious) trait inferences (STIs) from behavior descriptions. Both groups made STIs but Japanese made fewer. More important, estimates of the controlled (C) and automatic (A) components of their recall performance showed no differences on C, but A was greater for Americans. Thus westerners' greater reliance on traits, in intentional and spontaneous impressions, may reflect cultural differences in automatic processes for making and recalling meaning. The advantages of locating cultural differences in automatic processes are discussed.