8.1 Motivation and Culture

Cultural Values Determine What Motivates Us

Why do we study psychology? Why do therapists work with clients? Why do professors teach? For many people living in the United States, the answer to these questions seems obvious—we do these things because we want to. And indeed, cultural research suggests that agency is particularly important for people in the United States, especially upper-middle-class and wealthy White people (Markus, 2016). But, perhaps surprisingly, “because I want to” is not a key motivator in many other cultures. Instead, other motivations, such as social responsibilities, are far more important. For example, in the United States, people often choose whether to leave their current job based on how well that job fits their personalities and life goals. In contrast, people in India are less concerned about their professional goals and more concerned about their networks when deciding whether to leave a job. Would they lose friends if they left this job? Could the company survive without them? Do people in the new organization have a greater need for them at this moment?

Cultural Lessons in Self-Control

Although many people believe that self-control is rooted entirely in personality, some new research (Yanaoka et al., 2022) shows that culture can have important consequences for when we exert self-control. For instance, think about the classic marshmallow study in which U.S. children were given a choice: You can have one marshmallow now or two marshmallows if you wait 15 minutes (Mischel et al., 1972). Many of the children couldn’t help but consume the marshmallow immediately. In contrast, children in Japan don’t seem to find this task so challenging. Whereas U.S. children typically consume the single marshmallow by the 4-minute mark, Japanese children typically wait the full 15 minutes!

Does this mean Japanese children have more self-control than U.S. children? Not necessarily. In the same study (Yanaoka et al., 2022), researchers included conditions in which the children faced a similar task, but with gifts instead of food. In these conditions, the cultural effects flipped: Japanese children typically opened up the single gift by the 5-minute mark, but U.S. children typically waited the full 15 minutes.

How do we explain these effects? In Japan, it is customary to sit in front of one’s food, waiting for everyone to arrive before eating together. After everyone is served, the group will often say together, “Itadakimasu,” meaning “I humbly receive,” before digging in. As a result, Japanese children have extensive experience sitting in front of food and exerting self-control. Such a norm is not as common in the United States, and thus U.S. children may find that waiting to eat the food in front of them is a relatively novel challenge. The reverse is true for gifts. In Japan, people tend to give gifts to one another regularly and open them immediately, with gratitude, but not necessarily a ceremony. In contrast, in the United States, most children receive gifts only on major occasions, such as Christmas or their birthday. On these major occasions, they often have parties or gatherings with scripted ceremonies that require them to wait until everyone is assembled and a gift is brought to them, which they then open one at a time. Thus, U.S. children may find it fairly familiar to delay opening a gift, whereas Japanese children are more easily thwarted by this new challenge. This is one of many ways our cultural practices teach and reinforce self-control behaviors. How might your culture have trained you to be patient in some contexts and impatient in others?

Video 8.1. “How the Famous ‘Marshmallow Test’ Got Willpower Wrong” by SciShow Psych.