Mental Associations Between Law and Competitiveness: a Cross-Cultural Investigation

Previous research suggests that individuals from countries that adopt an adversarial legal system, such as Canada or United Kingdom, mentally associate “law” more strongly with concepts related to competition than concepts related to cooperation. We examined whether people from a country with a non-...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Spanish journal of psychology 2014-01, Vol.17, p.E54-E54, Article E54
Main Authors: Aguilar, Pilar, Callan, Mitchell J., Dawtry, Rael J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Association
Attorneys
Cognition
Competition
Competitive Behavior
Competitiveness
Cooperation
Cooperative Behavior
Court hearings & proceedings
Cross-Cultural Comparison
Female
Humans
Implicit beliefs
Investigations
Judges & magistrates
Jurisprudence
Legal system
Male
Psychology
Self interest
Social, Educational and Work Psychology
Socialization
Spain - ethnology
Tests
Trials
United Kingdom - ethnology
Young Adult
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Summary:Previous research suggests that individuals from countries that adopt an adversarial legal system, such as Canada or United Kingdom, mentally associate “law” more strongly with concepts related to competition than concepts related to cooperation. We examined whether people from a country with a non-adversarial legal system show similar mental associations. Participants from Spain and the UK completed a Single-Category Implicit Association Test. Spanish participants mentally associated the law with competition less strongly than participants from the UK (the average D-score was significantly greater than zero in the predicted direction, t(189) = 8.16, p < .001; d=1.18). Exploratory analysis also suggested that this difference between the countries was stronger among participants who believed that the method of legal practice in their own country was more adversarial. Moreover, perceiving the legal system as adversarial predicted automatic associations between law and competition for UK but not for Spanish participants. These findings suggest that legal system plays a relevant role in shaping not only individuals’ actions, but their cognitive processes.
ISSN:1138-7416
1988-2904
DOI:10.1017/sjp.2014.52