COMPENSATIVE JUSTICE AND MORAL INVESTMENT AMONG JAPANESE, CHINESE, AND KOREANS

Abstract

An examination of responses to a sentence-completion task measuring individuals' moral values reveals striking differences between Japanese, Koreans, and Chinese. The Japanese and Chinese, in particular, seem to be quite different, the Japanese—compared to the Chinese—are less success oriented, more confident in the natural order of compensative justice, more preoccupied with the human consequences of moral actions, more introspective, and more family and less work oriented. Finally, the Japanese are more likely to put themselves in the role of the actor, in a sense, rather than remaining aloof and taking the role of instructor or judge.