• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.251-272
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• 2018

There could be different ways of perception, emotions, and behaviors facing on unfair situation according to the culture background by which people have been affected. We investigated whether definition, feelings, and behaviors in 4 countries (Korea, China, Japan, and the US) would differ in terms of unfair situations. We further examined the relationship between new self-construal model (subjectivity-objectivity-autonomy model) and behaviors resulted from unfair situations. Three hundred seventeen participants (87 Koreans, 71 Chinese, 80 Japanese, and 79 Americans) took part in this research. We found that all countries defined unfair situation as "having a disadvantage or blame that one did not done by him or her" with the highest percentage, but there was a different percentage according to countries. Next, Chinese felt disappointment or betray from the situations highly while others expressed anger with the largest portion. In the area of behaviors, three countries in Asia answered "no behaviors" with the highest percentage while Americans mostly responded "direct expressions". In terms of self-construal model, subjective self was high in Chinese and Koreans while autonomy was high in Chinese and American. Japanese showed objective self with the highest. Implications and future research are discussed.