Culture, Status, and Hypocrisy: High-Status People Who Don’t Practice What They Preach Are Viewed as Worse in the United States Than China

Status holders across societies often take moral initiatives to navigate group practices toward collective goods; however, little is known about how different (e.g., the United States vs. China) evaluate high- (vs. low-) status holders’ transgressions of preached morals. Two preregistered studies (total N = 1,374) examined information (occupational rank in Study 1 and social prestige 2) influences judgments norm violations, as a function word–deed contradiction cultural independence/interdependence. Both revealed that targets’ contradictions noncontradictions) were condemned more harshly but not China. Mediation analyses suggested Americans attributed more, Chinese less, selfish motives higher contradictions. Cultural in(ter)dependence only whom confer enforcers also (not) blame violators.