PERSONALITY PROCESSES AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES Protestant Relational Ideology and (In)Attention to Relational Cues in Work Settings

M. Weber (1947) proposed that exposure to Calvinist Protestantism is associated with limited attention to relational concerns in work settings. Two experiments provide support for this proposition. Study 1 showed that Protestant European Americans raised in traditions of Calvinism were less attentive to affect in spoken words when primed with a work context relative to a nonwork context, and to participants raised as Catholics in either context. Study 2 used an unconscious mimicry paradigm to measure relational focus and showed that within a work setting, male Protestants mimicked a confederate’s foot shaking less than male non-Protestants and women in either group. Within a nonwork setting, male Protestants mimicked more and did not differ from male non-Protestants. Women showed greater mimicry than men.