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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 July 2014

Pilar Aguilar ,
Mitchell J. Callan  and
Rael J. Dawtry
Pilar Aguilar*
Affiliation:
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain)
Mitchell J. Callan
Affiliation:
University of Essex United Kingdom (UK)
Rael J. Dawtry
Affiliation:
University of Kent United Kingdom (UK)
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Pilar Aguilar. Psychology Department. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. C/ Ivan Paulov, 6. 28049. Madrid (Spain). E-mail: pilar.aguilar@uam.es
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Abstract

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.

Keywords

legal systemadversarialinquisitorialImplicit Association Testcross-cultural
Type
Research Article
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 17 , 2014 , E54
Copyright
Copyright © Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos de Madrid 2014 

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