Accepting a Request with Implied Rule Violation: A Brazil-Japan Comparison on Underlying Psychological Processes

What makes people accept requests with implied rule violation? This study investigated motivations underlying the acceptance of a request implying a rule violation in a particular situation – when the request is made with jeitinho, a Brazilian communication style associated with rule-breaking and corruption. Brazilian and Japanese participants rated their intention to accept a request (with low vs. high jeitinho). Two motivations to help (i.e., empathy and social obligation) were highlighted. Requests with higher jeitinho led to increased sense of obligation to help but not empathy among Brazilians, whereas for the Japanese, increased jeitinho led to higher ratings of both obligation and empathy. Mediational analyses furthermore revealed that the effect of jeitinho on the Brazilians’ compliance with the request was fully mediated by social obligation as well as downplaying the duty of rule-abiding. In contrast, for the Japanese sample, empathy was the only mediator of the jeitinho effect. The results hence revealed that participants from both countries were more likely to break rules when the request was made with jeitinho, yet the motivations underlying such decision were different. Implications for moral psychology and policy-making are discussed.