Simpatía as a cultural script of Hispanics

A cultural script is a pattern of social interaction that is characteristic of a particular cultural group. Data from 152 Hispanic and 165 non-Hispanic US Navy recruits and from 60 bilingual and 50 monolingual Hispanic college students suggest the existence of a Hispanic cultural script termed simpatía. Hispanics were more likely than the non-Hispanics to expect high frequencies of positive social behaviors and low frequencies of negative social behaviors. This suggests different levels of adaptation for social behavior in the 2 cultures. The inattention among non-Hispanics to the presence of this script among Hispanics is likely to lead to misunderstandings when Hispanics and non-Hispanics interact. Hispanics are likely to perceive as negative behaviors those behaviors that are considered neutral by non-Hispanics; also, behaviors that are perceived as positive by non-Hispanics are likely to be perceived as neutral by the Hispanics. (31 ref)