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Hesun Park

Korea University · Psychology

About the Lab

Professor Hesun Park's research lab specializes in cultural psychology and social influence, with a focus on how cultural contexts shape attitudes, norms, and behavioral intentions. The lab investigates the interplay between individual self-construals (independent vs. interdependent) and social norms in predicting behavior, particularly in health-related and ethical decision-making contexts. Key research directions include deception detection, attitude-behavior relationships in the Theory of Reasoned Action and Theory of Planned Behavior, and the role of normative perceptions across collectivistic and individualistic cultures. The lab employs cross-cultural experimental and survey-based methodologies to explore how people perceive truthfulness, make moral judgments, and respond to social pressures in communication.

cultural psychologysocial normsdeception detectiontheory of reasoned actionself-construal

Research Overview

Papers
129
Total Citations
3,683
Papers (5y)
16
Primary Field
Psychology

Research Output Trend

Figures are computed from collected data and may differ slightly.

Publications per year (5y)
16total
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
Citations per year (5y)
12total
20222023202420252026

Selected Papers

15
1
Article|283 citations·2000
Relationships among attitudes and subjective norms: Testing the theory of reasoned action across cultures
Hee Sun Park
SJR Q1Communication Studies

This study investigates the relationship between attitudes toward a behavior and subjective norms in the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA). Unique to this research, attitudes toward a behavior are divided into social and personal attitudes in order to test an explanation for the moderate to high correlation between attitudes and subjective norms reported in previous research. As expected, only social attitudes toward a behavior are significantly related to subjective norms. The finding indicates t

Social PsychologyPsychology
2
Article|199 citations·2002
How people really detect lies
Hee Sun Park, Timothy R. Levine, Steven A. McCornack, Kelly Morrison, Merissa Ferrara
SJR Q1Communication Monographs

Abstract A primary focus of research in the area of deceptive communication has been on people's ability to detect deception. The premise of the current paper is that participants in previous deception detection experiments may not have had access to the types of information people most often use to detect real-life lies. Further, deception detection experiments require that people make immediate judgements, although lie detection may occur over much longer spans of time. To test these speculati

Social PsychologyPsychology
3
Article|140 citations·2009
Separating Subjective Norms, University Descriptive and Injunctive Norms, and U.S. Descriptive and Injunctive Norms for Drinking Behavior Intentions
Hee Sun Park, Katherine A. Klein, Sandi W. Smith, Dennis Martell
SJR Q1Health Communication

The theory of planned behavior and the social norms approach both stress the important influence that normative perceptions have on behavioral intentions and behavior. These 2 approaches were used to examine the behavioral intention to limit drinking to 0 to 4 drinks. Further, this study examined whether perception of subjective norms, university- and U.S.-level descriptive norms, and university- and U.S.-level injunctive norms represented separate dimensions for this behavioral intention. A rep

Applied PsychologyPsychology
4
Article|127 citations·2007
The Effects of Argument Quality and Involvement Type on Attitude Formation and Attitude Change: A Test of Dual-Process and Social Judgment Predictions
Hee Sun Park, Timothy R. Levine, Catherine Y. Kingsley Westerman, Tierney Orfgen, Sarah Foregger
SJR Q1Human Communication Research

Involvement has long been theoretically specified as a crucial factor determining the persuasive impact of messages. In social judgment theory, ego-involvement makes people more resistant to persuasion, whereas in dual-process models, high-involvement people are susceptible to persuasion when argument quality is high. It is argued that these disparate predictions might be reconciled by either different involvement types (i.e., value relevant vs. outcome relevant) or different attitude modificati

Literature and Literary TheoryArts and Humanities
5
Article|117 citations·1999
The theory of reasoned action and self‐construal: Evidence from three cultures
Hee Sun Park, Timothy R. Levine
SJR Q1Communication Monographs

Abstract Self‐construals have been advanced as individual level cultural dimensions, and are thought to explain and mediate the effects of culture on a variety of outcome measures. This study (total N = 439) investigated the effects of self‐construals on the attitudinal and normative components of the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) in Korea, Hawaii, and the mainland United States. Self‐construals were investigated as both mediators and moderators of cultural effects. Across cultures, the data w

Social PsychologyPsychology
6
Article|65 citations·2007
Cultural Differences in Judgment of Truthful and Deceptive Messages
Hee Sun Park, Ji Young Ahn
SJR Q1Western Journal of Communication

This study investigates cultural differences between two nations (n = 249 from the USA; n = 185 from Korea) in relationships among judgment of message veracity, willingness to say a truthful or deceptive message, and estimations of others' judgments and actions. The overall finding is that one's judgment of message veracity is related to how one thinks others would judge the message. Similarly, whether individuals would say a truthful or deceptive message is related to their perception of whethe

Social PsychologyPsychology
7
Article|57 citations·2012
Individual and cultural variations in direct communication style
Hee Sun Park, Timothy R. Levine, René Weber, Hye Eun Lee, Lucía I. Terra, Isabel C. Botero, Elena Bessarabova, Xiaowen Guan, Sachiyo M. Shearman, Marc Wilson
SJR Q1International Journal of Intercultural Relations
Social PsychologyPsychology
8
Article|55 citations·2008
Cross-cultural differences in apology
Xiaowen Guan, Hee Sun Park, Hye Eun Lee
SJR Q1International Journal of Intercultural Relations
Social PsychologyPsychology
9
Article|47 citations·2008
The Effects of Shared Cognition on Group Satisfaction and Performance
Hee Sun Park
SJR Q1Communication Research

This study investigates the effects of shared cognition on group member satisfaction and group task performance. The hypotheses are that groups who have shared cognition concerning communication rules, such as politeness and efficiency, will be more satisfied with their group processes and will perform a task better than will those in groups lacking shared cognition concerning communication rules. The research involved 67 groups ( N = 236) performing a radio assembly task for 20 minutes. Group m

Social PsychologyPsychology
10
Article|47 citations·2005
"I Am Sorry to Send You SPAM": Cross-Cultural Differences in Use of Apologies in Email Advertising in Korea and the U.S.
Hee Sun Park
SJR Q1Human Communication Research

A series of studies investigating cultural differences in apology usage in unsolicited email advertising messages (i.e.. SPAM) are reported. Study 1 documented that in comparison to American SPAM, a greater percentage of Korean SPAM included apologies. The next five studies (Ns =516, 3132, 662, 524, 536) tested various explanations for cross-cultural differences in uses of and responses to, apologies. Findings indicated that advertising messages containing apologies were not necessarily more eff

Social PsychologyPsychology
11
Article|38 citations·1998
The theory of reasoned action and self‐construals: Understanding recycling in Hawai'i
Hee Sun Park, Timothy R. Levine, William F. Sharkey
SJR Q1Communication Studies

The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) was used to predict the behavioral intention to recycle among students in Hawai'i. Independent and interdependent self‐construals were expected to moderate both the relationship between attitudes and subjective norm and the relative weights of the attitudinal and normative components in predicting behavioral intention. The data (N = 201), while generally consistent with the TRA, were not consistent with the hypotheses involving self‐construals. Instead, self‐c

Social PsychologyPsychology
12
Article|36 citations·2009
Perspective Taking and Communication Satisfaction in Coworker Dyads
Hee Sun Park, Amber N. W. Raile
SJR Q1Journal of Business and Psychology
Experimental and Cognitive PsychologyPsychology
13
Article|36 citations·2008
Need for Cognition, Task Complexity, and Job Satisfaction
Hee Sun Park, Colin Baker, Dong Wook Lee
SJR Q1Journal of Management in Engineering

The relationship between need for cognition and task complexity was tested with 37 work teams in the Korean civil engineering management industry. Individual team members’ job satisfaction was predicted by an individual factor (the interaction between individual need for cognition and individual task complexity) and a team factor (team need for cognition). Individuals high in need for cognition were more satisfied with their jobs when they perceived their task to be complex. Individual team memb

Organizational Behavior and Human Resource ManagementBusiness, Management and Accounting
14
Article|36 citations·2009
Culture, Positive and Negative Face Threats, and Apology Intentions
Hee Sun Park, Xiaowen Guan
SJR Q1Journal of Language and Social Psychology

This study investigated cultural differences in apology intentions moderated by the threatened face type and the relationship between interactants. With Chinese and U.S. undergraduate participants, this study revealed that (a) offending acts were more face-threatening toward a stranger than toward a friend; (b) apology intention was stronger for a stranger than for a friend; (c) for threatening negative face, Americans had stronger apology intentions than did Chinese, whereas for threatening pos

Sociology and Political ScienceSocial Sciences
15
Article|34 citations·2019
Where and what do they publish? Editors’ and editorial board members’ affiliated institutions and the citation counts of their endogenous publications in the field of communication
Sungbin Youk, Hee Sun Park
SJR Q1Scientometrics
Strategy and ManagementBusiness, Management and Accounting

Research Areas

Social PsychologyOrganizational Behavior and Human Resource ManagementLanguage and LinguisticsExperimental and Cognitive PsychologyApplied PsychologyCommunication

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