Hypothesis
Implicit Puritanism: Americans, because of their Puritan heritage, intuitively moralize work (and link it to sex morality) in a way other cultures do not.
What failed
In a preregistered multi-culture replication, several of the original effects failed to replicate in every sample and were judged likely false positives, while the effects that did replicate also appeared in the comparison cultures, contradicting the claim of a distinctly American work morality. Proposed regional, religious and education moderators found no support.
Broken assumption
Intuitive moralization of work is a distinctively American, Puritan-derived trait.
Why
The authors conclude that work is intuitively moralized across cultures rather than uniquely in the United States.
From the published paper: Tierney et al. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2020. ↗CC BY