Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology current issue

Structural Equivalence of the Values Domain Across Cultures: Distinguishing Sampling Fluctuations From Meaningful Variation

Fontaine, J. R. J., Poortinga, Y. H., Delbeke, L., Schwartz, S. H. — 2008-06-11

The authors examine the cross-cultural equivalence of the internal structure of the values domain, as measured by the Schwartz Value Survey. Data come from 38 countries, each represented by a student and a teacher sample. In seeking to distinguish lack of fit of the theorized value model from a lack of equivalence in the data and the impact of random sampling fluctuations from valid structural differences, the authors find the following: (a) The Schwartz value theory provides an excellent representation of the average value structure across samples; (b) sampling fluctuation causes deviations from this average structure; (c) sampling fluctuation cannot account for all these deviations; (d) samples of students fit the overall value structure better than samples of teachers, and samples from Western countries better than those from non-Western countries; and (e) the deviations from the average structure exhibit a systematic pattern: the higher the level of societal development of a country, the greater the contrast between protection and growth values.

Emotions in Everyday Social Encounters: Correspondence Between Culture and Self-Construal

Nezlek, J. B., Kafetsios, K., Smith, C. V. — 2008-06-11

Relationships between self-construal and emotion experiences in social interactions were examined in two countries. Participants in Greece (a more collectivist culture) and the United Kingdom (a more individualist culture) described the social interactions they had each day for 7 days using a variant of the Rochester Interaction Record. For UK participants, independent self-construal was positively related to positive affect, whereas for Greek participants, independent self-construal was negatively related to positive affect. There were few relationships between interdependent self-construal and affect in either study. The results point to the interplay of cultural values and individual differences in self-construal and their relationships to people's affective experiences.

"Remembering" World War II and Willingness to Fight: Sociocultural Factors in the Social Representation of Historical Warfare Across 22 Societies

Paez, D., Liu, J. H., Techio, E., Slawuta, P., Zlobina, A., Cabecinhas, R. — 2008-06-11

Students from 22 nations answered a survey on the most important events in world history. At the national level, free recalling and a positive evaluation of World War II (WWII) were associated with World Values Survey willingness to fight for the country in a war and being a victorious nation. Willingness to fight, a more benign evaluation of WWII, and recall of WWII were associated with nation-level scores on power distance and low postmaterialism, suggesting that values stressing obedience and competition between nations are associated with support for collective violence, whereas values of expressive individualism are negatively related. Internal political violence was unrelated to willingness to fight, excluding direct learning as an explanation of legitimization of violence. Recall of wars in general (operationalized by WWI recall) was also unrelated to willingness to fight. Results replicate and extend Archer and Gartner's classic study showing the legitimization of violence by war to the domain of collective remembering.

War Exposure, Attachment Style, and Moral Reasoning

Haskuka, M., Sunar, D., Alp, I. E. — 2008-06-11

This study extends the investigation of the effects of war exposure beyond those previously documented (e.g., increased stress and aggression and various types of psychopathology) to include moral reasoning. Three groups from two cultures with different levels of exposure to the 1998-1999 war in Kosovo were compared using Rest's Defining Issues Test. Possible effects of attachment style alone and in interaction with war exposure were also investigated. The results showed that exposure to war has (a) a very strong negative effect on moral reasoning with (b) no moderation by attachment style. However, the evidence suggests that war exposure may change the individual's attachment style from secure to insecure by inducing a more negative model of the other.

Parents' Personal and Cultural Beliefs Regarding Young Children: A Cross-Cultural Study of Aboriginal and Euro-Canadian Mothers

Cheah, C. S. L., Chirkov, V. — 2008-06-11

Parental beliefs about desired socialization goals and the reasons why these goals were important were examined among Aboriginal and European Canadian mothers. These beliefs were examined on personal (desired by mothers for their own children) and cultural (perceived to be desired by mothers from each cultural group) levels; 50 Aboriginal and 51 European Canadian mothers of preschoolers were interviewed regarding their parenting beliefs. Commonalities in the tasks that mothers regard as relevant to a young child's social development were found across both groups. However, several goals, behaviors, and qualities were endorsed differently by mothers from the two cultures, according to cultural values and ideologies that were significant for each culture. Moreover, mothers did not automatically accept all culturally sanctioned values but held these values as significant for their own children in different degrees. The study highlights the significance of contemporary sociocultural issues in the cultural study of child socialization.

Ethnic Group Differences in Affective, Behavioral, and Cognitive Markers of Anxiety

Gordon, T. L., Teachman, B. A. — 2008-06-11

Ethnic group differences in affective, behavioral, and cognitive measures of anxiety were examined to better characterize the unique triggers and modes of anxious responding across different groups. Using an ethnically diverse sample (N = 112; 39 African Americans, 34 Asian Americans, and 39 European Americans), the study examined differences in anxious responding following three anxiety provocations (physical, social interpersonal, and social performance), each hypothesized to be a primary anxiety trigger for one of the groups. African Americans and European Americans demonstrated greater behavioral avoidance during a physical provocation designed to elicit shortness of breath sensations relative to Asian Americans. Asian Americans reported a higher number of anxious cognitions than African Americans during a social provocation designed to trigger performance concerns. These findings suggest ethnicity should be carefully considered when assessing the predominant triggers of anxiety and modes of anxious responding.

Radius of Trust: Social Capital in Relation to Familism and Institutional Collectivism

Realo, A., Allik, J., Greenfield, B. — 2008-06-11

Countries in which people believe that "most people can be trusted" and where citizens belong to a larger number of different voluntary associations are more individualistic, emphasizing the importance of independence and freedom to choose one's own goals. The present study examines the relationship between social capital and individualism/collectivism using a measure that distinguishes between familism and institutional collectivism. Familism correlated negatively with social capital, whereas institutional collectivism practices exhibited positive associations with social capital, especially with trust and participation in voluntary organizations such as church or religious organizations and labor unions. It is concluded that in societies where trust is limited to the nuclear family or kinship alone, people have lower levels of social capital. Social capital increases as the radius of trust widens to encompass a larger number of people and social networks among whom norms of generalized reciprocity are operative.

On Pancultural Self-Enhancement: Well-Adjusted Taiwanese Self-Enhance on Personally Valued Traits

Gaertner, L., Sedikides, C., Chang, K. — 2008-06-11

Taiwanese participants made better-than-average judgments on collectivistic and individualistic traits, evaluated the personal importance of those traits, and completed measures of psychological adjustment (depression, perceived stress, subjective well-being, and satisfaction with life). Replicating findings from other East Asian samples, participants self-enhanced (i.e., regarded the self as superior to peers) more on collectivistic than individualistic attributes and assigned higher personal importance to the former than the latter. Moreover, better adjusted participants manifested a stronger tendency to self-enhance on personally important attributes. These data are consistent with the view that self-enhancement is a universal human motive that is expressed tactically and at odds with the assertion that self-enhancement is a uniquely Western phenomenon.

The Roles of Independent Self-Construal and Concerns for Face on Advising Rape Victims to Report to Police in Japanese and U.S. College Students

Yamawaki, N. — 2008-06-11

This study investigated differences in Japanese and U.S. college students' tendencies to advise a rape victim—whom they would consider to be their own sister—to seek help from police. It was found that U.S. participants tended to advise the victim to report the rape to the police more often than did Japanese participants. This difference was mediated by independent self-construal and moderated by concern for the victim's face. This study replicated, in a cross-cultural setting, others' findings that participants were less likely to advise victims to report a rape when the victim and offender were acquainted.

"That's Not Fair": Similarities and Differences in Distributive Justice Reasoning Between American and Filipino Children

Carson, A. S., Banuazizi, A. — 2008-06-11

Distributive justice pertains to choices that individuals make in allocating resources to themselves and others. The present study, based on data obtained from Filipino and American fifth graders, investigated the similarities and differences in resource distribution in the context of two hypothetical scenarios. The scenarios made salient the norms of merit and need. It was found that although both the Filipino and U.S. children generally preferred to divide the resource equally, they offered quite different explanations for their choices. U.S. children focused on the equal performance of the characters in the scenarios, whereas the Filipino children tended to be more concerned with the interpersonal and emotional consequences of an unequal distribution. Furthermore, U.S. children favored merit-based distributions as their second choice, whereas Filipino children showed a preference for need-based distributions in their second choices. Whereas concern for harmony in interpersonal relationships guided equality- and need-based distributions in the Philippines, an emphasis on performance guided equality- and merit-based distributions in the United States. The findings were examined also in terms of the cultural orientations of individualism and collectivism in the United States and the Philippines, respectively.

Immigrant Youth in Cultural Transition: The Debate Between the Authors and the Reviewer

Boski, P., Matsumoto, D. — 2008-06-11

Response to Rudmin's Book Review of Immigrant Youth in Cultural Transition

Berry, J. W., Phinney, J. S., Sam, D. L., Vedder, P. — 2008-06-11

ICSEY Data Deserve New Analysis: Reply to Berry, Phinney, Sam, and Vedder

Rudmin, F. W. — 2008-06-11