12 research outputs found
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Cross-cultural research methods
Social psychology is often defined as the scientific study of the ways in which the actual or imagined presence of others influences oneâs thinking, feeling, and behavior (Aronson et al.,2010). Personality psychology, on the other hand, is often defined as the scientific study of characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behavior (Funder, 2019). Despite their differences in emphasis on the power of situations versus the person, social and personality psychologists have numerous shared topical interests, including, but not limited to, attitude and affect, selfesteem and self-regulation, morality and religiosity, attachment and close relationships, and trust and loyalty. In this chapter we will delineate why a cross-cultural approach to the study of psychological processes is important and how it can be incorporated into both personality and social psychology. We use Adams and Markusâs (2004) definition of culture as âexplicit and implicit patterns of historically derived and selected ideas and their embodiment in institutions, practices, and artifactsâ (p. 341), and advocate the utility of cultural imagination, the ability to see human behaviors as a function of not just their dispositions or immediate situations but also larger cultural contexts (cf. C. Wright Millsâ 1959 sociological imagination). In one sense, applying a method cross-culturally is extremely simple in that all you have to do is conduct a study across multiple cultural samples. In other ways, however, it is not quite that simple. There are many points of consideration, such as how to translate study materials, how to test conceptual and measurement equivalences of the study materials, and how to interpret the results. In this chapter, we will summarize the advantages of utilizing a crosscultural approach first with familiar topics, and describe how one can conduct cross-cultural research properly by attending to its unique features
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Editorial
As the new editors-in-chief of the European Review of Social Psychology (ERSP), we are excited to take over the helm from Rhiannon Turner and Gordon Hodson, who worked hard with their editorial board to steer the journal through the past four years, and left it to us in an admirable state. In this editorial, we outline the two main goals for the journal we set for our term (maintaining quality and improving diversity), and the policies and possibilities that follow from them.</p
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Suicide during the COVID-19 Pandemic: uncovering demographic and regional variation in the United States and associations with unemployment and depression
The COVID-19 pandemic heightened risk factors for suicide globally. Using prominent sociocultural theories of suicide, we investigated whether the COVID-19 pandemic affected suicide rates differently across demographic groups and regions in the United States of America. In Study 1, we found that after 2020 suicide rates increased especially among young Black and Alaskan Native populations. Conditional process analyses were conducted to shed light on racial disparities in the temporal impact of unemployment on suicide from 2018 to 2021. The results showed that suicides among younger Asians and Blacks were affected by the surge in unemployment, whereas Whites, especially the older population, benefitted from the increased unemployment. In Study 2, we explored the regional variation in the temporal associations between suicide, unemployment, and depression across the 50 U.S. states from 2019 to 2021 taking into account pre-pandemic between-state conditions. Multilevel regression analyses showed that urbanism (characterized by low firearm proportion, high income, high cultural looseness, and high population density) but not social integration (characterized by low social capital, high collectivism, and high southerness), partially explained the regional variation in the temporal pattern of suicide rates. We also found that in states with already high depression levels, the temporal increase in depression predicted increases in suicide from 2019 to 2021, whereas it had minimal impact in states with low average depression. We emphasize the need for future theories to consider longitudinal designs and highlight two key takeaways: (1) the pandemic reshaped racial disparities in suicide, and (2) the temporal effects brought by the national crisis on suicide patterns depended on existing between-state differences.</p
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The role of honor concerns in disclosing (vs. Hiding) COVID-19 diagnosis: insights from TĂŒrkiye
Members of honor cultures value engaging in moral behaviors and managing their social image to maintain their honor. These two goals reflect reputation and integrity concerns, which also have bearing on gender roles. In the current study, we examined a) evaluations of women and men described as diagnosed with COVID-19 and as either hiding or disclosing their diagnosis, b) the moderating role of honor concerns (reputation and integrity) and the gender of the infected person in these evaluations, and c) the relationship between honor concerns and individualsâ own disclosure preferences among participants living in TĂŒrkiye, a country that exemplifies an honor culture. Findings revealed that participants with stronger reputation concerns evaluated a womanâs hiding behavior more favorably than that of a manâs. Moreover, higher integrity concerns were associated with lower levels of participantsâ own preference to hide a diagnosis for both men and women, whereas reputation concerns were positively associated with a preference for hiding a diagnosis among men only. Furthermore, a content analysis of participantsâ open-ended explanations of their views on womenâs and menâs motivation to hide a diagnosis revealed further evidence for the gendered nature of reputation concerns. Our findings point to the importance of prioritizing integrity concerns (and downplaying reputation concerns) in public health campaigns in honor cultures
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Honour, acculturation and well-being: evidence from the UK and Canada
Adopting a social psychological approach, across three studies (N = 927) in two western immigrant-receiving societies (UK and Canada), we examined the role of honour in acculturation variables (i.e., immigrantsâ heritage and mainstream cultural orientation and well-being), controlling for some of the commonly studied predictors of immigrant adaptation. We assessed honour as concerns (Studies 1 and 2) and as desired attributes for men and women (Study 3) and studied well-being in terms of acculturative stress (Study 1) and subjective evaluation of oneâs life (Studies 1 and 3). We examined our questions among groups of immigrants originating from honour (Studies 1 and 2) and dignity cultural groups (Study 1) and from first- and second-generation immigrants (Study 3). Overall, despite some significant associations at the bivariate level between honour and acculturation outcomes, findings provided mixed support for the claim that honour (measured as concerns and cultural codes) plays a significant role in immigrant acculturation above and beyond commonly studied predictors of immigrant adaptation.</p
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Feeling at home: an explorative field study of seasonal agricultural workers with different (dis)location backgrounds
The sense of feeling at home by people âon the moveâ was inquired through an adaptation of the homemaking approach. Two groups of people who make their living by working in agricultural sites (internally mobile seasonal agricultural workers and internationally displaced migrant workers) were reached out to examine associations between feeling at home, social interactions, perceived degradation, and subjective well-being. Results showed that both worker groups (seasonal and displaced workers) felt at home despite precarious working and living conditions. Expectedly, feeling at home was predicted significantly by social interactions with others; however, the type of interactions also determined the direction of the effects. While within-group interaction (binding ties) predicted feeling at home positively, across-groups interaction (bridging ties) predicted it negatively for both groups. Additionally, perceived degradation and subjective well-being moderated the effect of feeling at home partially: the effect emerged for across-groups but not for within-group interactions. In conclusion, the notion of binding and bridging ties could help to attain an increased explanatory power rather than contact theory alone in understanding the patterns of feeling at home.</p
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Gendered corruption: peopleâs reactions to victims of monetary vs sexual extortion
This research addresses the important issue of the connection between corruption and gender based violence, an area that has gained increasing attention in recent years. It provides a new perspective by comparing the perception of victims of monetary corruption versus sexual corruption. Through an experimental study, we exposed participants to a fictitious scenario in which they witnessed an event of sex-based (vs. money-based) extortion. The results showed that the victimsâ decision to cave into the extortion (both money or sex-based) led to higher feelings of moral outrage and blame towards them, and a weaker moral perception. Moreover, victims were considered less moral and more prone to reputational damage when described as caving into sex-based (vs. money-based) extortion. Finally, a moderated mediation model showed that the reputational damage suffered by the woman also significantly mediated the relation between the decision to cave into the extortion and the helping intentions towards her, but only when the corruption involved sexual payment. These findings provide insights into the perception of victims of both money-based and sex-based extortion, highlighting the significant role of reputational damage and stigma in the context of sexual extortion. Keywords: Corruption; Gender Violence; Sexuality; Morality; Reputational Damage; Sextortion.</p
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Trust predicts COVID-19 prescribed and discretionary behavioral intentions in 23 countries
The worldwide spread of a new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) since December 2019 has posed a severe threat to individuals' well-being. While the world at large is waiting that the released vaccines immunize most citizens, public health experts suggest that, in the meantime, it is only through behavior change that the spread of COVID-19 can be controlled. Importantly, the required behaviors are aimed not only at safeguarding one's own health. Instead, individuals are asked to adapt their behaviors to protect the community at large. This raises the question of which social concerns and moral principles make people willing to do so. We considered in 23 countries (N = 6948) individuals' willingness to engage in prescribed and discretionary behaviors, as well as country-level and individual-level factors that might drive such behavioral intentions. Results from multilevel multiple regressions, with country as the nesting variable, showed that publicized number of infections were not significantly related to individual intentions to comply with the prescribed measures and intentions to engage in discretionary prosocial behaviors. Instead, psychological differences in terms of trust in government, citizens, and in particular toward science predicted individuals' behavioral intentions across countries. The more people endorsed moral principles of fairness and care (vs. loyalty and authority), the more they were inclined to report trust in science, which, in turn, statistically predicted prescribed and discretionary behavioral intentions. Results have implications for the type of intervention and public communication strategies that should be most effective to induce the behavioral changes that are needed to control the COVID-19 outbreak
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Cultural fit of emotions and subjective well-being: replicating comparative evidence and extending it to the mediterranean region
Greater âemotional fitâ with one's cultural group is often associated with positive psychological and relational outcomes. However, the few empirical studies on this link have been limited to the comparison of Anglo-Western, independent, and East Asian, interdependent cultural contexts. In the current paper, we conceptually replicated findings from three studies on the link between emotional fit and well-being in Anglo-Western and East Asian contexts, using different methods and more comprehensive samples. Moreover, we expanded emotional fit research to the understudied Mediterranean region, characterized by an emphasis on âhonorâ and a distinct blend of independence and interdependence. We collected data from N = 3,097 participants from 12 countries and asked participants to report their emotional experience in 10 hypothetical situations and to rate their well-being in different domains. Our results largely replicated established positive links between emotional fit and well-being in the Anglo-West and East-Asia, as i) experiencing more culturally valued emotions (from which we infer cultural fit) was linked to better general well-being; ii) actual, calculated emotional fit in relationship-focused situations predicted better relational well-being; and iii) only in East Asia calculated emotional fit in culturally central contexts predicted psychological well-being and thriving. Our exploratory analyses on the Mediterranean region showed a non-homogenous pattern: while general well-being was consistently most strongly predicted by the intensity of disengaging emotions, relational and psychological well-being were differentially predicted by calculated emotional fit in relationship-focused situations across different Mediterranean sub-regions. The current work consolidates insights into how our well-being is shaped by the interplay between culture and emotional fit and strengthens evidence that there may be âuniversalism without uniformityâ.</p
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Disrupting racism and global exclusion in academic publishing: recommendations and resources for authors, reviewers, and editors
Scholars have been working through multiple avenues to address longstanding and entrenched patterns of global and racial exclusion in psychology and academia more generally. As part of the Society for Personality and Social Psychologyâs efforts to enhance inclusive excellence in its journals, the Anti Colorism/Eurocentrism in Methods and Practices (ACEMAP) task force worked to develop recommendations and resources to counteract racism and global exclusion in standard publication practices. In this paper, the task force describes a structure and process we developed for conducting committee work that centers marginalized perspectives while mitigating cultural taxation. We then describe our recommendations and openly accessible resources (e.g., resources for inclusive reviewing practices, writing about constraints on generalizability, drafting a globally inclusive demographic information survey, inclusive citation practices, and improving representation among editorial gatekeeping positions; recommendations and resource links are provided in Table 3). These recommendations and resources are both (a) tailored for a particular set of journals at a particular time and (b) useful as a foundation that can be continually adapted and improved for other journals and going forward. This paper provides concrete plans for readers looking to enhance inclusive excellence in their committee work, authorship, reviewing, and/or editing.</p