How a cultural revolt against "political correctness" helped launch Trump into the presidency

Donald Trump's 2016 election victory in part reflected deep cultural opposition to Political Correctness (PC) norms. People dislike being told that they are not allowed to speak their mind, and Donald Trump represented a cultural foil to express that frustration. New research from Lucian Gideon Conway III, which studies the 2016 election campaign, shows that a sample of moderate Americans were influenced to support Trump by a brief mention of the PC movement, even though the PC movement was framed positively and the discussion had nothing directly to do with either candidate. Taken together, these results suggest that we need to look beyond simple markers of ideology to understand the Trump phenomenon – part of his support stems from a cultural revolt against Political Correctness

The geography of literacy:Understanding poleward increases in literacy rates

Asian social psychology has often focused on East/West comparisons. However, a latitudinal psychology perspective suggests that cultures will vary in predictable ways along north/south (latitudinal) gradients, rather than along east/west (longitudinal) gradients. We apply this perspective to better understand the geographical placement of literacy rates across the world. We find across 206 nations that latitude shows no linear relationship with worldwide literacy rates, but a significant curvilinear relationship, such that as one moves north from the equator, higher latitudes are associated with more literacy, whereas this relationship reverses as one moves south from the equator. No such curvilinear relationship consistently emerged for longitude. To better understand the geography of literacy, we included four potential explanatory socioecological variables (pathogens, climate, national tightness, and wealth). These analyses revealed that increases in literacy as one moves towards the North and South Poles was partially accounted for by all four variables, but a larger portion of the variance was due to pathogens. These results suggest that latitude—which, taken on its own, is just a set of abstract lines on a map—can help us organize and understand global literacy

Does Perceived Governance Quality Improve Toward the North and South Poles for Eco-Cultural Reasons?

Good government is vital to human society. But what proximal and distal factors influence this collective goodness perception? Here, we investigate how and why multi-component evaluations by many institutional observers of public governance vary along the north-south rather than east-west axis of the Earth. Across 190 countries, we show that governance quality improves from the equator toward the North and South Poles in both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. By contrast, governance quality hardly varies from east to west. National wealth, surfacing as the main driver of good government, is spatially distributed along latitude and longitude in the same striking way. In broader detail, governance quality is psychologically accounted for by cultural, economic, and pathogenic explanations, all nested within a climate-based explanation. Taken in total, the results suggest a chain of increasingly distal explanations of the equator-to-pole improvements in perceived governance quality

How culturally unique are pandemic effects? Evaluating cultural similarities and differences in effects of age, biological sex, and political beliefs on COVID impacts

Despite being bio-epidemiological phenomena, the causes and effects of pandemics are culturally influenced in ways that go beyond national boundaries. However, they are often studied in isolated pockets, and this fact makes it difficult to parse the unique influence of specific cultural psychologies. To help fill in this gap, the present study applies existing cultural theories via linear mixed modeling to test the influence of unique cultural factors in a multi-national sample (that moves beyond Western nations) on the effects of age, biological sex, and political beliefs on pandemic outcomes that include adverse financial impacts, adverse resource impacts, adverse psychological impacts, and the health impacts of COVID. Our study spanned 19 nations (participant N = 14,133) and involved translations into 9 languages. Linear mixed models revealed similarities across cultures, with both young persons and women reporting worse outcomes from COVID across the multi-national sample. However, these effects were generally qualified by culture-specific variance, and overall more evidence emerged for effects unique to each culture than effects similar across cultures. Follow-up analyses suggested this cultural variability was consistent with models of pre-existing inequalities and socioecological stressors exacerbating the effects of the pandemic. Collectively, this evidence highlights the importance of developing culturally flexible models for understanding the cross-cultural nature of pandemic psychology beyond typical WEIRD approaches

Are persons high in the need for structure more influential communicators of stereotypes?

It was predicted that individuals with a high chronic need for structure (compared to persons with low need for structure) exert more influence in the processes through which individual perceptions of groups coalesce into consensual stereotypes. This prediction emerges from the joint consideration of two hypotheses: (1) Need for structure is hypothesized to influence the use of abstract language when talking about others; (2) More abstract language is hypothesized to exert greater influence on others' beliefs. Two elements of linguistic abstraction were examined: The extent to which language implies characteristics of groups rather than merely characteristics of individuals ("inclusiveness"); the extent to which language implies stable traits, rather than merely episodic behaviors ("implied stability"). To test the hypotheses, participants in dyads were presented with information about members of two novel groups, and engaged in structured interpersonal communication about this information. Study 1 tested the first hypothesis, and found no support. There was no evidence that individual differences in Need for Structure influenced either the "inclusiveness" or "implied stability" of interpersonal communication. Study 2 tested the second hypothesis and found partial support. The "implied stability" of communications had no effects on stereotype formation, but the "inclusiveness" of communication did have an impact. Participants receiving more "inclusive" communications formed more stereotypic beliefs. The latter effect emerged only on stereotypic beliefs about negative characteristics, but not on stereotypes about positive characteristics.Arts, Faculty ofPsychology, Department ofGraduat

An attributional perspective on the communication of norms

Why do some shared beliefs and behaviors spread across a given population and persist over time, whereas other beliefs and behaviors do not? Different perspectives that help provide an answer to this question are critically reviewed. These perspectives fall under two broad headings: those that focus on the degree that norms correspond to some kind of objective reality, and others that focus on the degree that norms correspond to some kind of subjective reality. An attributional perspective is introduced that suggests that whether a norm will likely be communicated in a given context or not is partially determined by the degree that it is perceived to be objectively tied to reality. The present four studies focus on two psychological cues that tend to influence these attributional processes. Across all studies, participants read stories about a normative behavior and then answered questions about those stories. Studies 1 and 2 focused on an "impression management" cue. Study 1 provides evidence that the presence of a member of a positively stereotyped group reduces the intention to communicate a positive impression of that group later on. Study 2 provides weaker evidence that this same process occurs for a negatively stereotyped group. Studies 3 and 4 focus on an authority figure's command cue, both providing evidence that the explicit command of an authority figure can, under some circumstances, decrease the likelihood that persons will endorse a normative behavior. Study 3 suggests that this effect is moderated by the level of control the authority figure has over the participant. Study 4 suggests that this effect is moderated by the expertise of the authority figure in the area of knowledge relevant to the norm. Theoretical and practical implications of the attributional perspective are discussed.Arts, Faculty ofPsychology, Department ofGraduat