Culture in Psychology: Then and Now

My “then” is the first IACCP (International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology) meeting in Hong Kong, 1972, which I attended. I take the “now” mainly from the 2014 IACCP meeting in Reims and a little from our 2013 IACCP regional meeting in Los Angeles. In general, I will speak of changes that have been very important and positive for the field. IACCP has both driven and responded to these changes

What the brain 'Likes': neural correlates of providing feedback on social media.

Evidence increasingly suggests that neural structures that respond to primary and secondary rewards are also implicated in the processing of social rewards. The 'Like'-a popular feature on social media-shares features with both monetary and social rewards as a means of feedback that shapes reinforcement learning. Despite the ubiquity of the Like, little is known about the neural correlates of providing this feedback to others. In this study, we mapped the neural correlates of providing Likes to others on social media. Fifty-eight adolescents and young adults completed a task in the MRI scanner designed to mimic the social photo-sharing app Instagram. We examined neural responses when participants provided positive feedback to others. The experience of providing Likes to others on social media related to activation in brain circuity implicated in reward, including the striatum and ventral tegmental area, regions also implicated in the experience of receiving Likes from others. Providing Likes was also associated with activation in brain regions involved in salience processing and executive function. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of the neural processing of social rewards, as well as the neural processes underlying social media use

The Great Recession: Implications for Adolescent Values and Behavior

Based on Greenfield’s (2009) theory of social change and human development, we predicted that adolescents’ values, behaviors, and self-assessments would become more collectivistic and less individualistic during the Great Recession (2008-2010) compared to the pre-recession period (2004-2006) and in the context of long-term trends (1976-1978). Data came from Monitoring the Future, a nationally representative yearly survey of 12th graders. Concern for others and environmentalism increased from the pre-recession period to recession, reversing long-term declines. Long-term trends toward increasing materialism partially reversed: wanting a job making lots of money continued to increase, the increase in the importance of money leveled off, and the increase in desiring to own expensive material items reversed. Long-term trends toward increasingly positive self-views continued. Correlations with economic indicators (median income, employment rate) over the entire time period (1976-2010) showed that collectivism was high and individualism was low during times of economic deprivation, consistent with Greenfield’s theory

The Great Recession: Implications for Adolescent Values and Behavior

Based on Greenfield’s (2009) theory of social change and human development, we predicted that adolescents’ values, behaviors, and self-assessments would become more collectivistic and less individualistic during the Great Recession (2008-2010) compared to the pre-recession period (2004-2006) and in the context of long-term trends (1976-1978). Data came from Monitoring the Future, a nationally representative yearly survey of 12th graders. Concern for others and environmentalism increased from the pre-recession period to recession, reversing long-term declines. Long-term trends toward increasing materialism partially reversed: wanting a job making lots of money continued to increase, the increase in the importance of money leveled off, and the increase in desiring to own expensive material items reversed. Long-term trends toward increasingly positive self-views continued. Correlations with economic indicators (median income, employment rate) over the entire time period (1976-2010) showed that collectivism was high and individualism was low during times of economic deprivation, consistent with Greenfield’s theory

American Undergraduate Students\u27 Value Development During the Great Recession

The Great Recession\u27s influence on American undergraduate students\u27 values was examined, testing Greenfield\u27s and Kasser\u27s theories concerning value development during economic downturns. Study 1 utilised aggregate-level data to investigate (a) population-level value changes between the pre-recession (2004–2006: n = 824,603) and recession freshman cohort (2008–2010: n = 662,262) and (b) overall associations of population-level values with national economic climates over long-term periods by correlating unemployment rates and concurrent aggregate-level values across 1966–2015 (n = 10 million). Study 2 examined individual-level longitudinal value development from freshman to senior year, and whether the developmental trajectories differed between those who completed undergraduate education before the Great Recession (freshmen in 2002, n = 12,792) versus those who encountered the Great Recession during undergraduate years (freshmen in 2006, n = 13,358). Results suggest American undergraduate students\u27 increased communitarianism (supporting Greenfield) and materialism (supporting Kasser) during the Great Recession. The recession also appears to have slowed university students\u27 development of positive self-views. Results contribute to the limited literature on the Great Recession\u27s influence on young people\u27s values. They also offer theoretical and practical implications, as values of this privileged group of young adults are important shapers of societal values, decisions, and policies

Staying connected during stay‐at‐home: Communication with family and friends and its association with well‐being

COVID‐19 and the resulting stay‐at‐home orders issued to reduce the spread of the virus created a novel social situation in which people could not spend in‐person time with their family and friends. Thus, emerging technologies like video calling and other forms of mediated communication like voice calling and text messaging became important resources for people to stay in touch. The purpose of this study was threefold. First, we wanted to test whether people would use more mediated communication (video calls, voice calls, text messaging) to stay in touch during the stay‐at‐home order. Second, we wanted to see if increased mediated communication would be positively associated with well‐being. Finally, we explored whether mediated communication was related to age. To answer these questions, we surveyed 2090 participants who answered questions online about how their use of video calls, voice calls, and text messaging and their well‐being had changed since the stay‐at‐home order. Our results show that people increased their use of mediated communication, particularly video calling; and increases in mediated communication with close others, particularly friends, was related to higher levels of well‐being. Finally, we found that age was related only to the use of video calling; younger people tended to use more video calling. These findings support the compensatory theory of technology use, that people use technologically mediated communication to maintain contact with their close friends and family when in‐person contact is not possible, and that this form of contact, when in‐person interaction is unavailable, is associated with positive outcomes

Shifts in ecology, behavior, values, and relationships during the coronavirus pandemic: Survival threat, subsistence activities, conservation of resources, and interdependent families

What are the psychological effects of the coronavirus pandemic? Greenfield's Theory of Social Change, Cultural Evolution, and Human Development predicts that when survival concerns augment, and one's social world narrows toward the family household. life shifts towards activities, values, relationships, and parenting expectations typical of small-scale rural subsistence environments with low life expectancy. Specific predictions were that, during the pandemic, respondents would report intensified survival concerns (e.g., thinking about one's own mortality); increased subsistence activities (e.g., growing food); augmented subsistence values (e.g., conserving resources); more interdependent family relationships (e.g., members helping each other obtain food); and parents expecting children to contribute more to family maintenance (e.g., by cooking for the family). All hypotheses were confirmed with a large-scale survey in California (N = 1,137) administered after about a month of stay-at-home orders during the coronavirus pandemic; results replicated in Rhode Island (N = 955). We posited that an experience of increased survival concerns and number of days spent observing stay-at-home orders would predict these shifts. A structural equation model confirmed this hypothesis

Five days at outdoor education camp without screens improves preteen skills with nonverbal emotion cues

AbstractA field experiment examined whether increasing opportunities for face-to-face interaction while eliminating the use of screen-based media and communication tools improved nonverbal emotion–cue recognition in preteens. Fifty-one preteens spent five days at an overnight nature camp where television, computers and mobile phones were not allowed; this group was compared with school-based matched controls (n=54) that retained usual media practices. Both groups took pre- and post-tests that required participants to infer emotional states from photographs of facial expressions and videotaped scenes with verbal cues removed. Change scores for the two groups were compared using gender, ethnicity, media use, and age as covariates. After five days interacting face-to-face without the use of any screen-based media, preteens’ recognition of nonverbal emotion cues improved significantly more than that of the control group for both facial expressions and videotaped scenes. Implications are that the short-term effects of increased opportunities for social interaction, combined with time away from screen-based media and digital communication tools, improves a preteen’s understanding of nonverbal emotional cues