Socioeconomic Status, Reactions to Choice Deprivation in Group Contexts, and the Role of Perceived Restrictions on Personal Freedom

This research examined whether socioeconomic status (SES) predicts reactions to situations in which a group member decides for the entire group, thereby depriving other group members of personal choice. We found, as predicted, that Americans with higher subjective SES accepted choice deprivation less and demanded personal choice more than subjectively lower SES Americans. Subjective SES was a better predictor for reactions to choice deprivation than objective indicators of SES. The degree to which participants interpreted the deprivation of choice as a violation of their personal freedom partially mediated the relationship between subjective SES and reactions to choice deprivation. The results highlight the role subjective SES measurements can play and the need to consider social status and associated models of agency when interpreting behavior and motivation related to choice in American contexts

Cultural shaping of neural responses: Feedback‐related potentials vary with self‐construal and face priming

Previous work shows that when an image of a face is presented immediately prior to each trial of a speeded cognitive task (face‐priming), the error‐related negativity (ERN) is upregulated for Asians, but it is downregulated for Caucasians. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that images of “generalized other” vary cross‐culturally such that they evoke anxiety for Asians, whereas they serve as safety cues for Caucasians. Here, we tested whether the cross‐cultural variation in the face‐priming effect would be observed in a gambling paradigm. Caucasian Americans, Asian Americans, and Asian sojourners were exposed to a brief flash of a schematic face during a gamble. For Asian Americans, face‐priming resulted in significant increases of both negative‐going deflection of ERP upon negative feedback (feedback‐related negativity [FRN]) and positive‐going deflection of ERP upon positive feedback (feedback‐related positivity [FRP]). For Caucasian Americans, face‐priming showed a significant reversal, decreasing both FRN and FRP. The cultural difference in the face‐priming effect in FRN and FRP was partially mediated by interdependent self‐construal. Curiously, Asian sojourners showed a pattern similar to the one for Caucasian Americans. Our findings suggest that culture shapes neural pathways in both systematic and highly dynamic fashion.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/116365/1/psyp12554.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/116365/2/psyp12554_am.pd

An ecological systems model of trait resilience: Cross-cultural and clinical relevance

© 2016. The study explored how scores on the three dimensions of the Engineering, Ecological, and Adaptive Capacity (EEA) trait resilience scale, derived from Holling's ecological systems theory of resilience, demonstrate fit within higher-order bifactor models of measurement, cultural invariance, and associations with clinical caseness of affect. Three samples (295 US adults, and 179 Japanese and 251 Polish university students) completed the EEA trait resilience scale. In addition, a subsample of US adults were administered the Ten-Item Personality Inventory and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale). Across all samples, a higher-order bifactor model provided the best fit of the data, with salience of loadings on the three group factors. A multi-group comparison found configural invariance, but neither metric nor scalar invariance, for EEA resilience scores across the three samples. Among the US sample, engineering and adaptive trait resilience scores predicted clinical caseness of depression, and adaptive trait resilience scores predicted clinical caseness of anxiety, after controlling for sex, age, income, education, employment, and personality. The findings suggest the cross-cultural replicability of the structure (but not the meaning) of the three-factor EEA measure of trait resilience, and its relevance for predicting clinical caseness of affect among a US sample

Family Matters:Rethinking the Psychology of Human Social Motivation

What motives do people prioritize in their social lives? Historically, social psychologists, especially those adopting an evolutionary perspective, have devoted a great deal of research attention to sexual attraction and romantic-partner choice (mate seeking). Research on long-term familial bonds (mate retention and kin care) has been less thoroughly connected to relevant comparative and evolutionary work on other species, and in the case of kin care, these bonds have been less well researched. Examining varied sources of data from 27 societies around the world, we found that people generally view familial motives as primary in importance and mate-seeking motives as relatively low in importance. Compared with other groups, college students, single people, and men place relatively higher emphasis on mate seeking, but even those samples rated kin-care motives as more important. Furthermore, motives linked to long-term familial bonds are positively associated with psychological well-being, but mate-seeking motives are associated with anxiety and depression. We address theoretical and empirical reasons why there has been extensive research on mate seeking and why people prioritize goals related to long-term familial bonds over mating goals. Reallocating relatively greater research effort toward long-term familial relationships would likely yield many interesting new findings relevant to everyday people’s highest social priorities

Fundamental social motives measured across forty-two cultures in two waves

How does psychology vary across human societies? The fundamental social motives framework adopts an evolutionary approach to capture the broad range of human social goals within a taxonomy of ancestrally recurring threats and opportunities. These motives—self-protection, disease avoidance, affiliation, status, mate acquisition, mate retention, and kin care—are high in fitness relevance and everyday salience, yet understudied cross-culturally. Here, we gathered data on these motives in 42 countries (N = 15,915) in two cross-sectional waves, including 19 countries (N = 10,907) for which datawere gathered in both waves. Wave 1 was collected from mid-2016 through late 2019 (32 countries, N = 8,998; 3,302 male, 5,585 female; Mage = 24.43, SD = 7.91). Wave 2 was collected from April through November 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic (29 countries, N = 6,917; 2,249 male, 4,218 female; Mage = 28.59, SD = 11.31). These data can be used to assess differences and similarities in people’s fundamental social motives both across and within cultures, at different time points, and in relation to other commonly studied cultural indicators and outcomes

The misasandry myth: An inaccurate stereotype about feminists' attitudes toward men

In six studies, we examined the accuracy and underpinnings of the damaging stereotype that feminists harbor negative attitudes toward men. In Study 1 (n = 1,664), feminist and nonfeminist women displayed similarly positive attitudes toward men. Study 2 (n = 3,892) replicated these results in non-WEIRD countries and among male participants. Study 3 (n = 198) extended them to implicit attitudes. Investigating the mechanisms underlying feminists’ actual and perceived attitudes, Studies 4 (n = 2,092) and 5 (nationally representative UK sample, n = 1,953) showed that feminists (vs. nonfeminists) perceived men as more threatening, but also more similar, to women. Participants also underestimated feminists’ warmth toward men, an error associated with hostile sexism and a misperception that feminists see men and women as dissimilar. Random-effects meta-analyses of all data (Study 6, n = 9,799) showed that feminists’ attitudes toward men were positive in absolute terms and did not differ significantly from nonfeminists'. An important comparative benchmark was established in Study 6, which showed that feminist women's attitudes toward men were no more negative than men's attitudes toward men. We term the focal stereotype the misandry myth in light of the evidence that it is false and widespread, and discuss its implications for the movement

Happiness Maximization Is a WEIRD Way of Living

Psychological science tends to treat subjective wellbeing and happiness synonymously. We start from the assumption that subjective wellbeing is more than being happy to ask the fundamental question: what is the ideal level of happiness? From a cross-cultural perspective, we propose that the idealization of attaining maximum levels of happiness may be especially characteristic of WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, Democratic) societies, but less so for others. Searching for an explanation for why “happiness maximization” might have emerged in these societies, we turn to studies linking cultures to their eco-environmental habitat. We discuss the premise that WEIRD cultures emerged in an exceptionally benign ecological habitat, i.e., compared to other regions, they faced relatively light existential pressures. We review the influence of the Gulfstream on the North-Western European climate as a source of these comparatively benign geographical conditions. We propose that the ecological conditions in which WEIRD societies emerged afforded them a basis to endorse happiness as a value and to idealise attaining its maximum level. To provide a nomological network for “happiness maximization”, we also studied its several potential side-effects: alcohol and drug consumption and abuse, and the prevalence of mania. To evaluate our hypothesis, we re-analyse data from two large-scale studies on ideal levels of personal life satisfaction—the most common operationalization of happiness in psychology—involving respondents from 61 countries. We conclude that societies whose members seek to maximize happiness tend to be characterized as a WEIRD, and generalizing this across societies can prove problematic if adopted at the ideological and policy level