Dimensions of Social Axioms and Alternative Country-Clustering Methods

Social Axioms are defined as general beliefs that represent one’s view about how the world functions and how two entities are related “in the universe”. The Social Axiom dimensions as proposed by Leung & Bond are Social Cynicism, Social Complexity, Reward for Application, Fate Control, and Religiosity. The first aim of this study was to investigate how the Social Axiom dimensions are identified in Greece and in five more countries (N=1,375) that differ broadly in their ecological and religion characteristics (Hong-Kong, USA, UK, Spain, and India). The second aim was to enhance factor equivalence levels by forming homogeneous subsets of countries through the application of an alternative method on factor structure similarity among countries. For the Greek factor structure some emic characteristics are discussed in respect to the specific cultural setting. For all six countries, factor equivalence among countries was present to some extent for the initial factor structures. For cluster of countries though, almost maximum equivalence with the overall factor structure was reached. However, some inequivalence among clusters of countries for specific factors was still present and useful in describing diversity based on the specific cultural characteristics of the clusters of countries

Dimensions of Well-Being: A Cross-Cultural Study in European Neighborhoods

People build their sense of well-being by responding to their objectively defined environment. The community environment and more specifically the neighborhood affects the subjective and psychological well being of the individuals. Neighboring refers to the residents’ social interaction and mutual material and non material support. This chapter attempts to examine how the social, political, and economic aspect of community life is related to community well-being focusing on community satisfaction, informal social interaction, feeling safe, the residents’ involvement in the community decision making process, the economic life, and the job opportunities and training of 705 participants in six European cultural settings: Dingle Partnership Area (DPA), Liverpool, United Kingdom; Bournazi, Athens, Greece; Westside, Galway, Ireland; Plateia Eleftherias, Patras, Greece; Knocknaheeny, Cork, Ireland; and Kontopefko, Athens, Greece. The overall picture as emerged by one-way analyses of variance and a posteriori Scheffé comparisons employed is defined by the clear statistical differences regarding the informal social interaction, community services satisfaction and income sufficiency and the more homogeneous conditions regarding the residents’ feeling of safety, their involvement in the community decision making process and their job/training opportunities in the community. The neighborhood contextual effects on individuals’ behavior and affect are complicated and ask for an integrated approach, as population stability and coherence as well as opportunities for interaction need to be addressed too

Bias in Terms of Culture: Work Values Country-Clustering for 33 European Countries and Person-Job Fit Factor Equivalence Testing for Four European Countries

Bias in terms of culture has been posing threat to cross-cultural research since the very beginning of crosscultural endeavor. Metric and statistical methods have been discussed in literature in order to deal with this type of bias; however, some of these methods show side-effects on the level of scale validity and some others with so stringent effects on the available information and allow for very limited variance to be interpreted. The present twofold study describes yet another method, this time based on country clusters, following the idea introduced by Georgas & Berry (1995) of employing country sets based on their eco-cultural or psychological variables rather than single countries. In our study, the country clusters were derived from a different construct than the target one; the clusters of countries were formed using information from the European Value Survey Work Values, but the target construct in respect to bias reduction was the Person-Job Fit. Starting with 33 European countries and through trigonometrically transformed Multidimensional Scaling solutions, we arrived at a system of homogeneous clusters of countries in respect to their factor structure similarity. This similarity is not based on actual distribution resemblance levels, but on factor structure similarity as computed and utilized through the “hit” matrix. Testing for factor structure equivalence in the Person-Job Fit construct(s) for four European countries through covariance structure analysis, we contrasted two research methods, namely, the traditional across-countries approach and the method of aggregating some of the countries involved into clusters with a homogeneous factor structure. The findings showed that the aggregation technique reached acceptable levels of statistical support for the emerging factor structures, whereas the traditional approach did not statistically support the structures reached. Possible statistical artifacts were also tested through a third research condition, under a “homogeneity” rationale

Culture-level dimensions of social axioms and their correlates across 41 cultures

Leung and colleagues have revealed a five-dimensional structure of social axioms across individuals from five cultural groups. The present research was designed to reveal the culture level factor structure of social axioms and its correlates across 41 nations. An ecological factor analysis on the 60 items of the Social Axioms Survey extracted two factors: Dynamic Externality correlates with value measures tapping collectivism, hierarchy, and conservatism and with national indices indicative of lower social development. Societal Cynicism is less strongly and broadly correlated with previous values measures or other national indices and seems to define a novel cultural syndrome. Its national correlates suggest that it taps the cognitive component of a cultural constellation labeled maleficence, a cultural syndrome associated with a general mistrust of social systems and other people. Discussion focused on the meaning of these national level factors of beliefs and on their relationships with individual level factors of belief derived from the same data set.(undefined

Perceptions of the appropriate response to norm violation in 57 societies

An Author Correction to this article: DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-22955-x.Norm enforcement may be important for resolving conflicts and promoting cooperation. However, little is known about how preferred responses to norm violations vary across cultures and across domains. In a preregistered study of 57 countries (using convenience samples of 22,863 students and non-students), we measured perceptions of the appropriateness of various responses to a violation of a cooperative norm and to atypical social behaviors. Our findings highlight both cultural universals and cultural variation. We find a universal negative relation between appropriateness ratings of norm violations and appropriateness ratings of responses in the form of confrontation, social ostracism and gossip. Moreover, we find the country variation in the appropriateness of sanctions to be consistent across different norm violations but not across different sanctions. Specifically, in those countries where use of physical confrontation and social ostracism is rated as less appropriate, gossip is rated as more appropriate.Peer reviewe

Changes in social norms during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic across 43 countries

The emergence of COVID-19 dramatically changed social behavior across societies and contexts. Here we study whether social norms also changed. Specifically, we study this question for cultural tightness (the degree to which societies generally have strong norms), specific social norms (e.g. stealing, hand washing), and norms about enforcement, using survey data from 30,431 respondents in 43 countries recorded before and in the early stages following the emergence of COVID-19. Using variation in disease intensity, we shed light on the mechanisms predicting changes in social norm measures. We find evidence that, after the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, hand washing norms increased while tightness and punishing frequency slightly decreased but observe no evidence for a robust change in most other norms. Thus, at least in the short term, our findings suggest that cultures are largely stable to pandemic threats except in those norms, hand washing in this case, that are perceived to be directly relevant to dealing with the collective threat

Anger and disgust shape judgments of social sanctions across cultures, especially in high individual autonomy societies

When someone violates a social norm, others may think that some sanction would be appropriate. We examine how the experience of emotions like anger and disgust relate to the judged appropriateness of sanctions, in a pre-registered analysis of data from a large-scale study in 56 societies. Across the world, we find that individuals who experience anger and disgust over a norm violation are more likely to endorse confrontation, ostracism and, to a smaller extent, gossip. Moreover, we find that the experience of anger is consistently the strongest predictor of judgments of confrontation, compared to other emotions. Although the link between state-based emotions and judgments may seem universal, its strength varies across countries. Aligned with theoretical predictions, this link is stronger in societies, and among individuals, that place higher value on individual autonomy. Thus, autonomy values may increase the role that emotions play in guiding judgments of social sanctions