Reply to Nielsen et al. social mindfulness is associated with countries’ environmental performance and individual environmental concern

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From local social mindfulness to global sustainability efforts?

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Social mindfulness and prosociality vary across the globe

Humans are social animals, but not everyone will be mindful of others to the same extent. Individual differences have been found, but would social mindfulness also be shaped by one’s location in the world? Expecting cross-national differences to exist, we examined if and how social mindfulness differs across countries. At little to no material cost, social mindfulness typically entails small acts of attention or kindness. Even though fairly common, such low-cost cooperation has received little empirical attention. Measuring social mindfulness across 31 samples from industrialized countries and regions (n = 8,354), we found considerable variation. Among selected country-level variables, greater social mindfulness was most strongly associated with countries’ better general performance on environmental protection. Together, our findings contribute to the literature on prosociality by targeting the kind of everyday cooperation that is more focused on communicating benevolence than on providing material benefits

Levels of Interpersonal Trust Across Different Types of Environment: The Micro-Macro Interplay Between Relational Distance and Human Ecology

Social and behavioral scientists have long investigated the relationship between interpersonal trust and features of the environment. However, it remains unclear how the microenvironment of relational distance (i.e., social proximity between 2 persons) interacts with the macroenvironment of human ecology (i.e., social and natural environments) to predict people&#39;s levels of trusting other persons. In this research, we tackled this puzzle using diverse methodologies (e.g., meta-analysis, experiment, and multilevel analysis) and large, cultural-group samples. Four studies found that, across many countries (e.g., 77 countries in Study 3) and regions within a country (e.g., 28 Chinese provinces in Study 4), members of these social units trusted close others (e.g., family members) more than distant others (e.g., strangers). However, this general effect of relational distance was stronger in societies embedded within more restrictive cultural, sociopolitical, and natural ecologies (e.g., a more collectivistic cultural logic, less developed socioeconomic and political institutions, and a stronger threat of infectious diseases, such as HCV infection). More importantly, people&#39;s attitudinal trust of distant others was higher in countries or regions with less restrictive ecocultural features, but such differences often disappeared in the context of trusting close others. Compared with other sociopolitical and natural features, the societal culture of collectivism often was a unique explanatory variable for the micro-macro interplay of current interest. These converging pieces of evidence provide a clear view of how levels of interpersonal trust vary as a function of relational distance and ecocultural environments simultaneously.</p

Social mindfulness: Prosocial the active way

Prosociality is a central topic in positive psychology. An important but under-studied distinction can be made between active and reactive expressions. We suggest that the novel construct of social mindfulness represents active rather than reactive prosociality. Across four studies (N = 2,594), including a multi-wave representative sample spanning six years, social mindfulness is found to correlate with personality traits associated with prosocial and/or antisocial behavior. We find positive associations with empathy, social value orientation, and general prosocial behavior, and negative associations with moral disengagement and narcissism. Importantly, social mindfulness emerges as an active rather than a reactive characteristic that is more strongly related to HEXACO honesty-humility (active cooperation) than to HEXACO agreeableness (reactive cooperation). The association between social mindfulness and honesty-humility was found across measures six years apart. Given the well-established link between prosociality and well-being, emphasizing social mindfulness may be a good start to promote the latter

Multicultural Validation of the Zuckerman-Kuhlman-Aluja Personality Questionnaire Shortened Form (ZKA-PQ/SF) Across 18 Countries

The aim of this study was to assess the psychometric properties of the Zuckerman-Kuhlman-Aluja Personality Questionnaire shortened form (ZKA-PQ/SF) in 18 cultures and 13 languages of different African, American, Asian, and European cultures and languages. The results showed that the five-factor structure with 20 facets replicated well across cultures with a total congruence coefficient of .97. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) resulted in adequate fit indices for the five factors based on the comparative fit index (CFI), Tucker-Lewis index (TLI; >.90), and RMSEA (.031-.081). A series of CFA to assess measurement invariance across cultures resulted in adequate CFIs and TLIs for configural and metric invariance. However, factors did not show scalar invariance. Alpha internal consistencies of five factors ranged between .77 (Sensation Seeking) and .86 (Neuroticism). The average alpha of the 20 facets was .64 with a range from .43 (SS4) to .75 (AG1). Nevertheless, alpha reliabilities were lower in some facets and cultures, especially for Senegal and Togo. The average percentage of the variance explained based on the adjusted R was 2.9%, 1.7%, and 5.1% for age, sex, and, cultures, respectively. Finally, multidimensional scaling suggested that geographically or culturally close cultures share mean profile similarities

Dark Triad Traits, Social Position, and Personality: A Cross-Cultural Study

Aluja A, Garcia LF, Rossier J, et al. Dark Triad Traits, Social Position, and Personality: A Cross-Cultural Study. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology . 2022: 00220221211072816.This research explores the Dark Triad traits in 18 cultures from Europe, America, Africa, and Asia. We examined the relationships among Dark Triad traits, as measured by the SD3, with gender, age, social status, and two personality models, HEXACO and Zuckerman's alternative five factor model (AFFM). There were 10,298 participants (5,410 women and 4,888 men) with a mean age of 40.31 (SD = 17.32) years old. Between 6% and 16% of the variance in the Dark Triad traits was accounted by culture. Men scored higher than women on all three traits in most cultures, but gender differences were generally larger in European countries. The relationship between the Dark Triad traits dimensions and age is negative, but the largest effect size is small (Psychopathy; eta(2) = .018). Psychopathy is associated with low Social Position, and Narcissism with high Social Position. In regard to Personality traits, Narcissism is positively related to Extraversion, and Psychopathy is negatively related to Conscientiousness for the HEXACO, and Narcissism is positively related to Activity and Sensation Seeking, and Machiavellianism and Psychopathy are positively related to Aggressiveness and Sensation Seeking for the AFFM

Exploring the stability of HEXACO‐60 structure and the association of gender, age, and social position with personality traits across 18 countries

García LF, Aluja A, Rossier J, et al. Exploring the stability of HEXACO‐60 structure and the association of gender, age, and social position with personality traits across 18 countries. Journal of Personality. 2021: jopy.12664.Objectives The present paper tests the cross-national stability of the HEXACO-60 structure across 18 countries from four continents. Gender and age differences across countries will be examined. Finally, this is the first study to explicitly analyze the relationships between the HEXACO and social position. Method Ten thousand two hundred and ninety eight subjects (5,410 women and 4,888 men) from 18 countries and 13 languages were analyzed. Confirmatory factor analysis techniques were used to test configural, metric and scalar invariance models. Congruence coefficients with the original structure of the HEXACO-60 were computed for every culture. Effect sizes of gender, age, and social position factors across countries were also computed. Results HEXACO-60 demonstrates configural and metric invariance, but not scalar invariance. Congruence coefficients show a great equivalence in almost all countries and factors. Only Emotionality presents a large gender difference across countries. No relevant effect of age is observed. A profile of high scores on Honesty-Humility, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience, and low scores on Emotionality increases the likelihood of achieving a higher social position, although the effect sizes are small. Conclusions HEXACO-60 is a useful instrument to conduct personality trait research and practice around the world. Implications of gender, social position, and country differences are discussed

Dark Triad Traits, Social Position, and Personality: A Cross-Cultural Study

This research explores the Dark Triad traits in 18 cultures from Europe, America, Africa, and Asia. We examined the relationships among Dark Triad traits, as measured by the SD3, with gender, age, social status, and two personality models, HEXACO and Zuckerman’s alternative five factor model (AFFM). There were 10,298 participants (5,410 women and 4,888 men) with a mean age of 40.31 (SD =17.32) years old. Between 6% and 16% of the variance in the Dark Triad traits was accounted by culture. Men scored higher than women on all three traits in most cultures, but gender differences were generally larger in European countries. The relationship between the Dark Triad traits dimensions and age is negative, but the largest effect size is small (Psychopathy; η 2 =.018). Psychopathy is associated with low Social Position, and Narcissism with high Social Position. In regard to Personality traits, Narcissism is positively related to Extraversion, and Psychopathy is negatively related to Conscientiousness for the HEXACO, and Narcissism is positively related to Activity and Sensation Seeking, and Machiavellianism and Psychopathy are positively related to Aggressiveness and Sensation Seeking for the AFFM