scholarly journals “Economic man” in cross-cultural perspective: Behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies

2005 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 795-815 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Henrich ◽  
Robert Boyd ◽  
Samuel Bowles ◽  
Colin Camerer ◽  
Ernst Fehr ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Canonical Model ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Behavioral Variability ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
Behavioral Experiments ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Experimental Games

Researchers from across the social sciences have found consistent deviations from the predictions of the canonical model of self-interest in hundreds of experiments from around the world. This research, however, cannot determine whether the uniformity results from universal patterns of human behavior or from the limited cultural variation available among the university students used in virtually all prior experimental work. To address this, we undertook a cross-cultural study of behavior in ultimatum, public goods, and dictator games in a range of small-scale societies exhibiting a wide variety of economic and cultural conditions. We found, first, that the canonical model – based on self-interest – fails in all of the societies studied. Second, our data reveal substantially more behavioral variability across social groups than has been found in previous research. Third, group-level differences in economic organization and the structure of social interactions explain a substantial portion of the behavioral variation across societies: the higher the degree of market integration and the higher the payoffs to cooperation in everyday life, the greater the level of prosociality expressed in experimental games. Fourth, the available individual-level economic and demographic variables do not consistently explain game behavior, either within or across groups. Fifth, in many cases experimental play appears to reflect the common interactional patterns of everyday life.

Affective Interpersonal Touch in Close Relationships: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

2021 ◽  
pp. 014616722098837
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Sorokowska ◽  
Supreet Saluja ◽  
Piotr Sorokowski ◽  
Tomasz Frąckowiak ◽  
Maciej Karwowski ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Close Relationships ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Interpersonal Distance ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
Affective Touch ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Interpersonal Touch ◽  
Regional Temperature

Interpersonal touch behavior differs across cultures, yet no study to date has systematically tested for cultural variation in affective touch, nor examined the factors that might account for this variability. Here, over 14,000 individuals from 45 countries were asked whether they embraced, stroked, kissed, or hugged their partner, friends, and youngest child during the week preceding the study. We then examined a range of hypothesized individual-level factors (sex, age, parasitic history, conservatism, religiosity, and preferred interpersonal distance) and cultural-level factors (regional temperature, parasite stress, regional conservatism, collectivism, and religiosity) in predicting these affective-touching behaviors. Our results indicate that affective touch was most prevalent in relationships with partners and children, and its diversity was relatively higher in warmer, less conservative, and religious countries, and among younger, female, and liberal people. This research allows for a broad and integrated view of the bases of cross-cultural variability in affective touch.

scholarly journals Small-scale societies exhibit fundamental variation in the role of intentions in moral judgment

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (17) ◽  
pp. 4688-4693 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Clark Barrett ◽  
Alexander Bolyanatz ◽  
Alyssa N. Crittenden ◽  
Daniel M. T. Fessler ◽  
Simon Fitzpatrick ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Narrow Range ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Moral Assessment ◽  
Mitigating Circumstances

Intent and mitigating circumstances play a central role in moral and legal assessments in large-scale industrialized societies. Although these features of moral assessment are widely assumed to be universal, to date, they have only been studied in a narrow range of societies. We show that there is substantial cross-cultural variation among eight traditional small-scale societies (ranging from hunter-gatherer to pastoralist to horticulturalist) and two Western societies (one urban, one rural) in the extent to which intent and mitigating circumstances influence moral judgments. Although participants in all societies took such factors into account to some degree, they did so to very different extents, varying in both the types of considerations taken into account and the types of violations to which such considerations were applied. The particular patterns of assessment characteristic of large-scale industrialized societies may thus reflect relatively recently culturally evolved norms rather than inherent features of human moral judgment.

The experiences of mothers caring for a child with developmental disabilities: a cross cultural perspective

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 218-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kuljit Heer ◽  
John Rose ◽  
Michael Larkin ◽  
Nidhi Singhal
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Disabilities ◽  
Focus Groups ◽  
Skills Training ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
The Uk

Purpose – India has one of the more progressive disability frameworks in the developing world which tends to adopt western philosophies and principles (e.g. parent participation and advocacy) which to some degree mirrors the type of service delivery in the UK. The purpose of this paper is to adopt a cross-cultural perspective to explore caregiving amongst parents caring for a child with intellectual/developmental disabilities in India. Design/methodology/approach – Three focus groups were used to interview parents at Action for Autism (AFA) located in Delhi, India. The focus groups explored how disability is encountered within an Indian context. Findings – Two main themes were identified in the parents narratives which were “making the decision to get help” and “seeing disabilities in from a new perspective”. Family members played an important role in the decision to get help and acted as a platform for mothers to explore their own concerns. Seeing disability from a new perspective was a four stage process which included initially accepting the diagnosis and their child; regaining control through parenting skills training; witnessing positive changes in their children and themselves and reaping personal benefits as a result of their involvement with AFA. Research limitations/implications – The research is very small scale and focused on parents in a specific organisation, as a consequence the results cannot be generalised. Originality/value – The discourses of these individuals do provide a useful insight into the provision of services to children in India and provide a starting point for cross-cultural understanding of parenting children with disabilities.

scholarly journals Universals and cultural diversity in the expression of gratitude

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 180391 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simeon Floyd ◽  
Giovanni Rossi ◽  
Julija Baranova ◽  
Joe Blythe ◽  
Mark Dingemanse ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Social Reciprocity ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Different Cultures

Gratitude is argued to have evolved to motivate and maintain social reciprocity among people, and to be linked to a wide range of positive effects—social, psychological and even physical. But is socially reciprocal behaviour dependent on the expression of gratitude, for example by saying ‘thank you’ as in English? Current research has not included cross-cultural elements, and has tended to conflate gratitude as an emotion with gratitude as a linguistic practice, as might appear to be the case in English. Here, we ask to what extent people express gratitude in different societies by focusing on episodes of everyday life where someone seeks and obtains a good, service or support from another, comparing these episodes across eight languages from five continents. We find that expressions of gratitude in these episodes are remarkably rare, suggesting that social reciprocity in everyday life relies on tacit understandings of rights and duties surrounding mutual assistance and collaboration. At the same time, we also find minor cross-cultural variation, with slightly higher rates in Western European languages English and Italian, showing that universal tendencies of social reciprocity should not be equated with more culturally variable practices of expressing gratitude. Our study complements previous experimental and culture-specific research on gratitude with a systematic comparison of audiovisual corpora of naturally occurring social interaction from different cultures from around the world.

Cross‐cultural variation in thirst perception in hot‐humid and hot‐arid environments: Evidence from two small‐scale populations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asher Y. Rosinger ◽  
Hilary J. Bethancourt ◽  
Zane S. Swanson ◽  
Kaylee Lopez ◽  
W. Larry Kenney ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Arid Environments ◽  
Cultural Variation

scholarly journals Self-Interest Bias in the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Cultural Comparison between the United States and China

2021 ◽  
pp. 002202212110257
Author(s):  
Mengchen Dong ◽  
Giuliana Spadaro ◽  
Shuai Yuan ◽  
Yue Song ◽  
Zi Ye ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
Norm Violations ◽  
Cross Cultural Comparison ◽  
Self Construal ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Social Gathering ◽  
The Individual

In the global crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries attempt to enforce new social norms to prevent the further spread of the coronavirus. A key to the success of these measures is the individual adherence to norms that are collectively beneficial to contain the spread of the pandemic. However, individuals’ self-interest bias (i.e., the prevalent tendency to license own but not others’ self-serving acts or norm violations) can pose a challenge to the success of such measures. The current research examines COVID-19-related self-interest bias from a cross-cultural perspective. Two studies ( N = 1,558) sampled from the United States and China consistently revealed that participants from the United States evaluated their own self-serving acts (exploiting test kits in Study 1; social gathering and sneezing without covering the mouth in public in Study 2) as more acceptable than identical deeds of others, while such self-interest bias did not emerge among Chinese participants. Cultural underpinnings of independent versus interdependent self-construal may influence the extent to which individuals apply self-interest bias to justifications of their own self-serving behaviors during the pandemic.

scholarly journals Self-Interest Bias in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Own Self-Serving Behaviors Are Judged More Leniently than Others’ in the US but not China

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mengchen Dong ◽  
Giuliana Spadaro ◽  
Shuai Yuan ◽  
Yue Song ◽  
Zi Ye ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
Global Crisis ◽  
Norm Violations ◽  
Self Construal ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Us ◽  
Social Gathering ◽  
The Individual

In the global crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries attempt to enforce new social norms to prevent the further spread of the coronavirus. A key to the success of these measures is the individual adherence to norms that are collectively beneficial to contain the spread of the pandemic. However, individuals’ self-interest bias (i.e., the prevalent tendency to license own but not others’ self-serving acts or norm violations) can pose a challenge to the success of such measures. The current research examines COVID-19-related self-interest bias from a cross-cultural perspective. Two studies (N = 1,558) sampled from the US and China, and consistently revealed that US participants evaluated their own self-serving acts (exploiting disinfectants or test kits in Study 1; social gathering and sneezing without covering the mouth in Study 2) as more acceptable than identical deeds of others, while such self-interest bias did not emerge among Chinese participants. Cultural underpinnings of independent vs. interdependent self-construal may influence the extent to which individuals apply self-interest bias to justifications of their own self-serving behaviors during the pandemic.

Where they sing solo: Accounting for cross-cultural variation in collective music-making in theories of music evolution

2021 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aniruddh D. Patel ◽  
Chris von Rueden
Keyword(s):  
Social Bonding ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Music Making

Abstract Collective, synchronous music-making is far from ubiquitous across traditional, small-scale societies. We describe societies that lack collective music and offer hypotheses to help explain this cultural variation. Without identifying the factors that explain variation in collective music-making across these societies, theories of music evolution based on social bonding (Savage et al.) or coalition signaling (Mehr et al.) remain incomplete.

Child Care in Cross-Cultural Perspectives: Implications for the Future Organization of Child Care in the United States

1981 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Marks Greenfield
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Child Care ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Care Organization ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Role Integration ◽  
The Future ◽  
Agrarian Societies

In every society care of children is primarily a female responsibility, yet there is still tremendous cross-cultural variation in the organization of child care. Three characteristics of child care in small-scale traditional agrarian societies are discussed: role integration, use of auxiliary caregivers, and the effects of certain ecological patterns on childrearing. Data concerning each of these points is presented, along with implications for the future organization of child care in our own society. These implications are based on, first, the assumption of adaptive-ness in forms of child care organization that have evolved over periods of time in these relatively stable societies, and, secondly, on the notion that concepts of child care that work in other societies can, in many cases, be adapted to current conditions in the United States.

scholarly journals Fitness consequences of spousal relatedness in 46 small-scale societies

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 20140160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Drew H. Bailey ◽  
Kim R. Hill ◽  
Robert S. Walker
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Positive Relationship ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Kinship Networks ◽  
Fitness Consequences ◽  
Fitness Consequence

Social norms that regulate reproductive and marital decisions generate impressive cross-cultural variation in the prevalence of kin marriages. In some societies, marriages among kin are the norm and this inbreeding creates intensive kinship networks concentrated within communities. In others, especially forager societies, most marriages are between more genealogically and geographically distant individuals, which generates a larger number of kin and affines of lesser relatedness in more extensive kinship networks spread out over multiple communities. Here, we investigate the fitness consequence of kin marriages across a sample of 46 small-scale societies (12 439 marriages). Results show that some non-forager societies (including horticulturalists, agriculturalists and pastoralists), but not foragers, have intensive kinship societies where fitness outcomes (measured as the number of surviving children in genealogies) peak at commonly high levels of spousal relatedness. By contrast, the extensive kinship systems of foragers have worse fitness outcomes at high levels of spousal relatedness. Overall, societies with greater levels of inbreeding showed a more positive relationship between fitness and spousal relatedness.

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