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

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.

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Cross-Cultural Variations in Extreme Rejecting and Extreme Affirming Response Styles

Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology ◽

10.1177/0022022119873072 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 50 (8) ◽

pp. 955-971 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Tieyuan Guo ◽

Roy Spina

Keyword(s):

Cultural Differences ◽

Cross Cultural ◽

Response Style ◽

Response Styles ◽

Cultural Variation ◽

Cultural Variations ◽

Individual Level ◽

Country Level ◽

The Difference ◽

The Individual

Previous research has discussed cultural differences in moderacy vs extremity response styles. The present research found that cultural differences in response styles were more complex than previously speculated. We investigated cross-cultural variations in extreme rejecting versus affirming response biases. Although research has indicated that overall Chinese have less extreme responses than Westerners, the difference may be mainly driven by extreme rejecting responses because respondents consider answering survey questions as a way of interacting with researchers, and extreme rejecting responses may disrupt harmony in relationships, which is valued more in Chinese collectivistic culture than in Western individualistic cultures. Studies 1 and 2 revealed that Chinese had less extreme rejecting response style than did British, whereas they did not differ in extreme affirming response style. Study 2 further revealed that the cross-cultural asymmetry in extreme rejecting versus affirming response styles was partially accounted for by individualism orientation at the individual level. Consistently, Study 3 revealed that at the country level, individualism was positively associated with extreme rejecting response style, but was not associated with extreme affirming response style, suggesting that individualism accounted for the asymmetric cultural variation in extreme rejecting versus affirming response styles.

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

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x05000142 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 28 (6) ◽

pp. 795-815 ◽

Cited By ~ 819

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.

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Gender Disparity in STEM Across Cultures

Industrial and Organizational Psychology ◽

10.1017/iop.2018.20 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 309-313

Author(s):

Aditi Rabindra Sachdev

Keyword(s):

Cultural Psychology ◽

Cultural Beliefs ◽

Gender Disparity ◽

Cross Cultural ◽

Cultural Perspective ◽

Stem Fields ◽

Gender Inequity ◽

Individual Level ◽

Empirically Supported ◽

And Mathematics

Miner et al. (2018) claim that focusing on individual factors to understand gender inequity in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) provides an incomplete explanation of the phenomenon. They challenge the appropriateness of individual-level explanations that hold women responsible for the injustices they experience, suggesting that this perspective fails to consider larger social-contextual influences. Instead, to explain gender disparity in the STEM fields, Miner et al. offer a social-structural lens through which to view the situation that relies on commonly held beliefs about women in society. The inequality that characterizes these fields, however, is a worldwide phenomenon that spans societal boundaries. Therefore, understanding the social-contextual factors that contribute to gender inequality in the STEM fields requires a cross-cultural examination of norms and values. In this commentary, I first outline a program of research aimed at developing an empirically supported theoretical framework that explains gender inequity in the STEM fields from a cross-cultural perspective. Then, I review the ways in which cultural beliefs influence education and careers in the STEM fields. Finally, I provide some practical suggestions of ways to promote gender equality in STEM fields. As such, this commentary serves as a call to integrate concepts from vocational, educational, and cross-cultural psychology to address an issue of upmost importance: equal representation.

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Trust and online information-sharing in close relationships: a cross-cultural perspective

Behaviour and Information Technology ◽

10.1080/0144929x.2014.937458 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 34 (4) ◽

pp. 363-374 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Jun Liu ◽

Pei-Luen Patrick Rau ◽

Nico Wendler

Keyword(s):

Information Sharing ◽

Close Relationships ◽

Cross Cultural ◽

Online Information ◽

Cultural Perspective

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Cognitive Organization of Cultural Values: Cross-Cultural Analysis of Data from Sweden and the usa

Journal of Cognition and Culture ◽

10.1163/15685373-12342123 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 14 (3-4) ◽

pp. 235-262 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Kateryna Maltseva

Keyword(s):

Cultural Values ◽

Cultural Differences ◽

Traditional Approach ◽

Cultural Analysis ◽

Cross Cultural ◽

Cultural Variation ◽

Quantitative Methodology ◽

Quantitative Evidence ◽

Individual Level ◽

Cross Cultural Differences

A considerable body of data has been amassed to explain values structure and transmission. Values dimensions have been extracted and compared across societies in a number of values studies, many of which use quantitative methodology. However, there is little quantitative evidence of significant cross-cultural variation in values. This counterintuitive outcome has given rise to a doubt if an effective quantified comparison of values across societies is possible. The major reason for this objection to use quantitative techniques in cross-cultural values research is the loss of culture-specific meaning in quantitative procedures. Using ratings data from two American and Swedish samples the present research demonstrates that it is possible to compare values data and detect meaningful cross-cultural differences in values across societies, provided that several conceptual alterations in the instrument are made. Namely, it is proposed that collective- and individual level constructs should be separated when the informants are asked about their values. The traditional approach to values as implicitly individual construct is critiqued. The paper proposes to distinguish formulations of individual-level values items (that are more closely associated with personal projects and conative aspects) from formulations of cultural-identity relevant collective-level values items (which are acquired in more uniform processes of social learning and institutionalization). When elicitation of values considers this distinction during data collection, the depression of cross-cultural differences in values disappears.

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Appealing to the minds of gods: A novel cultural evolutionary account of religious appeals and an empirical assessment using ethnographic data from eight diverse societies

10.31234/osf.io/tjn3e ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Theiss Bendixen ◽

Coren Lee Apicella ◽

Quentin Atkinson ◽

Emma Cohen ◽

Joseph Henrich ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Cross Cultural ◽

Cultural Variation ◽

Evolutionary Account ◽

Individual Level ◽

Free List ◽

Empirical Assessment ◽

Evolutionary Study ◽

Alternative Approaches ◽

Ethnographic Data ◽

Cultural Evolutionary

While appeals to gods and spirits are ubiquitous throughout human societies past and present, deities’ postulated concerns vary across populations. How does the content of beliefs about and appeals to gods vary across groups, and what accounts for this variation? With particular emphasis on locally important deities, we develop a novel cultural evolutionary account that includes a set of predictive criteria for what deities will be associated with in various socioecological contexts. We then apply these criteria in an analysis of individual-level ethnographic free-list data on what pleases and angers locally relevant deities from eight diverse societies. We conclude with a discussion of how alternative approaches to cross-cultural variation in god beliefs and appeals fare against our findings and close by considering some key implications of our methods and findings for the cognitive and evolutionary study of religion.

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Conflict Mediation and Culture: Lessons from the Gambia

Peace and Conflict Studies ◽

10.46743/1082-7307/2006.1067 ◽

2006 ◽

Author(s):

Mark Davidheiser

Keyword(s):

Theory Development ◽

Cross Cultural ◽

The Gambia ◽

Mediation Process ◽

Cultural Variation ◽

Individual Level ◽

Ethical Implications ◽

Theoretical Perspectives ◽

Conflict Mediation ◽

The Individual

The issue of cultural variation in conflict mediation has attracted considerable interest, probably because of wide-ranging theoretical, methodological, and ethical implications. Scholars are raising increasing questions about both generic theories of the mediation process and past conceptualizations of the culture construct. This article reviews theoretical perspectives on culture and conflict mediation and discusses them in relation to fieldwork conducted in the Gambia among three ethnolinguistic groups. Some local and cross-cultural patterns in the mediation process were found. These patterns are associated with variables such as ethnicity, gender, and social status. However, comparative analysis on the individual level revealed considerable diversity in praxis, suggesting that cross-cultural studies should go beyond descriptions of group tendencies. Indeed, the amount of variation in the data implies a need to reconsider aspects of prevailing approaches to conflict mediation. The conclusion includes recommendations for further theory development and research on this vital topic.

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