Hidden Clusters Beyond Ethnic Boundaries

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandro Pérez Velilla ◽  
Cody James Moser ◽  
Paul E. Smaldino
Keyword(s):  
Behavioral Outcomes ◽  
Ethnic Boundaries ◽  
Cultural Trait ◽  
Cultural Traits ◽  
Heritability Estimates

Hidden cluster problems can manifest when broad ethnic categories are used as proxies for cultural traits, especially when traits are assumed to encode cultural distances between groups. We suggest a granular understanding of cultural trait distributions within and between ethnic categories is fundamental to the interpretation of heritability estimates as well as general behavioral outcomes.

When is the spread of a cultural trait due to cultural group selection? The case of religious syncretism

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Santana ◽  
Raj Patel ◽  
Shereen Chang ◽  
Michael Weisberg
Keyword(s):  
Group Selection ◽  
Cultural Group ◽  
Cultural Groups ◽  
Cultural Group Selection ◽  
Cultural Trait ◽  
Cultural Systems ◽  
Cultural Traits ◽  
Religious Syncretism

AbstractThe reproduction of cultural systems in cases where cultural group selection may occur is typically incomplete, with only certain cultural traits being adopted by less successful cultural groups. Why a particular trait and not another is transmitted might not be explained by cultural group selection. We explore this issue through the case of religious syncretism.

Cultural traits and stock market development: an empirical analysis

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nabamita Dutta ◽  
Deepraj Mukherjee
Keyword(s):  
Stock Market ◽  
Uncertainty Avoidance ◽  
Market Development ◽  
Cultural Dimension ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Stock Market Development ◽  
Cultural Trait ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
Cultural Traits

Purpose – During recent times, the stock market has emerged as a major financial institution of an economy. Yet, cross-country differences, in size and role of stock market, persist. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the correlation between cultural traits and the development of the stock market in a country. Considering multiple dimensions of culture, identified in the literature by Hofstede (1980/2001) and World Value Survey, the authors construct the hypotheses: trust, a key cultural trait, should positively influence stock market development; uncertainty avoidance, Hofstede’s cultural dimension should negatively influence the development of the stock market; and individualism, an alternate cultural dimension of Hofstede’s measures, should be positively correlated with stock market development. The cross-country empirical analysis supports the hypotheses. The results hold for multiple measures of stock market development. Design/methodology/approach – This paper investigates the correlation between various cultural traits and the development of the stock market in a country. Specifically, the authors consider three different cultural trait measures. The authors consider a cross-sectional analysis of an extensive number of countries. While all explanatory variables of interest are considered over the period 2000-2007, the authors consider 2008 figures for the dependent variables of interest, financial development. Ordinary least squares is considered as the benchmark specification. Robust regression has been considered as part of robustness analysis. The authors mention throughout the paper that the results stress on significant association between the variables, only. Findings – The empirical results support the hypotheses. The first measure, trust, is positively associated with stock market development of a nation. Statistically, for one standard deviation rise in trust (1 SD=37.5), stock market capitalization will go up between 11 and 19 percentage points. Uncertainty avoidance, the second measure is negatively correlated and statistically, the impact is much greater. Finally, the third measure, individualism, is positively correlated with stock market development. Statistically, for one SD rise in individualism (SD=23.9), stock market capitalization will rise by 23 percentage points. Originality/value – Existing literature has stressed the role of cultural traits – trust, uncertainty avoidance, individualism – in the promotion of entrepreneurship, innovation and growth. Since most startups need to raise capital in order to implement their new ideas, cross-country heterogeneity in the strength of capital markets may lead to important differences in entrepreneurship and productivity growth across economies (Greenwood and Jovanovic, 1990; Jayaratne and Strahan, 1996; Levine, 1997; Beck et al., 2000; Guiso et al., 2004). Yet, the link between stock market development and cultural traits has not been established in the literature. This paper aims to fill this missing link.

scholarly journals The Concept of Muhibah in Nation-Building in Malaysia: the Challenges and Prospects

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3.21) ◽  
pp. 415
Author(s):  
Wan Norhasniah Wan Husin ◽  
Haslina Ibrahim
Keyword(s):  
National Policy ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Analysis Method ◽  
Pluralistic Society ◽  
Cultural Trait ◽  
Library Research ◽  
The Face ◽  
Cultural Traits ◽  
The Right ◽  
Reciprocal Process

This article deliberated on the concept of muhibah and its application as a means to foster harmony in the Malaysian pluralistic society comprising mainly the Malays, Chinese and Indians. Given the multiracial, multicultural and multireligous background, the study acknowledges the need to protect one’s heritage and cultural traits which are necessarily connected to the question of right and freedom as the Malaysian citizen. The questions at hands, how is it possible to inculcate muhibah in the face of multiple claims to right and freedom. The article will therefore focus on the two issues pertain to right which are the right to freedom of religion and the right to language. The analysis is qualitative in nature and it relied upon library research for data collection. The article adopts textual analysis method for data analysis. The findings show that despite its historical relevance and practicality, implementing muhibah has been very challenging in Malaysia. This is due the pressing demand from particular ethnic and religion, to preserving their cultural trait. It is therefore concluded that the success of muhibah is a reciprocal process. It can be achievable if every ethnic group in Malaysia have trust and respect for the national policy such as muhibah and therefore willing to work together in realizing the policy.  

scholarly journals Organisational culture and the integrated chronic diseases management model implementation fidelity in South Africa: a cross-sectional study

BMJ Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. e036683
Author(s):  
Limakatso Lebina ◽  
Mary Kawonga ◽  
Olufunke Alaba ◽  
Natasha Khamisa ◽  
Kennedy Otwombe ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Pearson Correlation ◽  
Implementation Fidelity ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Organisational Culture ◽  
Secondary Outcome ◽  
Sectional Study ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Survey Tool ◽  
Cultural Trait ◽  
Cultural Traits

ObjectiveTo assess whether organisational culture influences the fidelity of implementation of the Integrated Chronic Disease Management (ICDM) model at primary healthcare (PHC) clinics.DesignA cross-sectional study.SettingThe ICDM model was introduced in South African clinics to strengthen delivery of care and improve clinical outcomes for patients with chronic conditions, but the determinants of its implementation have not been assessed.ParticipantsThe abbreviated Denison organisational culture (DOC) survey tool was administered to 90 staff members to assess three cultural traits: involvement, consistency and adaptability of six PHC clinics in Dr. Kenneth Kaunda and West Rand (WR) health districts.Primary and secondary outcome measuresEach cultural trait has three indices with five items, giving a total of 45 items. The items were scored on a Likert scale ranging from one (strongly disagree) to five (strongly agree), and mean scores were calculated for each item, cultural traits and indices. Descriptive statistics were used to describe participants and clinics, and Pearson correlation coefficient to asses association between fidelity and culture.ResultsParticipants’ mean age was 38.8 (SD=10.35) years, and 54.4% (49/90) were nurses. The overall mean score for the DOC was 3.63 (SD=0.58). The involvement (team orientation, empowerment and capability development) cultural trait had the highest (3.71; SD=0.72) mean score, followed by adaptability (external focus) (3.62; SD=0.56) and consistency (3.56; SD=0.63). There were no statistically significant differences in cultural scores between PHC clinics. However, culture scores for all three traits were significantly higher in WR (involvement 3.39 vs 3.84, p=0.011; adaptability 3.40 vs 3.73, p=0.007; consistency 3.34 vs 3.68, p=0.034).ConclusionLeadership intervention is required to purposefully enhance adaptability and consistency cultural traits of clinics to enhance the ICDM model’s principles of coordinated, integrated, patient-centred care.

scholarly journals Evoked and Transmitted Culture models: Using bayesian methods to infer the evolution of cultural traits in history

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Hyafil ◽  
Nicolas Baumard
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Behavioral Ecology ◽  
Latent Variable ◽  
Cultural Anthropology ◽  
Horizontal Transmission ◽  
Synthetic Data ◽  
Ecological Factors ◽  
Cultural Artifacts ◽  
Cultural Trait ◽  
Cultural Traits

A central question in behavioral and social sciences is understanding to what extent cultural traits are inherited from previous generations, transmitted from adjacent populations or produced in response to changes in socioeconomic and ecological conditions. As quantitative diachronic databases recording the evolution of cultural artifacts over many generations are becoming more common, there is a need for appropriate data-driven methods to approach this question. Here we present a new Bayesian method to infer the dynamics of cultural traits in a diachronic dataset. Our method called Evoked-Transmitted Cultural model (ETC) relies on fitting a latent-state model where a cultural trait is a latent variable which guides the production of the cultural artifacts observed in the database. The dynamics of this cultural trait may depend on the value of the cultural traits present in previous generations and in adjacent populations (transmitted culture) and/or on ecological factors (evoked culture). We show how ETC models can be fitted to quantitative diachronic or synchronic datasets, using the Expectation-Maximization algorithm, enabling estimating the relative contribution of vertical transmission, horizontal transmission and evoked component in shaping cultural traits. The method also allows to reconstruct the dynamics of cultural traits in different regions. We tested the performance of the method on synthetic data for two variants of the method (for binary or continuous traits). We found that both variants allow reliable estimates of parameters guiding cultural evolution. Overall, our method opens new possibilities to reconstruct how culture is shaped from quantitative data, with possible application in cultural history, cultural anthropology, archaeology, historical linguistics and behavioral ecology.

scholarly journals Organizational Culture and the Integrated Chronic Diseases Management Model Implementation Fidelity in South Africa

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Limakatso Lebina ◽  
Mary Kawonga ◽  
Olufunke A. Alaba ◽  
Natasha Khamisa ◽  
Kennedy Otwombe ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Organizational Culture ◽  
Pearson Correlation ◽  
Implementation Fidelity ◽  
Significant Negative Correlation ◽  
Delivery Of Care ◽  
Survey Tool ◽  
Cultural Trait ◽  
Cultural Traits ◽  
Health Districts

Abstract Organizational culture could facilitate or impede the implementation of new interventions or policies. The Integrated Chronic Disease Management (ICDM) model was introduced in clinics across South Africa to strengthen delivery of care and improve clinical outcomes for patients with chronic conditions, but the determinants of its implementation have not been assessed. This study assessed whether organizational culture influences the fidelity of implementation of the ICDM model at primary health care (PHC) clinics in South Africa. The abbreviated Denison organizational culture survey tool was administered to 90 staff members to assess three cultural traits: involvement, consistency and adaptability of six PHC clinics in two health districts in South Africa. Each cultural trait has three indices with five items, giving a total of 45 items. The items were scored on a Likert scale ranging from one (strongly disagree) to five (strongly agree), and mean scores were calculated for each item, cultural traits and indices. Descriptive statistics were used to describe participants and clinics, and Pearson correlation coefficient to asses association between fidelity and culture. Participants’ mean age was 38.8 (SD = 10.35) years, and 54.4% (49/90) were nurses. The overall mean score for the Denison organizational culture was 3.63 (SD = 0.58). The involvement (team orientation, empowerment and capability development) cultural trait had the highest (3.71; SD = 0.72) mean score, followed by adaptability (external focus) (3.62; SD = 0.56), and consistency (3.56; SD = 0.63). There was a weak, non-statistically significant negative correlation between fidelity level and organizational culture scores ( r = -0.117; p= 0.272). There were no statistically significant differences in cultural indices and cultural traits scores between the six PHC clinics. However, culture scores were significantly different by health districts. Leadership intervention is required to purposefully align the organizational culture of clinics with their mission.

The heritability of mental traits in humans: A proposal for a more coherent discussion

2003 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manfred Velden
Keyword(s):  
Heritability Estimate ◽  
Environmental Variations ◽  
Heritability Estimates

It is proposed to simplify the debate about the heritability of mental traits in humans by concentrating on two crucial issues: Population specificity of heritability estimates and the relation of these estimates to the malleability of the trait to which they refer. It is demonstrated that due to vast differences between the environmental variations of populations there would have to be a heritability estimate for every imaginable population, and that a heritability estimate allows no predictions whatsoever about the malleability of the trait in question. It is therefore concluded that this field of research should be abandoned.

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