A Review on the Cultural Characteristics of Mentalization and Relations with Psychological Symptoms

Mentalization is the ability to surmise the mental states such as thoughts, wishes, intentions, needs and feelings behind one’s own and others’ behaviors. Mentalization has been an important concept in understanding personality development and psychopathology in recent years. However, the cultural factors that affect mentalization is an understudied area, which has also not been investigated in Turkey. In this review, the development of the concept of mentalization will be explored comparing individualistic and collectivistic cultures. The specific mentalization characteristics that may emerge in Turkey are discussed. With this aim, the concept of mentalization, its development and the kinds of mentalization impairments that emerge in psychopathology are discussed. Afterwards, the effects of culture on mentalization are discussed with reference to recent empirical literature. Specifically, the effects of cultural context on the development of theory mind, affective and cognitive mentalization, self and other-focused mentalization, explicit and implicit mentalization are explored. The reviewed studies suggest that in collectivistic cultures, individuals tend to others’ mental states and socially accepted objective norms more than their own internal states and refrain from strong emotions such as anger that may disrupt the social harmony. Moreover implicit mentalization is less affected by culture. Based on the reviewed studies, culturally sensitive suggestions are provided regarding how to conduct mentalization assessments and practices. Keywords: Mentalization, culture, individualism, collectivism, psychotherapy

Coresidence is Not a Failure to Launch or Boomerang Children

Literature on emerging adults living with their parents has presented this concept as a problem and emphasized a White European-North American or individualistic voice through the use of terms such as “failure to launch” or “boomerang” children. The authors highlight an alternative term, coresidence, and perspectives from collectivistic cultures outside of the dominant view that have historically been marginalized and underrepresented in research. A case study of the first author's lived experiences as a representative from the Appalachian Highlands culture, provides one example to honor and create space for previously silenced, collectivistic voices in the literature.

Western Individualism and the Psychological Wellbeing of Young People: A Systematic Review of Their Associations

An increasing body of research suggests that young people living in Western societies are becoming increasingly individualistic in the way they orientate themselves socially, with further findings suggestive that such orientations may be associated with reduced wellbeing outcomes. Through a systematic review of past research, this paper examines the findings on individualism and the wellbeing of young people living within Western contexts. Findings from our review indicate that whilst individualistic cultures may be associated with higher wellbeing outcomes when compared with collectivistic cultures, such associations tend to disappear when explored at the personal level. Additionally, we find that distinguishing how individualism is measured provides important insight into specific traits associated with individualism that can lead to poorer wellbeing outcomes. Based on the studies reviewed, we propose that whilst the freedom and autonomy embedded within individualistic social orientations can have positive associations, there is an emerging understanding of some of the darker traits that can be associated with these values. These synthesized findings increase our understanding of the connection between individualism, its associated behaviours, and the mental health of young people.

INTENT-BASED MORALITY IN THIRD-PARTY INTERACTIONS: EVIDENCE FROM COLOMBIAN AND SPANISH CHILDREN

Most developmental studies of the role of outcomes and intentions in third-party moral evaluations sampled children from English-speaking countries and focused on harm and property transgressions. We tested instead 5- to 11-year-old children from Colombia and Spain (N = 123) employing moral scenarios involving disloyalty and unfairness. We found that the outcome-to-intent shift in judgements of transgression severity was moral domain-dependent in Colombian but not Spanish children. More specifically, by age 5 Spanish children judged failed intentional transgressions more severely than accidental transgressions regarding both disloyalty and unfairness. In comparison, Colombian children judged failed intentional transgressions more severely than accidental transgressions in the case of disloyalty but not unfairness. This suggests that it may be adaptive for children to develop sensitivity to intentionality earlier within the moral domain their own culture is more concerned about (e.g., loyalty in collectivistic cultures). Regarding punishment severity, we observed an outcome-to-intent shift in Spanish but not Colombian children. In other words, while Colombian children punished failed intentional transgressions and accidental transgressions equally for the whole age range, Spanish children began to punish failed intentional transgressions of both moral domains more severely than accidental transgressions around 8 years of age. Finally, neither Colombian nor Spanish children enjoyed engaging in punishment. Colombian children even anticipated administering punishment to feel worse than it actually felt during and after punishment allocation. These enjoyment findings suggest that retribution is unlikely to be the primary motive for children’s third-party punishment in this context.

Examining the Impact of eWOM-Triggered Customer-to-Customer Interactions on Travelers’ Repurchase and Social Media Engagement

Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) communication on social media has revolutionized how travelers search for and share information and how they interact with one another digitally. This research examines the effects of eWOM-triggered customer-to-customer (C2C) interactions on travelers’ post-eWOM behaviors (i.e., repurchase and customer engagement) in a cross-cultural context. Drawing upon cognitive dissonance theory, a scenario-based experiment was conducted using a sample of 461 African tourists with recent intracontinental travel experience. Our findings suggest that a customer’s repurchase intention and engagement in social media C2C interactions are significantly influenced when their eWOM is challenged by other customers. Compared with individualistic cultures, such a phenomenon is more effective in collectivistic cultures, particularly when a customer shares negative eWOM. Customers in collectivistic cultures are more likely to appreciate consensus with other customers, and they tend to expend more effort toward solving dissonance. The theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are discussed.

GREEN CITY: THE LIFESTYLE OF MELAKA RESIDENTS

Personality and Lifestyles [PL] of those practicing environmentally-aware way of life manifest in collectivistic cultures, modesty and moderation in material pursuits, and environmental mindfulness. Issue: 10 years has passed since the vision of green city was introduced. The collective ecological PL of Melaka public is called to be evaluated to determine how far have the citizen accepted and owed allegiance in the green initiative efforts. Purpose: This paper aims to compare the environmentally-aware collective PL of Melaka residents to residents of other states in Malaysia. Approach: One-Way MANOVA was generated to determine the mean distribution of 10 PL items, across Malaysia States. Findings: There were significant differences within subjects of the 10 PL items between-subjects of Malaysia States. The Post-Hoc Test indicated majority of the means of PL items for Melaka were significantly higher than other states. However, in relation to other states, Melaka fell short on the component of Voluntary Modesty, which indicators were (i) PL5, practicing moderation in purchasing and using resources, (ii) PL6, feeling unconcerned if not able to afford things, and (ii) PL7, believing that having many assets does not lead to happiness.

What Matters for Job Security? Exploring the Relationships among Symbolic, Instrumental Images, and Attractiveness for Corporations in South Korea

This study examines the extent to which the symbolic and instrumental images and attractiveness toward an organization are related. This study further focuses on global human resource management and reports findings from two studies: Study 1 uses the data from undergraduate students, and Study 2 cross-validates the findings of Study 1 by using actual data from employees. The distinction of this study from previous works is that the present work focuses on a Korean organizational context (collectivistic cultures) and the differences between the potential applicants and employees in the perception of an organization′s attractiveness. Furthermore, it investigates the relationship between the symbolic and instrumental images toward organizations, unlike existing relative research. The results show that the symbolic and instrumental images are related, and the perceptions of the corporate image differ for the potential applicants and employees in the context of collectivistic cultures. The more competent employees consider their organization to be, the more job security they perceive their organization to provide. Moreover, the symbolic image of being competent is negatively related to the instrumental image of job security. Since this study used cross-sectional data, future studies need to use longitudinal data to establish our model′s causal claim empirically and investigate the underlying reasons behind these differences.

Hide a Dagger Behind a Smile: Collectivistic Cultures Compete More Than Individualistic Cultures

Why is there so much competition in seemingly harmonious societies? In this chapter, we connect different veins of research on cultural differences in competition. We first review cultural variation in people's attitudes about competition. Next, we discuss why and how people from different cultures compete. We argue that, in cultures that demand social harmony, people use tacit strategies to compete against others. This social vigilance is a consequence of collectivism, rather than the exception. Next, we explore how people from different cultures enter competitions and how it affects them afterwards. We end with a discussion of whether there can be versions of collectivistic societies without competition or whether this is a utopian dream.

Individualism Increases the Influence of Perceived Competence of Older Adults on Attitudes Toward Them

Negative views of ageing can lower respect for older adults.Yet, negative views of ageing vary across cultures. Asian collectivistic cultures are assumed to respect older adults more than Western individualistic cultures do. However, recent empirical findings on this cross-cultural comparison have suggested that negative attitudes toward older people are also prevalent, or even more evident in collectivistic cultures than individualistic cultures. Using data from the sixth wave of the World Values Survey, a dataset consisting of 75,650 individuals from 56 societies, we employed Linear Mixed Modeling to test the association between perceived competence of older adults and respect towards them. We also explored and the moderating role of culture on this association. In the present study, perceived competence of older adults was indexed as a proportional score representing the relative perception of competence (i.e. relative competence perception = competence / (competence + friendliness). Results showed that individuals tended to respect older adults who were more competent or friendly. Furthermore, individuals who were more individualistic respected older adults more when older adults were perceived to be more competent relative to friendly. This pattern was reversed in individuals who were less individualistic. These findings suggest that whether people who differ on personal individualistic values respect older adults depends on whether older adults are perceived to be competent versus friendly. Findings from this study highlight the importance of changing cultural values on ageism attitudes, especially the potential effects of rising individualism on negative attitudes of ageing in Asia.