Abstract
This contribution to the Frontiers research topic collection on African Cultural Models considers dilemma tales: an African knowledge practice in which narrators present listeners with a difficult choice that usually has ethical or moral implications. We adapted the dilemma tale format to create research tasks. We then used these research tasks to investigate conceptions of care, support, and relationality among participants in Ghanaian, African American, and European American settings that vary in affordances for embedded interdependence vs. modern individualism. Results revealed hypothesized patterns, such that judgments about the inappropriateness of institutionalized eldercare (vs. home elder care) and prioritization of material support to parent (over spouse) were greater among Ghanaian participants than European American participants. Responses of African American participants were more ambiguous, resembling European American acceptance of institutionalized eldercare relative to Ghanaian participants, but resembling Ghanaian tendencies to prioritize support to parent (over spouse) relative to European American participants. Results illuminate that standard patterns of hegemonic psychological science (e.g., tendencies to prioritize obligations to spouse over mother) are the particular product of WEIRD cultural ecologies rather than context-general characteristics.
Highlights
A man was traveling with his mother and his fiancée
More important for current purposes, the proportion of participants who (a) lived in close proximity with an elder as a child or (b) were co-resident with parents at the present time was greater among Ghanaian participants (38 and 37%, respectively) than European American participants (12 and 6%, respectively), χ2 = 27.41, p < 0.001
The proportion of participants who were married or living as conjugal partners was greater among European American participants (50%) than among Ghanaian participants (29%), χ2 = 16.72, p < 0.001
Summary
A man was traveling with his mother and his fiancée. Their canoe was capsized by a sudden storm. The man was an excellent swimmer, but he could save only one woman. This passage comes from a collection of what Bascom (1975) referred to as dilemma tales: a knowledge practice common across many African settings in which narrators present listeners with a difficult choice that usually has ethical or moral implications. The tales are an important form of informal socialization, teaching listeners about important cultural norms, and moral reasoning skills
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