Cross-cultural Psychologists Research Articles

The Acculturation of Pakistanis in Singapore

ABSTRACT This article explores the process of acculturation for Pakistanis in Singapore and their later generation descendants from the country’s colonial period to the present day, focusing on the complexities brought about by migration, colonialism, and nationhood. It analyses how the historical context, namely Singapore’s unique position as a multicultural British colony situated in the Malay peninsula has shaped the experiences of this diaspora community in a variety of ways. Using qualitative research methods and employing cross-cultural psychologist John Berry’s acculturation strategies and multicultural adaptation hypothesis, the article argues that the acculturation process has been facilitated by the sense of cultural and socio-economic security among Pakistani immigrants and their families, amidst evolving political developments and top-down policies during Singapore’s transition from a British colony to an independent nation. The findings of this study will contribute to our understanding of diaspora experiences in multicultural societies and provide insights into the complex dynamics of acculturation in a rapidly changing social context.

(Amoralny) familizm: propozycja rekonceptualizacji z wykorzystaniem psychologii ewolucyjnej i międzykulturowej

In his 1958 book Moral Basis of a Backward Society, Edward Banfield introduced the term amoral familism to describe social relations and values in a poor rural community in southern Italy. In my analysis, I propose to abandon the value-laden epithet "amoral" and consider familism as an evolutionary adaptive strategy activated in times of scarcity or crises. I base the thesis of the evolutionary roots of familism on the inclusive fitness theory (Hamilton 1964) and the theory of kin and reciprocal altruism (Trivers 1971). The perspective of evolutionary psychology makes it possible to see the positive functions of familism and to propose a new biological-cultural understanding of familism. Familism has so far been diagnosed primarily "indirectly" in sociological studies of bonding (and bridging) capital and in research on social trust conducted as part of cyclical social surveys such as the World Values Survey and the European Social Survey. In the search for accurate measures of biological-cultural familism we can additionally turn to the research of cross-cultural psychologists conducted for international management. I argue that the dimension of particularism on the 7-dimensional cultural map of Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner (2002) and the dimension of in-group collectivism on the 9-dimensional cultural map of the GLOBE project (House et al. 2004), can valuably complement the measures used in sociological sciences and make the diagnosis of familism more reliable. Finally, I call for in-depth research on Polish familism aimed at testing whether it is possible to build bridging capital on the basis of familist bonding capital.

Cultural variation in self-assessment in athletes: towards the development of culturally-grounded approach in sports psychology

ABSTRACT Sports psychologists have assumed that, to achieve success in sports, all athletes must motivate themselves by viewing themselves positively (self-enhancement) and objectively analyzing their weaknesses to improve their performance (self-improvement). However, cross-cultural psychologists revealed that the type of motivation varies based on culture. North Americans tend to view themselves positively, whereas East Asians are likely to see themselves objectively. If these cultural variations are applicable to athletes, exploring how culture influences motivation in athletes will help create culturally fit interventions in sports. As such, the current studies examined cultural variations in motivation by selectively focusing on motivation in athletes participating in team and open-skills sports. Overall, the results revealed cultural variations in athletes’ motivation regarding their attention to positive and negative information about the self; as such, culturally fine-tuned theories for athletes are suggested.

Integration as the goal of indigenization: The cross-cultural psychology of Durganand Sinha.

Durganand Sinha (1922-1998) was an important Indian cross-cultural psychologist whose research spanned half a century. In commemoration of Sinha's passing 25 years ago, I explore in this essay his vision of the integration of Hindu religious psychology and Western scientific psychology. In the first part of the discussion, I consider a brief history of the interaction between Indian cultures and Western scientific psychology. In the second part, I next consider the proposal of Sinha that outlines various approaches that researchers might take with respect to the indigenization of scientific psychology. In the third part, I consider Sinha's discussion of integration as the expected outcome of the process of indigenization. Sinha indicates that when a researcher establishes a successful integrated cultural research paradigm in this way, it can serve as a framework for future researchers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Exploring the Intersections of Community and Cross-Cultural Psychology: Enhancing Well-being and Understanding Diversity

This abstract delves into the dynamic interplay between community psychology and cross-cultural psychology, highlighting their roles in promoting psychological well-being, addressing social issues, and fostering a deeper understanding of cultural diversity. Community psychology focuses on the reciprocal relationship between individuals and their communities, emphasizing the importance of context in shaping human behavior and well-being. By employing an ecological perspective, community psychologists strive to empower communities, prevent social problems, and advocate for social justice. This approach recognizes the impact of various factors, including economic disparities, social support networks, and neighborhood environments, on individual psychological experiences. Cross-cultural psychology, on the other hand, investigates the intricate connections between culture and psychology. It seeks to uncover both universal and culturally specific aspects of human behavior, cognition, and emotion. By comparing psychological phenomena across cultures, cross-cultural psychologists illuminate the diverse ways in which cultural norms, values, and traditions influence individuals’ thoughts and actions. This field plays a crucial role in challenging ethnocentric biases and enriching our understanding of the human experience. The abstract highlights the convergence of these two fields, emphasizing how they mutually enrich one another. Community psychology benefits from the insights of cross-cultural psychology by recognizing the importance of cultural context in community dynamics and interventions. Cross-cultural psychology gains depth by integrating the community perspective, recognizing that culture is not solely an individual attribute, but a collective phenomenon shaped by the communities in which people reside. Through collaborative research, interventions, and advocacy efforts, these fields contribute to building more inclusive and equitable societies. By acknowledging the importance of community and cultural influences on psychological well-being, researchers and practitioners can better address societal challenges, bridge gaps in mental health care, and create interventions that are sensitive to the diverse needs of individuals from various backgrounds. In conclusion, the synergy between community psychology and cross-cultural psychology holds great potential for advancing our understanding of human behavior and well-being within the contexts of communities and cultural diversity. This abstract encourages continued exploration and integration of these fields to create meaningful impact and positive change in diverse societies around the world.

Conceptual and methodological issues in the study of the personality-and-culture relationship.

Culture-and-personality studies were central to social science in the early 20th century and have recently been revived (as personality-and-culture studies) by trait and cross-cultural psychologists. In this article we comment on conceptual issues, including the nature of traits and the nature of the personality-and-culture relationship, and we describe methodological challenges in understanding associations between features of culture and aspects of personality. We give an overview of research hypothesizing the shaping of personality traits by culture, reviewing studies of indigenous traits, acculturation and sojourner effects, birth cohorts, social role changes, and ideological interventions. We also consider the possibility that aggregate traits affect culture, through psychological means and gene flow. In all these cases we highlight alternative explanations and the need for designs and analyses that strengthen the interpretation of observations. We offer a set of testable hypotheses based on the premises that personality is adequately described by Five-Factor Theory, and that observed differences in aggregate personality traits across cultures are veridical. It is clear that culture has dramatic effects on the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors from which we infer traits, but it is not yet clear whether, how, and in what degree culture shapes traits themselves.

Improving Scale Equivalence by Increasing Access to Scale-Specific Information

Measures of the same phenomenon should produce the same results; this principle is fundamental because it allows for replication—the basis of science. Unfortunately, measures of a psychological construct in one language can often measure something a bit different in another language (i.e., low “scale equivalence”). Historically, the problem was thought to stem from insufficient knowledge of best-practice translation procedures. Yet solutions based on this diagnosis and their widespread adoption have not resolved the issue. In this article, we suggest that an additional problem might be insufficient information about the measure being translated. If so, low scale equivalence is a problem that translators and cross-cultural psychologists cannot solve on their own. We explore the possibility that measure-specific translation guides be created by original scale builders for the most widely used measures of important psychological constructs. We describe why such guides are needed, when they are needed, what they might look like, their feasibility, and next steps, providing a complete example guide and test case in a supplement concerning the Primals Inventory. In this article, we seek to spark discussion on translation practices happening behind the scenes and how greater transparency can improve scale equivalence, in the spirit of open science.

Wellbeing Profile of France and India IT Employees: A Cross‐Cultural Study

Background: Cultural influence and variances have a great influence in the development of psychosocial well-being. Cross-cultural psychologists explore the difference between Eastern and Western cultures. The present study was designed to analyse the variations in wellbeing profile of IT professionals between India and France. Methodology: Two hundred and Fourteen non-probabilistic samples were recruited via various IT companies from France (n=92) and India(n=122). The participants completed the wellbeing profile consisted of Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory, Subjective Fluctuating Happiness Scale and Subjective Authentic-Durable Happiness Scale (SFHS and SA-DHS) and rating scale for Satisfaction at work, importance of religions/spirituality shared through a digital format, built on the Google Form. Results: Based on independent-samples t-tests, the results indicated that Indian and French IT professionals did not exhibit a difference on levels of Mindfulness, Satisfaction at work, Fluctuating Happiness and Authentic-Durable Happiness. In addition, the findings shown inter correlations between Mindfulness, Satisfaction at work, Fluctuating Happiness and Authentic-Durable Happiness across the culture. In contrast, the results indicated that Indian IT professionals did exhibit higher levels in importance of Religions and Spirituality when compared to French IT professionals. Conclusion: In a nutshell, the present study came to the conclusion that Indian and French employees share a greater number of wellbeing characteristics in common. Religion and spirituality are also important parts of the Indian culture of well-being.

Four Decades of Challenges by Culture to Mainstream Psychology: Finding Ways Forward

Over 5 days at the Nag’s Head Conference Center, USA in 1987, social and cross-cultural psychologists discussed what would be required if research relating to culture were to gain greater attention from psychology in general, and in particular from what was perceived at the time as its mainstream. The criteria for gaining greater credibility laid down by three leading social psychologists proved daunting in relation to the cross-cultural work presented at the meeting but subsequently inspired cross-culturalists to “raise their game.” In this paper, we describe these crucial challenges and how they have been addressed more recently by cross-cultural psychologists. We assess the extent to which studies focused on cultural differences are now thoughtfully represented in social, personality, and organizational psychology by briefly surveying the content of a single year’s issues of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of International Business Studies, and the Journal of Personality in relation to the concurrent content of the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. We identify the perils of assimilation to psychology in general by diluting the concept of culture and by tyrannizing research with over-specified criteria of statistical rectitude. We also identify studies published in top-rated journals that have nonetheless advanced our field. We reiterate the need for defensible measures of cultural difference and methods for identifying and examining them as a basis for multi-level explanations of cultural effects and cultural change. We conclude by proposing a gold standard for assaying cross-cultural studies of psychological processes and outcomes.

The Origin and Cultural Evolution of East Asian Cognitive Style: A Case Study of the Book of Changes (Yijing 易經)

Abstract Experimental tests about cross-cultural differentiation of cognitive style conclude that East Asian and Western cognition differ. Tendencies described as East Asian include holism, non-linearity, expectation of change, relationalism, field dependence, causal pluralism, dialecticism, and a tolerance of contradiction. Cross-cultural psychologists generally refrain from discussing the intellectual history or cultural evolution of these differences, preferring to explain results on cognitive scales in terms of results on social scales assessed using present-day participants. The present article attempts to partially close this explanatory gap through detailed discussion of tendencies of East Asian cognitive style as represented in what is probably the most influential book in the history of East Asia, The Book of Changes. This study purports to show (a) that the content of the Yijing 易經 and its commentaries is best described in terms of the cognitive tendencies just mentioned, (b) that reading the Yijing activated those cognitive tendencies, and (c) that the Yijing attained prodigious influence on subsequent Chinese and East Asian cultures through four known mechanisms of cultural transmission. Informed by this case study, researchers of cross-cultural cognition may be positioned to develop a richer appreciation of the cultural representation and evolution of East Asian cognitive style in historical context.

Cultural differences in mutual gaze during face-to-face interactions: A dual head-mounted eye-tracking study

ABSTRACT Cross-cultural psychologists have widely discussed “gaze avoidance” as a sociocultural norm to describe reduced mutual gaze in East Asians (EAs) compared to Western Caucasians (WCs). Supportive evidence is primarily based on self-reports and video recordings of face-to-face interactions, but more objective techniques that can investigate the micro-dynamics of gaze are scarce. The current study used dual head-mounted eye-tracking in EA and WC dyads to examine face looking and mutual gaze during live social interactions. Both cultural groups showed more face looking when listening than speaking, and during an introductory task compared to a storytelling game. Crucially, compared to WCs, EA dyads spent significantly more time engaging in mutual gaze, and individual instances of mutual gaze were longer in EAs for the storytelling game. Our findings challenge “gaze avoidance” as a generalizable cultural observation, and highlight the need to consider contextual factors that dynamically influence gaze both within and between cultures.

INTERCULTURAL RELATIONS IN DAGESTAN: THE ROLE OF PERCEIVED SECURITY, INTERCULTURAL CONTACTS, AND MUTUAL ACCULTURATION

Dagestan is the most multiethnic and multilingual republic within the Russian Federation. From the viewpoint of interethnic relations, Dagestan is a unique research platform: the model of ethnopsychological compatibility of numerous peoples has been implemented here for centuries. It is essential for researchers to understand which factors contribute to and which hinder the establishment of effective interethnic communication in modern Dagestan. This empirical study was conducted in the context of the acculturation theory introduced by the Canadian cross-cultural psychologist John Berry. This article presents the results of researching the impact of perceived security, friendly intercultural contacts, preference for supporting a multicultural ideology, ethnic tolerance, and mutual integration attitude on the psychological well-being of both individual ethnic groups and Dagestani population as a whole. In the course of the study, the authors suggested that the higher the perceived security among ethnic groups in Dagestan, the greater the tendency towards maintaining a multicultural ideology, tolerance, and the preference for an integration strategy, and the lower the preference for a separation strategy (multiculturalism hypothesis). In addition, the authors hypothesized that the higher the intensity of friendly intercultural contacts between representatives of various ethnic groups in Dagestan, the higher their level of tolerance, preference for an integration strategy and the lower their preference for a separation strategy (contact hypothesis). The authors also suggested that the higher the preference for the integration strategy by representatives of various Dagestani ethnic groups, the higher their self-esteem and life satisfaction (integration hypothesis). The sample included Avars, Dargins, Russians and representatives of other ethnic groups: Kumyks, Lezgins, Laks, Tabasarans, Nogais, etc. (total number of respondents N = 438). The data were analyzed both for the total sample and for a sample of specific ethnic groups using a Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach. MIRIPS questionnaire scales were used. The results demonstrated the contribution of perceived security to a preference for a multicultural ideology, tolerance, and mutual integration in the total sample. The results also demonstrated that the intensity of friendly intercultural contacts has no significant effect on tolerance or mutual integration in Dagestan. However, the preference for mutual integration contributes to life satisfaction and self-esteem among the inhabitants of Dagestan, which confirms the integration hypothesis. A separation preference was positively associated with perceived security, life satisfaction and negatively with friendly intercultural contacts among representatives of certain ethnic groups of Dagestan. The results obtained demonstrate the importance of solving the problem of perceived security for building effective intercultural relations in Dagestan. The formation of a national policy in matters of preserving the cultural identity of various ethnic groups must be adequate, since, as the study has shown, separation strategy only leads to life satisfaction, and integration strategy is associated with both life satisfaction and self-esteem of the inhabitants of Dagestan.

The Teacher and Scientific Mum: Dedicated to the Memory of Tatiana G. Stefanenkо

The article is dedicated to the memory of Tatiana G. Stefanenko, Professor of the Faculty of Psychology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, the teacher and the friend, and talking about the way she influenced and inspired the new generation of crosscultural psychologists on personal and professional levels.

Cultures and Persons: Characterizing National and Other Types of Cultural Difference Can Also Aid Our Understanding and Prediction of Individual Variability.

Valid understanding of the relationship between cultures and persons requires an adequate conceptualization of the many contexts within which individuals work and live. These contexts include the more distal features of the individual’s birth ecology and ethno-national group history. These features converge more proximally upon individual experience as “process” variables, through the institutional–normative constraints and affordances encountered through socialization into a diverse set of cultural groupings. This enculturation is then revealed in the individual’s response profile of values, beliefs, choices, and behaviors at any given time. Cross-cultural psychologists have typically compared these encultured responses cross-nationally by averaging the scores of equivalent groups of persons across national groups, terming these average differences “cultural differences.” This procedure has generated considerable resistance, primarily due to careless over-generalization of results to all members of a given cultural group. Critics of nation-based characterizations have challenged their methodological and conceptual inadequacies, but we now know better how to address the measurement-related aspects of culture-level “psychological” variables, such as individualism–collectivism. In challenging the accuracy of these measures, critics have also neglected to acknowledge the continuing predictive and discriminant validity of these dimensions of national culture. We here review the utility of more recent measurements. We then show how nation-level comparisons can be used by psychologists to improve our understanding of individual, rather than group, outcomes. Nations are heterogeneous amalgams of ethnicities, social classes, organizations, school systems, and families. Individuals’ socialization into these groups affects their functioning at any given point in life. These enculturations are further dependent on their gender, age, and education. Assessment of culture’s relation with individual functioning requires adequate measurement of both personality and normative aspects of situations in which behavior is enacted. Once this integration of cultural influences is achieved, the logic and methodology for integrating national culture into psychological models of individual behavior can be applied within any nation where research focuses on how within-nation cultural variation affects individual functioning. Culture, conceptualized as normative group constraints, becomes more widely amenable to study, and the hard lessons learned from cross-national research can be used to guide the practice of more locally sensitive research.

Developing Positive Psychology as a Universal Science:Cultural and Methodological Challenges

Positive psychology is a developing discipline of psychology, particularly originated from the United States, that focuses on positive aspects of human lives. The objective of this paper is to highlight some of the cultural and methodological challenges in developing positive psychology as a universal science. This paper first explores the roots of positive psychology in the Eastern philosophical/spiritual traditions and then explores the possibility of reconciliation between positive psychologists and humanistic and cross-cultural psychologists on two major issues - universality of positive psychology and positivist methodology in the inquiry process. It also evaluates the methodological approaches followed by positive psychological researchers in their inquiry process and their applicability/appropriateness in diverse cultural contexts. This paper concludes that as envisaged by the founders of positive psychology movement, there is a possibility of positive psychology being developed as a universal science that transcends cultural boundaries, if positive psychology scholars, rather than utilizing the Western conceptualization of the positive psychology constructs, use mix method approach while conceptualizing and capturing the constructs.

Nurturing culture in psychology: Conversations with Gustav

Over the course of his long career, Gustav Jahoda was both a supporter and a trenchant critic of my efforts to elaborate a theory of culture and cognition. Toward the end of his life, he argued that cross-cultural psychologists' attempts (including my own) to provide a viable common definition had proven themselves futile. He urged that the quest for a “true definition” was misguided and should be replaced by more local efforts that explain the specific manner in which the term is being used for the specific research problem at hand. This essay offers an example of a decades-long research project that adopted his advice and applied it to the design of activities for the promotion of children’s learning and development.

International Aid as Modern Imperialism—What Does Cross-Cultural PsychologyReallyHave to Offer? A Commentary on “The Positive Role of Culture: What Cross-Cultural Psychology Has to Offer to Developmental Aid Effectiveness Research, by Symen A. Brouwers”

In his article, Brouwers argues that cross-cultural psychologists (CCPs; a term he uses to include cultural psychologists and indigenous psychologists) should be a resource for agencies and organizations that engage in international and developmental aid. His argument is that CCPs can help these agencies and organizations ensure that their interventions become “entrenched”—meaning they become long-lasting aspects of life in the communities receiving the aid. We agree with Brouwers that CCPs can and should be more involved with international aid organizations. However, we argue that CCPs’ primary concern should be ensuring the ethical and cultural appropriateness of the ways in which the aid organizations interact with recipient communities. We believe this can only happen when indigenous psychologists are involved in the intervention in ways that ensure recipient communities are fully engaged with any aid-based intervention. We highlight our argument by utilizing some preliminary analyses from a related project we recently completed in Guatemala.

Acculturation orientations affect the evolution of a multicultural society

The migration of people between different cultures has affected cultural change throughout history. To understand this process, cross-cultural psychologists have used the ‘acculturation’ framework, classifying ‘acculturation orientations’ along two dimensions: the willingness to interact with culturally different individuals, and the inclination to retain the own cultural identity (‘cultural conservatism’). Here, using a cultural evolution approach, we construct a dynamically explicit model of acculturation. We show that the evolution of a multicultural society, where immigrant and resident culture stably coexist, is more likely if individuals readily engage in cross-cultural interactions, and if resident individuals are more culturally conservative than immigrants. This result holds if some cultural traits pay off better than others, and individuals use social learning to adopt more advantageous cultural traits. Our study demonstrates that formal dynamic models can help us understand how individual orientations towards immigration eventually determine the population-level distribution of cultural traits.

Сравнительные количественные исследования национальной идентичности в современной социальной психологии

The article presents a review of quantitative comparative cross-cultural studies on national identity conducted by psychologists during the last two decades. It considers the relation of theoretical and methodological grounds of these studies with the general agenda of the contemporary social psychology, interdisciplinary studies on nations and nationalism, and empirical resources of cross-national surveys. The relevant publications demonstrate the prevalence of descriptive approach in psychological studies, while sociology and political science mostly use the explanatory research approach on factors affecting the national identity. Nevertheless, the explanatory research results reveal the underestimated cross-cultural variability of correlations between national identity components and the correspondence of these components to essentially different cognitive mechanisms. To fulfil the potential of their discipline, cross-cultural psychologists studying national identity should explore relations of national identity with basic values and attitudes with paying a special attention to cross-level interaction effects and social dynamics.

Culture, legal heritage and the regulation of labor

According to cross-cultural psychologists, cross-country differences in individualism vs. collectivism constitute an important dimension of cultural variation. Legal-economic theorists argue that legal philosophies such as common law and civil law have developed differently over centuries and have persistent effects. In this paper, we argue that the effects of culture and institutions should not be analyzed in isolation from each other, as this disregards their interactions. We merge the two separate literatures on cultural attributes and legal origin theories, and derive a hypothesis regarding their joint effects on labor market regulations. We hypothesize that the effect of individualism on the political determination of labor regulations should be particularly pronounced in more market-oriented economic systems (as in British common law countries) compared to more rigid and bureaucratic state-centered systems (as in French civil law countries). Market oriented economies give individual effort and ability greater room to flourish, which in individualistic cultures yields weaker labor regulations. The effect of individualism should be smaller in state centered systems. Using data on the average rigidity of labor regulations during the years 1950–2004 in 86 countries, we find that the negative effect of individualism on the rigidity of labor regulations is enhanced by the presence of a common law legal system. In fact, individualism has no effect on the rigidity of labor market regulations in civil law countries. Analogously, the negative effect of common law legal origin on labor market regulations is found to be conditional on the level of individualism. Individualism and common law legal systems are complements in the determination of labor regulations.