Individualistic Bias Research Articles

Exposure to Motivational Messages Promotes Meritocratic Beliefs and an Individualistic Perception of Social Change

Some critics claim that the self-help industry legitimizes inequality by enhancing individualism and meritocratic beliefs. The present research aims to provide experimental support to these assumptions by exploring the effect of motivational messages on meritocratic beliefs and the perceived effectiveness of individual and collective action to promote social change toward equality and on collective action intentions. Across three experiments, 663 participants were exposed to motivational messages either by copying short quotes or watching a short video containing those same quotes. As compared with a control condition, exposure to motivational messages strengthened meritocratic beliefs and, in turn, increased the perceived effectiveness of individual action in promoting social change and undermined the perceived effectiveness of collective action and subsequently collective action intentions. These findings fuel the debate on the individualistic bias and meritocratic orientation of the self-help industry and highlight the need to analyze its impact on social and economic justice.

Contrasting one's share of the shared life space: Comparing the roles of metacognition and inhibitory control in the development of theory of mind among Scottish and Japanese children.

Cultural comparisons suggest that an understanding of other minds may develop sooner in independent versus interdependent settings, and vice versa for inhibitory control. From a western lens, this pattern might be considered paradoxical, since there is a robust positive relationship between theory of mind (ToM) and inhibitory control in western samples. In independent cultures, an emphasis on one's own mind offers a clear route to 'simulate' other minds, and inhibitory control may be required to set aside one's own perspective to represent the perspective of others. However, in interdependent cultures, social norms are considered the key catalyst for behaviour, and metacognitive reflection and/or suppression of one's own perspective may not be necessary. The cross-cultural generalizability of the western developmental route to ToM is therefore questionable. The current study used an age-matched cross-sectional sample to contrast 56 Japanese and 56 Scottish 3-6-year-old's metacognition, ToM and inhibitory control skills. We replicated the expected cultural patterns for ToM (Scotland>Japan) and inhibitory control (Japan>Scotland). Supporting western developmental enrichment theories, we find that inhibitory control and metacognition predict theory of mind competence in Scotland. However, these variables cannot be used to predict Japanese ToM. This confirms that individualistic mechanisms do not capture the developmental mechanism underlying ToM in Japan, highlighting a bias in our understanding of ToM development. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: We replicate an independent cultural advantage for theory of mind (Scotland>Japan) and interdependent advantage for inhibitory control (Japan>Scotland). From a western lens, this pattern might be considered paradoxical, since there is a robust positive relationship between theory of mind and inhibitory control. Supporting western developmental enrichment theories, we find that the development of inhibitory control mediates the link between metacognition and theory of mind in Scotland. However, this model does not predict Japanese theory of mind, highlighting an individualistic bias in our mechanistic understanding of theory of mind development.

Chinese cultural biases, value congruence, and support for and compliance with protective policies during the COVID‐19 pandemic

AbstractPublic support for and voluntary compliance with protective policy measures are crucial to mitigating the spread of infectious disease. However, it is unclear why and how people with diverse cultural biases support particular protective policies. Relying on the Cultural Theory (CT) of risk, we hypothesize that value congruence with social distancing and a vaccine mandate during the COVID‐19 pandemic influences the level of public support for and compliance with these protective policies. Analyzing a Chinese nationwide sample, we find that the effects of cultural biases on public support and compliance vary not only with cultural biases but by how these are mediated through value congruence with particular protective policies. As hypothesized, hierarchical cultural biases increase public support for and compliance with social distancing and a vaccine mandates both directly and (indirectly) through value congruence. By contrast, as hypothesized, fatalistic cultural biases decrease public support for and compliance with social distancing both directly and (indirectly) through lack of value congruence and individualistic biases decrease public support for and compliance with social distancing and a vaccine mandate both directly and (indirectly) through lack of value congruence. However, the hypothesized effects of fatalistic biases did not hold for the vaccine mandate. We discuss reasons why these latter hypotheses regarding the vaccine mandate were not validated and suggest that risk analysts and communicators do more to discover and explain why particular protective policies are congruent with diverse cultural values.

Religiosidad bisagra: articulaciones de la religiosidad vivida con la dimensión colectiva en México

This article is based on results derived from the collective project “Religion and society in Mexico: recompositions from experience and practiced meaning”. Its purpose is to explore the everyday religions of contemporary Mexico. The methodological proposal is an adaptation of the lived religion approach, but implementing a representative sample of the main trends of religious change in Mexico detected by the Encreer 2016 survey. We propose the concept of hinge religiosity to avoid the individualistic bias of lived religion and include a relational perspective that allows us to focus the analysis on the way individual expectations are negotiated with the system of institutional norms and values, self-identification with respect to a wide range of affiliations and categories of belonging, individual life with socialities and communitarianisms, changes in the continuity of traditions, and the contribution of faith to the solution of social problems in secular environments. Based on the empirical material provided by our interviews, we analyzed two transversal axes in the cases of the interviewees: autonomy in the processes of religious self-identification and action in the world guided by this religious identification. The analysis of the first axis was ordered according to religious affiliation and the second, according to the type of activism developed by the subjects, highlighting the dimensions of gender and sexual diversity. In the conclusions, we assess how the hinge religion approach allows us to link different scales of the analysis of religiousness and to pay attention to the continuities between the practices, experiences, and worldview elaborations of the subjects and their broader spiritual/religious context.

Mitigating white Western individualistic bias and creating more inclusive neuroscience.

Mitigating white Western individualistic bias and creating more inclusive neuroscience.

Deliberating coral reef protection – Cultural Theory tested

Cultural Theory has been tested in various ways and across different topics. This study sought to extend the literature on Cultural Theory’s prediction that different cultural biases emerge in every social interaction by applying a structured observation method to the local level but complex issue of coral reef protection in Sulawesi of Indonesia. Three deliberative approaches, Musyawarah, focus group discussions, and planning cells, were selected to encourage public discussions. Different statements on how to protect coral reefs emerged from the discussions, reflecting different cultural biases. However, this study was unable to confirm Cultural Theory’s hypothesis that four opposing cultural biases emerge within every social interaction: only hierarchical, egalitarian, and individualistic biases were strongly evident in the study; fatalism was not. In response, this paper recommends that further research replicate and improve the study’s methods.

We in Me or Me in We? Collective Intentionality and Selfhood

AbstractThe article takes issue with the proposal that dominant accounts of collective intentionality suffer from an individualist bias and that one should instead reverse the order of explanation and give primacy to the we and the community. It discusses different versions of thecommunity firstview and argues that they fail because they operate with too simplistic a conception of what it means to be a self and misunderstand what it means to be (part of) a we. In presenting this argument, the article seeks to demonstrate that a thorough investigation of collective intentionality has to address the status and nature of the we, and that doing so will require an analysis of the relation between the we and the I, which in turn will call for a more explicit engagement with the question of selfhood than is customary in contemporary discussions of collective intentionality.

Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue in Education

Abstract The article sketches the overall layout of the thematic issue of the ‘Journal of Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Societies (JRAT)’ on Interreligious Dialogue (IRD) in context. It argues that an analysis of interreligious dialogue activities in their socio-cultural contexts helps to counterbalance the long-standing individualistic bias of IRD-research. First, it presents a systematic description of the present state of the art that distinguishes two strands of IRD-research. Second, it argues for a European comparison, based upon most recent findings from the ‘SMRE – Swiss Metadatabase of Religious Affiliation in Europe’. The article is based on the research “Intercultural and interreligious dialogue to promote the culture of peace in unaccompanied foreign youth and minors (MENA) in Barcelona and Melilla” (RTI2018-095259-B-I00 / MCIU / AEI / FEDER, EU) and closes with references to the structure of the present volume of JRaT to facilitate such a comparison.

Interreligious Dialogue in Context

Abstract The article sketches the overall layout of the thematic issue of the ‘Journal of Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Societies (JRAT)’ on Interreligious Dialogue (IRD) in context. It argues that an analysis of Interreligious Dialogue-activities in their socio-cultural contexts helps to counterbalance the long-standing individualistic bias of IRD-research. First, it presents a systematic description of the present state of the art that distinguishes two strands of IRD-research. Second, it argues for a European comparison, based upon the most recent findings from the ‘SMRE – Swiss Metadatabase of Religious Affiliation in Europe’. The article closes with references to the structure of the present volume of JRaT to facilitate such a comparison.

Social Distancing and Cultural Bias

Social distancing (also called physical distancing) is a highly recommended intervention against the community spreading of the new coronavirus. Although social distancing is a prudent intervention, its implications and impacts are not. The new distancing rules affect personal space and create a new sense of what is considered clean or dirty. Mary Douglas, founder of Cultural Theory, has asserted that “dirt” is a social construction that combines a social order with the contravention to this order (“Dirt is matter out of place”). As a social construction, however, “dirt” is subject to cultural bias. To some, disobedience to distancing rules is “dirty” (hierarchist bias); to others, the proximity of strangers or outsiders (egalitarian bias); to a third group, the duty to wear masks and other restrictions to personal liberty (individualist bias). Social biases shape the spatial consequences of COVID-19 and social distancing. Using cultural bias to examine reactions to social distancing allows identifying possible components of a clumsy, yet viable response to the COVID-19 crisis.

Social epistemological conception of delusion

The dominant conception of delusion in psychiatry (in textbooks, research papers, diagnostic manuals, etc.) is predominantly epistemic. Delusions are almost always characterized in terms of their epistemic defects, i.e., defects with respect to evidence, reasoning, judgment, etc. However, there is an individualistic bias in the epistemic conception; the alleged epistemic defects and abnormalities in delusions relate to individualistic epistemic processes rather than social epistemic processes. We endorse the social epistemological turn in recent philosophical epistemology, and claim that a corresponding turn is needed in the study of delusions. It is a turn from the (purely) individualistic conception, which characterizes delusions only by individualistic epistemic defects and abnormalities, to the (partially) social epistemic conception, which characterizes delusions by individualistic as well as social epistemic defects and abnormalities. This paper is intended as an initial step toward such a social epistemological turn. In particular, we will develop a new model of the development of delusions according to which testimonial abnormalities, including testimonial isolation and testimonial discount, are a causal factor in the development of delusions.

Representing uncertainty about fuzzy membership grade

A novel uncertainty representation framework is introduced based on the inter-linkage between the inherent fuzziness and the agent’s confusion in its representation. The measure of fuzziness and this confusion is considered to be directly related to the lack of distinction between membership and non-membership grades. We term the proposed structure as confidence fuzzy set (CFS). It is further generalized as generalized CFS, quasi CFS and interval-valued CFS to take into consideration the DM’s individualistic bias in the representation of the underlying fuzziness. The operations on CFSs are investigated. The usefulness of CFS in multi-criteria decision making is discussed, and a real application in supplier selection is included.

Implications of Individualist Bias in Social Identity Theory for Cross-Cultural Organizational Psychology

Social Identity Theory ( SIT) as used in cross-cultural organizational psychology (CCOP) shows individualistic biases by envisioning an autonomous person whose culture supports temporary, largely independent, and readily interchangeable relationships with multiple categorical groups, organizations, and other collectives. We seek to reduce these biases in CCOP by drawing from recent social psychological analyses, notably Motivated Identity Construction Theory, that have refined identity theory’s original principles. To make a broad range of organizational applications, we rely heavily on our cross-cultural psychology audience’s familiarity with basic SIT topics and controversies by discussing them quite briefly. We apply such refinements to theories about correlates of organizational identification (OI) measures, interpretive OI theorizing, and an intrapersonal network approach to OI. We conclude by extending these refinements to other constructs linking individuals to organizations: organizational commitment, attachments to organization groups and components, and roles and norms.

The case history in the colonies

The case history in the colonial context was a hybrid form, caught between bureaucratic pressures toward racialization, aggregation, and generalization, on the one hand, and the individualistic bias of the genre, on the other. This tension posed a problem for colonial rulers. In their drive to harvest neat, ideologically reliable knowledge about the minds of colonial subjects, officials and researchers in the 20th-century British Empire read case histories in selective ways, pared them down to simplistic fables, and ultimately bypassed them whenever they could. In other words, although they worked mightily to bend the case history to their purposes, they never fully succeeded. The authority granted to personal testimony and the capaciousness of the detail in case histories always contained a subversive potential. As a result, the politics of the colonial case history were underdetermined, overflowing the categories and resisting the generalizations that colonial rulers sought to impose.

CONSENSUAL RECOGNITION OF UNIVERSAL RIGHTS IN AFRICAN CUSTOM

Rights are commonly distinguished in African ethics from Western rights according to the distinct ideas of personhood which ground them. However, this sacrifices universality for cultural specificity. Against this approach, I argue that universal rights are better supported by consensual rights recognition. I show how normative justification of rights from consensual recognition is consistent with deliberative ideas of justice in African ethics. Africanist criticism, of individualist bias in Eurocentric interpretations of rights, supports the contention that rights are justified between people, not in personhood. Consensually accredited, recognized critical norms are preferable to rules derived from personhood, for the normative justification of universal rights from African ethics.

Grinding the face of the poor

The personal and individualistic bias of contemporary Bible reading can hide the primary message of Scripture. Attention to communal and social contexts of reading, such as economic and political structures of the time, opens greater understanding of the historical world in which texts are written, as well as the economic and political message for contemporary readers. A re-reading of the first twelve chapters of Isaiah demonstrates the way that psychologizing and spiritualizing texts obscures their relevance to current social conditions. Isaiah addresses sin and idolatry, topics familiar to personalizing readers; however, in Isaiah the topics are tightly interwoven with economic life. Other prominent contemporary issues that take the foreground in Isaiah 1–12 are property foreclosure and seizure, unlivable wages, wage theft, mistreatment of workers, unjust laws favoring the wealthy, influence of money in political systems, and irresponsible leadership. Concepts of Jubilee economics, themes in the Torah and subsequently in Jesus’ teaching, pervade the criticism of Israel and Judah in these prophetic texts.

In Search of Collective Mindfulness: Individual and Group Practices in Corporate Mindfulness

Contemporary organizational scholarship on mindfulness has questioned the implications of mindfulness at the collective level. Claims of individualistic biases have been used to critique emergent mindfulness perspectives as solipsistic or apolitical, while other perspectives have argued that such individualistic biases are distortions and misunderstandings of mindfulness principles. Yet such debates lack empirical research comparing individual versus collective aspects of mindfulness programs, and how in practice individual practices may or may not support collective mindfulness processes. The current paper uses an in- depth qualitative case study of a corporate mindfulness program to examine the question of whether and how mindfulness practices bridge individual and group levels within an organizational setting. Through our examination of the processes by which practitioners understood mindfulness at work, we build theory around the mechanisms by which collective mindfulness can be achieved, and discuss whether the collective mechanisms of mindfulness are sufficiently robust to counter critiques of the inherent individualizing tendencies of mindfulness practices.

Positive Psychology and the legitimation of individualism

Positive Psychology (PP) has been firmly institutionalized as a worldwide phenomenon, especially in the last decade. Its promise of well-being has captured many people’s longings for solutions in times of significant social uncertainty, instability, and insecurity. The field, nevertheless, has been severely criticized on multiple fronts. This article argues that positive psychology is characterized by a narrow sense of the social as well as by a strong individualistic bias that reflects the core beliefs of neoliberal ideology. In this regard, the present paper aims to illustrate the extent to which individualism is essential to understanding the theoretical and empirical foundations of PP’s conceptualization of happiness. Additionally, the paper questions whether positive psychology and its individualist conception of human well-being are not themselves contributing to sustain and create some of the dissatisfaction to which they promise a solution.

Distinction recapped: Digital news repertoires in the class structure

This article mobilizes Pierre Bourdieu’s full theory-method to study how class shapes our news orientations in a digital, high-choice media environment. An online survey ( N = 3850) was used to create a statistical representation of the contemporary Swedish social space with variables measuring access to economic, cultural, social, and cosmopolitan capital. A range of digital news preferences and practices were then given co-ordinates in that space. Results highlight the importance of class habitus for the formation of digital news repertoires. Since different groups form altogether different news repertoires—and distaste the preferences of the groups most different to themselves (in terms of access to capitals)—news practices and preferences solidify the positions of groups in the social structure. The study sheds light on the relationship between social and digital inequality and challenges the psychological and individualistic bias in contemporary research on news media use.

‘Individualism’ and ‘Collectivism’ in Collective Labour Law

Abstract This article examines the concepts of ‘individualism’ and ‘collectivism’ in collective labour law. A popular critique of freedom of association norms characterises such norms as ‘individualist’ or ‘individualistic’. This individualist bias undermines the institutions of collective labour relations. The ‘individualist’ critique is often coupled with the development of an alternative positive account of collective labour law that is based upon a foundation of ‘collectivism’. ‘Collectivist’ labour law encompasses a concern for collective or group rights, rather than rights for individuals; it affirms collective values; and the metric of legitimacy of a legal regime of freedom of association is the extent to which it supports collective bargaining through independent trade unions. On this conventional approach, ‘individualism’ and ‘collectivism’ stand in opposition to each other. This article argues against this dichotomous understanding of ‘individualism’ and ‘collectivism’. A comparative perspective on the ‘right to organise’ supports the view that individual and collective rights can stand in a complementary relation to each other. Furthermore, the union’s right to exclude may sometimes legitimately yield to competing individual rights, such as the right not to be subjected to unjust discriminatory treatment. The important task for labour lawyers is to identify an effective combination of collective and individual rights in order to promote just and decent outcomes in the workplace.