Local Legacy
How Rice Fights Pandemics: Nature–Crop–Human Interactions Shaped COVID-19 Outcomes
Thomas Talhelm et al.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Wealthy nations led health preparedness rankings in 2019, yet many poor nations controlled COVID-19 better. We argue that a history of rice farming explains why some societies did better. We outline how traditional rice farming led to tight social norms and low-mobility social networks. These social structures helped coordinate societies against COVID-19. Study 1 compares rice- and wheat-farming prefectures within China. Comparing within China allows for controlled comparisons of regions with the same national government, language family, and other potential confounds. Study 2 tests whether the findings generalize to cultures globally. The data show rice-farming nations have tighter social norms and less-mobile relationships, which predict better COVID outcomes. Rice-farming nations suffered just 3% of the COVID deaths of nonrice nations. These findings suggest that long-run cultural differences influence how rice societies — with over 50% of the world’s population — controlled COVID-19. The culture was critical, yet the preparedness rankings mostly ignored it.
The impact of language-induced cultural mindset on originality in idea generation
Sharon Arieli & Sari Mentser
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, forthcoming
Abstract:
Creativity is vital in the contemporary business world. Drawing on the culture-as-situated-cognition theory, we investigate how language affects divergent thinking. We study multicultural bilinguals (Arabs in Israel) whose two languages reflect contrasting cultural mindsets: individualism (Hebrew) versus collectivism (Arabic). Theoretically, individualism is associated with novel thinking as it encourages autonomy of thought and action, whereas collectivism encourages compliance to social norms. We investigate the impact of language as a factor that may affect performance in divergent thinking tasks through its associated cultural mindset, distinguishing this from the effects of the speaker’s proficiency in the language. We expected that individualism induced by language (in this case, Hebrew) would promote greater originality in tasks demanding high, but not moderate, levels of ingenuity. Study 1 (N = 163) induced competing cultural mindsets using two cultural primes — language and task instructions — in a divergent thinking task. As hypothesized, Hebrew was associated with greater originality (uniqueness of ideas) but not fluency (number of ideas); and this pattern is specific to language, not the cultural prime induced by task instructions. Study 2 (N = 137) confirmed that the effect is stronger in tasks calling for greater ingenuity. Implications for language management in organizations are discussed.
Social norms and dishonesty across societies
Diego Aycinena et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2 August 2022
Abstract:
Social norms have long been recognized as an important factor in curtailing antisocial behavior, and stricter prosocial norms are commonly associated with increased prosocial behavior. In this study, we provide evidence that very strict prosocial norms can have a perverse negative relationship with prosocial behavior. In laboratory experiments conducted in 10 countries across 5 continents, we measured the level of honest behavior and elicited injunctive norms of honesty. We find that individuals who hold very strict norms (i.e., those who perceive a small lie to be as socially unacceptable as a large lie) are more likely to lie to the maximal extent possible. This finding is consistent with a simple behavioral rationale. If the perceived norm does not differentiate between the severity of a lie, lying to the full extent is optimal for a norm violator since it maximizes the financial gain, while the perceived costs of the norm violation are unchanged. We show that the relation between very strict prosocial norms and high levels of rule violations generalizes to civic norms related to common moral dilemmas, such as tax evasion, cheating on government benefits, and fare dodging on public transportation. Those with very strict attitudes toward civic norms are more likely to lie to the maximal extent possible. A similar relation holds across countries. Countries with a larger fraction of people with very strict attitudes toward civic norms have a higher society-level prevalence of rule violations.
Have beliefs in conspiracy theories increased over time?
Joseph Uscinski et al.
PLoS ONE, July 2022
Abstract:
The public is convinced that beliefs in conspiracy theories are increasing, and many scholars, journalists, and policymakers agree. Given the associations between conspiracy theories and many non-normative tendencies, lawmakers have called for policies to address these increases. However, little evidence has been provided to demonstrate that beliefs in conspiracy theories have, in fact, increased over time. We address this evidentiary gap. Study 1 investigates change in the proportion of Americans believing 46 conspiracy theories; our observations in some instances span half a century. Study 2 examines change in the proportion of individuals across six European countries believing six conspiracy theories. Study 3 traces beliefs about which groups are conspiring against “us,” while Study 4 tracks generalized conspiracy thinking in the U.S. from 2012 to 2021. In no instance do we observe systematic evidence for an increase in conspiracism, however operationalized. We discuss the theoretical and policy implications of our findings.
Belief in Luck and Precognition Around the World
Emily Harris, Taciano Milfont & Matthew Hornsey
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although magical beliefs (such as belief in luck and precognition) are presumably universal, the extent to which such beliefs are embraced likely varies across cultures. We assessed the effect of culture on luck and precognition beliefs in two large-scale multinational studies (Study 1: k = 16, N = 17,664; Study 2: k = 25, N = 4,024). Over and above the effects of demographic factors, culture was a significant predictor of luck and precognition beliefs in both studies. Indeed, when culture was added to demographic models, the variance accounted for in luck and precognition beliefs approximately doubled. Belief in luck and precognition was highest in Latvia and Russia (Study 1) and South Asia (Study 2), and lowest in Protestant Europe (Studies 1 and 2). Thus, beyond the effects of age, gender, education, and religiosity, culture is a significant factor in explaining variance in people’s belief in luck and precognition. Follow-up analyses found a relatively consistent effect of socio-economic development, such that belief in luck and precognition were more prevalent in countries with lower scores on the Human Development Index. There was also some evidence that these beliefs were stronger in more collectivist cultures, but this effect was inconsistent. We discuss the possibility that there are culturally specific historical factors that contribute to relative openness to such beliefs in Russia, Latvia, and South Asia.
Emotion perception rules abide by cultural display rules: Koreans and Americans weigh outward emotion expressions (emoticons) differently
Eunhee Ji, Lisa Son & Min-Shik Kim
Experimental Psychology, August 2022, Pages 83–103
Abstract:
The current study compared emotion perception in two cultures where display rules for emotion expression deviate. In Experiment 1, participants from America and Korea played a repeated prisoner’s dilemma game with a counterpart, who was, in actuality, a programmed defector. Emotion expressions were exchanged via emoticons at the end of every round. After winning more points by defecting, the counterpart sent either a matching emoticon (a joyful face) or a mismatching emoticon (a regretful face). The results showed that Americans in the matching condition were more likely to defect, or to punish, compared to those in the mismatching condition, suggesting that more weight was given to their counterpart’s joyful expression. This difference was smaller for Koreans, suggesting a higher disregard for the outward expression. In a second, supplementary experiment, we found that Korean participants were more likely to cooperate in the mismatching or regretful condition, when they thought their counterpart was a Westerner. Overall, our data suggest that emotion perception rules abide by the display rules of one’s culture but are also influenced by the counterpart’s culture.
Cultural differences in earliest memory reports by European and Chinese American university students born in the United States
Angela Lukowski, Lauren Eales & Jennifer Bohanek
Memory, forthcoming
Abstract:
Grounded by the ecological systems perspectives proposed by Bronfenbrenner (1977, 1979) and Fivush and Merrill (2016), the present study was conducted to examine whether autobiographical memory (AM) and self-construal differed in young adults raised in the same macrosystem, but with unique microsystems. European American (EA) participants were born in the United States to mothers who were born in the United States (n = 61) and Chinese American (CA) participants were born in the United States to mothers who were born in China (n = 47). Participants completed an online study in which they reported on and rated aspects of their earliest memory; they also completed measures of self-construal and acculturation. EA participants identified more with mainstream American culture relative to CA participants, who identified to a greater extent with their heritage culture. EA participants also talked and thought more about their earliest memories relative to CA participants; interactions between group and sex were found for social words. Group differences were not observed on measures of self-construal. These findings indicate that microsystem-level factors are associated with differences in AM in young adults even when individuals are born and raised in the same macro-level cultural environment.
The Long-Run Consequences of The Opium Concessions for Out-Group Animosity on Java
Nicholas Kuipers
World Politics, July 2022, Pages 405-442
Abstract:
This article examines the consequences of the opium concession system in the Dutch East Indies — a nineteenth-century institution through which the Dutch would auction the monopolistic right to sell opium in a given locality. The winners of these auctions were invariably ethnic Chinese. The poverty of Java's indigenous population combined with opium's addictive properties meant that many individuals fell into destitution. The author argues that this institution put in motion a self-reinforcing arrangement that enriched one group and embittered the other with consequences that persist to the present day. Consistent with this theory, the author finds that individuals living today in villages where the opium concession system once operated report higher levels of out-group intolerance compared to individuals in nearby unexposed counterfactual villages. These findings improve the understanding of the historical conditions that structure antagonisms between competing groups.
Personality Across World Regions Predicts Variability in the Structure of Face Impressions
DongWon Oh, Jared Martin & Jonathan Freeman
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research on face impressions has often focused on a fixed, universal architecture, treating regional variability as noise. Here, we demonstrated a crucial yet neglected role of cultural learning processes in forming face impressions. In Study 1, we found that variability in the structure of adult perceivers’ face impressions across 42 world regions (N = 287,178) could be explained by variability in the actual personality structure of people living in those regions. In Study 2, data from 232 world regions (N = 307,136) revealed that adult perceivers use the actual personality structure learned from their local environment to form lay beliefs about personality, and these beliefs in turn support the structure of perceivers’ face impressions. Together, these results suggest that people form face impressions on the basis of a conceptual understanding of personality structure that they have come to learn from their regional environment. The findings suggest a need for greater attention to the regional and cultural specificity of face impressions.