Respect for the Culture
Culture, attention, and emotion
Igor Grossmann, Phoebe Ellsworth & Ying-yi Hong
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
This research provides experimental evidence for cultural influence on one of the most basic elements of emotional processing: attention to positive versus negative stimuli. To this end, we focused on Russian culture, which is characterized by brooding and melancholy. In Study 1, Russians spent significantly more time looking at negative than positive pictures, whereas Americans did not show this tendency. In Study 2, Russian Latvians were randomly primed with symbols of each culture, after which we measured the speed of recognition for positive versus negative trait words. Biculturals were significantly faster in recognizing negative words (as compared with baseline) when primed with Russian versus Latvian cultural symbols. Greater identification with Russian culture facilitated this effect. We provide a theoretical discussion of mental processes underlying cultural differences in emotion research.
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Living Dangerously: Culture of Honor, Risk-Taking, and the Nonrandomness of "Accidental" Deaths
Collin Barnes, Ryan Brown & Michael Tamborski
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Two studies examined the hypothesis that the culture of honor would be associated with heightened risk taking, presumably because risky behaviors provide social proof of strength and fearlessness. As hypothesized, Study 1 showed that honor states in the United States exhibited higher rates of accidental deaths among Whites (but not non-Whites) than did nonhonor states, particularly in nonmetropolitan areas. Elevated accidental deaths in honor states appeared for both men and women and remained when the authors controlled for a host of statewide covariates (e.g., economic deprivation, cancer deaths, temperature) and for non-White deaths. Study 2, likewise, showed that people who endorsed honor-related beliefs reported greater risk taking tendencies, independent of age, sex, self-esteem, and the big five.
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Alberto Alesina, Paola Giuliano & Nathan Nunn
American Economic Review, May 2011, Pages 499-503
Abstract:
This paper provides evidence that the form of agriculture traditionally practiced - intensive plough agriculture versus shifting hoe agriculture - affected historic norms and preferences about fertility, and that these norms persist, affecting observed fertility around the world today.
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Persecution Perpetuated: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Semitic Violence in Nazi Germany
Nico Voigtländer & Hans-Joachim Voth
UCLA Working Paper, May 2011
Abstract:
How persistent are cultural traits? This paper uses data on anti-Semitism in Germany and finds continuity at the local level over more than half a millennium. When the Black Death hit Europe in 1348-50, killing between one third and one half of the population, its cause was unknown. Many contemporaries blamed the Jews. Cities all over Germany witnessed mass killings of their Jewish population. At the same time, numerous Jewish communities were spared. We use plague pogroms as an indicator for medieval anti-Semitism. Pogroms during the Black Death are a strong and robust predictor of violence against Jews in the 1920s, and of votes for the Nazi Party. In addition, cities that saw medieval anti-Semitic violence also had higher deportation rates for Jews after 1933, were more likely to see synagogues damaged or destroyed in the 'Night of Broken Glass' in 1938, and their inhabitants wrote more anti-Jewish letters to the editor of the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer.
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Janetta Lun, Batja Mesquita & Benjamin Smith
European Journal of Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Two studies examined regional differences in self- and other-presentational styles in the Southern and Northern regions of the USA. A content analysis of 400 personal ads from Northern and Southern newspapers revealed that Northern ads contained more descriptions of the self and desired partner that are context-free and under personal control, whereas Southern ads depicted more contextualized and less controllable aspects of self and partner (study 1). Moreover, self-identified Northern and Southern Americans were shown to prefer ads in the style of their region over other ads (study 2). We conclude that not only do regional differences in self- and other-presentations exist in the USA but that these differences are also reinforced by others who share the regional culture.
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Which Dimensions of Culture Matter for Long-Run Growth?
Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Gerard Roland
American Economic Review, May 2011, Pages 492-498
Abstract:
We present empirical evidence that, among a variety of cultural dimensions, the individualism-collectivism dimension, based on Hofstede's (2001) data, is the most important and robustly significant effect of culture on long run growth. Other dimensions that have a significant effect, albeit less robust, are generally strongly correlated with individualism and convey similar information. We found no significant or robust effect on growth from cultural dimensions that are independent from the individualism-collectivism cleavage.
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Creativity and Place in the Evolution of a Cultural Industry: The Case of Cirque du Soleil
Deborah Leslie & Norma Rantisi
Urban Studies, July 2011, Pages 1771-1787
Abstract:
The Cirque du Soleil, based in Montreal, is known internationally for its innovative form of circus production. Although a transnational company recruiting talent from around the world, it is argued that the Cirque's ability to innovate is underpinned by its historical and geographical situatedness in Montreal. Drawing on evolutionary economics, the paper examines the place-specific and path-dependent trajectory which has informed the emergence of the Cirque, focusing on how a series of latent synergies - including a vibrant tradition of street performance in Quebec, the lack of established circus conventions, and the strength of related cultural sectors in Montreal-gave rise to the Cirque. In addition, the paper explores the purposive role of the state in actualising some of these latent synergies.
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Country size and the rule of law: Resuscitating Montesquieu
Ola Olsson & Gustav Hansson
European Economic Review, June 2011, Pages 613-629
Abstract:
In this paper, we demonstrate that there is a robust negative relationship between the size of country territory and a measure of the rule of law for a large cross-section of countries. We outline a framework featuring two main reasons for this regularity; firstly that institutional quality often has the character of a local public good that is imperfectly spread across space from the core of the country to the hinterland, and secondly that a large territory usually is accompanied by valuable rents and a lack of openness that both tend to distort property rights institutions. Our empirical analysis further shows some evidence that whether the capital is centrally or peripherally located within the country matters for the average level of rule of law.
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Egalitarianism and International Investment
Jordan Siegel, Amir Licht & Shalom Schwartz
Journal of Financial Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study identifies how country differences on a key cultural dimension - egalitarianism - influence international investment flows. A society's cultural orientation toward egalitarianism is manifested by intolerance for abuses of market and political power and a desire for protecting less powerful actors. We show egalitarianism to be based on exogenous factors including social fractionalization, dominant religion circa 1900, and war experience from the 19th century. We find a robust influence of egalitarianism distance on cross-national flows of bond and equity issuances, syndicated loans, and mergers and acquisitions. An informal cultural institution largely determined a century or more ago, egalitarianism exercises its effect on international investment via an associated set of consistent contemporary policy choices. But even after controlling for these associated policy choices, egalitarianism continues to exercise a direct effect on cross-border investment flows, likely through its direct influence on managers' daily business conduct.
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David Wengrow
Journal of Material Culture, June 2011, Pages 131-149
Abstract:
In seeking to explain why some cultural traits are more ‘catching' than others, evolutionary anthropologists have invoked the influence of cognitive constraints on the transmission of culture. Pascal Boyer's explanation of the global popularity of religious beliefs in terms of their psychologically ‘counter-intuitive' nature is a strong example. Drawing upon archaeological evidence from early civilizations, this article argues that such an approach does not in fact account satisfactorily for the observable distribution of a central type of counter-intuitive representation: that of the composite figure, or ‘monster'. A surprising feature of that distribution is the scarcity of composite figures in prehistoric art, prior to the Urban Revolution of the 4th millennium BC, after which their spread follows a highly patterned and selective (rather than ‘contagious') trajectory of expansion. In interpreting this patterned spread of counter-intuitive forms, technological and institutional factors are brought into account alongside cognitive ones, with wider methodological implications for evolutionary approaches to the transmission of culture.
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Christopher Stuart Henshilwood & Benoît Dubreuil
Current Anthropology, June 2011, Pages 361-400
Abstract:
Variations in the material culture in Africa in the Late Pleistocene indicate that it was a period of rapid cultural change not previously observed in the Middle Stone Age. In southern Africa, two techno-traditions, the Still Bay and the Howiesons Poort, have raised interest because of their relatively early cultural complexity. What might have driven the development of the innovative practices and ideas between ca. 77,000 and 59,000 years ago? Explanations for the ascent and demise of these two entities must focus on analyses of recovered materials and in situ features such as hearths and spatial patterning. They must also consider whether these innovations are likely to have ensued from cognitive evolution in Homo sapiens and trace the changes in brain organization and cognitive functions that best explain them. This article presents an updated review of the Still Bay and Howiesons Poort industries and argues that innovations during the Late Pleistocene must be related to a previous expansion of the higher association areas of the temporal and parietal cortices underlying higher theory of mind, perspective taking, and attentional flexibility.
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Phonemic Diversity Supports a Serial Founder Effect Model of Language Expansion from Africa
Quentin Atkinson
Science, 15 April 2011, Pages 346-349
Abstract:
Human genetic and phenotypic diversity declines with distance from Africa, as predicted by a serial founder effect in which successive population bottlenecks during range expansion progressively reduce diversity, underpinning support for an African origin of modern humans. Recent work suggests that a similar founder effect may operate on human culture and language. Here I show that the number of phonemes used in a global sample of 504 languages is also clinal and fits a serial founder-effect model of expansion from an inferred origin in Africa. This result, which is not explained by more recent demographic history, local language diversity, or statistical non-independence within language families, points to parallel mechanisms shaping genetic and linguistic diversity and supports an African origin of modern human languages.
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Rapid, global demographic expansions after the origins of agriculture
Christopher Gignoux, Brenna Henn & Joanna Mountain
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 12 April 2011, Pages 6044-6049
Abstract:
The invention of agriculture is widely assumed to have driven recent human population growth. However, direct genetic evidence for population growth after independent agricultural origins has been elusive. We estimated population sizes through time from a set of globally distributed whole mitochondrial genomes, after separating lineages associated with agricultural populations from those associated with hunter-gatherers. The coalescent-based analysis revealed strong evidence for distinct demographic expansions in Europe, southeastern Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa within the past 10,000 y. Estimates of the timing of population growth based on genetic data correspond neatly to dates for the initial origins of agriculture derived from archaeological evidence. Comparisons of rates of population growth through time reveal that the invention of agriculture facilitated a fivefold increase in population growth relative to more ancient expansions of hunter-gatherers.
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Arjen van Dalen
International Journal of Press/Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
The battle for media attention is an integral part of political conflicts. Because of structural bias in the news, government generally dominates this battle for media attention. This article argues, first, that the attention for government and parliament in the news reflects the power balance in the political system and, second, that this relation is moderated by cross-national differences in journalistic cultures, in particular the importance of conflict framing. Content analysis of newspaper and television coverage in Denmark, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Spain (N = 1,306 stories) shows that because of the universal news value of political power, attention for government and parliament reinforces differences of political power of these institutions, both within countries and cross-nationally. However, in pragmatic journalistic cultures, the dominance of government is weakened by journalists' search for conflict. In countries where the news value of conflict is more important (Denmark and the United Kingdom), stories about government more often include oppositional voices than in countries where conflict is a less important news value (Spain).
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Culture and the sequence of steps in theory of mind development
Ameneh Shahaeian et al.
Developmental Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
To examine cultural contrasts in the ordered sequence of conceptual developments leading to theory of mind (ToM), we compared 135 3- to 6-year-olds (77 Australians; 58 Iranians) on an established 5-step ToM scale (Wellman & Liu, 2004). There was a cross-cultural difference in the sequencing of ToM steps but not in overall rates of ToM mastery. In line with our predictions, the children from Iran conformed to a distinctive sequence previously observed only in children in China. In contrast to the case with children from Australia (and the United States), knowledge access was understood earlier than opinion diversity in children from Iran, consistent with this collectivist culture's emphasis on filial respect, dispute avoidance, and acquiring knowledge. Having a sibling was linked with faster overall ToM progress in Australia only and was not related to scale sequences in either culture.
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Man-made disasters: A cross-national analysis
Hoon Park
International Business Review, August 2011, Pages 466-476
Abstract:
This research investigates the impact of national culture and several institutional factors on the safety performance of society and establishes statistically significant relationships between those variables. As expected, the research results reveal that some cultural variables such as uncertainty avoidance, gender orientation and institutional variables such as the degree of law avoidance can directly influence the safety performance of the society. The findings also support the inverted u-curve (Safety Kuznet curve) hypothesis indicating even if we expect a negative trend at the beginning stage of industrialization, we can expect a positive trend in safety performance as their income level continues to improve beyond a certain point.
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Craig Crossland & Donald Hambrick
Strategic Management Journal, August 2011, Pages 797-819
Abstract:
The concept of managerial discretion provides a theoretical fulcrum for resolving the debate about whether chief executive officers (CEOs) have much influence over company outcomes. In this paper, we operationalize and further develop the construct of managerial discretion at the national level. In an empirical examination of 15 countries, we find that certain informal and formal national institutions - individualism, tolerance of uncertainty, cultural looseness, dispersed firm ownership, a common-law legal origin, and employer flexibility - are associated with the degree of managerial discretion available to CEOs of public firms in a country. In turn, we show that country-level managerial discretion is associated with how much impact CEOs have on the performance of their firms. We also find that discretion mediates the relationship between national institutions and CEO effects on firm performance. Finally, we discuss two inductively derived institutional themes: autonomy orientation and risk orientation.
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María-José Pinillos & Luisa Reyes
Small Business Economics, July 2011, Pages 23-37
Abstract:
This paper examines how one dimension of national culture (an individualist-collectivist orientation) is related to Total Entrepreneurial Activity, depending on the level of economic development, measured by GDP per capita. Researchers have traditionally associated individualism with high rates of firm creation, arguing that an orientation towards achievement and the pursuit of personal objectives (dominant aspects in individualist cultures) are determinants of entrepreneurial activity. The current analysis shows that a country's culture correlates to entrepreneurship, but cannot uphold the idea that higher levels of individualism mean higher rates of entrepreneurship. Using data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor on 52 countries, the results show that a country's entrepreneurship rate is negatively related to individualism when development is medium or low, and positively related to individualism when the level of development is high. Thus, individualism is not related to entrepreneurship in the same way in countries with differing levels of development.
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When the Wealthy Are Poor: Poverty Explanations and Local Perspectives in Southwestern Madagascar
Bram Tucker et al.
American Anthropologist, June 2011, Pages 291-305
Abstract:
To reduce poverty, one must understand what poverty means in local contexts. We used focus groups to elicit a "folk model" of poverty from Masikoro, Vezo, and Mikea people in rural southwestern Madagascar and then placed this model in dialogue with four social science models: economic growth, substantivism, mode of production, and livelihoods. The folk model emphasizes household continuity, production of people, and exploitative expropriation by the wealthy. Absent from the folk model is scarcity of natural and social resources, the core of economic growth and livelihoods explanations. Consistent with substantivism, poverty and wealth are states one may occupy simultaneously, not maximizable quantities. Compatible with mode of production, the root cause of poverty is the rules regarding control over property. Poverty interventions based on profit, competition, intensification, or devolution of control to traditional social institutions would likely be culturally foreign to rural Malagasy and could further the gap between rich and poor.
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Early Pleistocene Presence of Acheulian Hominins in South India
Shanti Pappu et al.
Science, 25 March 2011, Pages 1596-1599
Abstract:
South Asia is rich in Lower Paleolithic Acheulian sites. These have been attributed to the Middle Pleistocene on the basis of a small number of dates, with a few older but disputed age estimates. Here, we report new ages from the excavated site of Attirampakkam, where paleomagnetic measurements and direct 26Al/10Be burial dating of stone artifacts now position the earliest Acheulian levels as no younger than 1.07 million years ago (Ma), with a pooled average age of 1.51 ± 0.07 Ma. These results reveal that, during the Early Pleistocene, India was already occupied by hominins fully conversant with an Acheulian technology including handaxes and cleavers among other artifacts. This implies that a spread of bifacial technologies across Asia occurred earlier than previously accepted.
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Charm or Harm: Effect of Passage Content on Listener Attitudes Toward American English Accents
Hayley Heaton & Lynne Nygaard
Journal of Language and Social Psychology, June 2011, Pages 202-211
Abstract:
This study examined how passage content influences attitudes toward American English Accents. Participants listened to passages differing in topic content spoken in an American Southern English or Standard American English accent. Although Southern-accented speakers were rated higher in sociality, but lower in status, than standard-accented speakers, sociality ratings varied as a function of passage topic only for standard-accented speakers. Linguistic content appeared most likely to influence listeners' attitudes when preexisting assumptions based on regional accent were absent.
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West African witchcraft, wealth and moral decay in New York City
Jane Parish
Ethnography, June 2011, Pages 247-265
Abstract:
This article is based on fieldwork from 2005 onwards among West African antiwitchcraft shrines in New York City amid the growing African diaspora. For many of the priests who have worked at shrines established since the 1980s, the recent economic recession was yet another blow to their love affair with New York high society and a distinct uptown neighbourhood of the city - the Upper East Side. The article dissects the social and economic relations of this very rich Manhattan elite and West African shrine priests and their clients, analysing the different values and ideals prevalent at the shrines regarding the accumulation of wealth and to conspicuous consumption. Increasingly, the type of wealth epitomized by the Upper East Side is no longer seen by shrine clients as a desired symbol of success but as a sign of moral decay.