Where You Think
Cultures Crossing: The Power of Habit in Delaying Gratification
Kaichi Yanaoka et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
|Resisting immediate temptations in favor of larger later rewards predicts academic success, socioemotional competence, and health. These links with delaying gratification appear from early childhood and have been explained by cognitive and social factors that help override tendencies toward immediate gratification. However, some tendencies may actually promote delaying gratification. We assessed children’s delaying gratification for different rewards across two cultures that differ in customs around waiting. Consistent with our preregistered prediction, results showed that children in Japan (n = 80) delayed gratification longer for food than for gifts, whereas children in the United States (n = 58) delayed longer for gifts than for food. This interaction may reflect cultural differences: Waiting to eat is emphasized more in Japan than in the United States, whereas waiting to open gifts is emphasized more in the United States than in Japan. These findings suggest that culturally specific habits support delaying gratification, providing a new way to understand why individuals delay gratification and why this behavior predicts life success.
Cultural Differences in Rumination and Psychological Correlates: The Role of Attribution
Jeong Ha (Steph) Choi & Yuri Miyamoto
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Cross-cultural research suggests that rumination may have weaker maladaptive effects in Eastern than in Western cultural contexts. This study examines a mechanism underlying cultural differences in mental health correlates of rumination from sociocultural cognitive perspective. We propose that cultures differ in how people attribute rumination, which can lead to cultural differences in the link between rumination and mental health correlates. We developed the Attribution of Rumination scale, tested cultural differences (Study 1), and examined its relationship with theoretically related constructs (Study 2). In Study 3, self-doubt attribution moderated the association between rumination and mental health, partly explaining cultural differences in the rumination–mental health link. Study 4 replicated self-doubt attribution moderating the link between rumination and mental health among Asians. Furthermore, greater exposure to American culture was associated with self-doubt attribution. This work provides a novel approach to understanding cultural differences in the association between rumination and negative psychological correlates.
Why Are Some Nations More Entrepreneurial than Others? The Role of National Culture in Organizational Founding Rates
Valentina Assenova & Raphael Amit
University of Pennsylvania Working Paper, October 2021
Abstract:
Why are some nations more entrepreneurial than others? This study examines the cultural antecedents of cross-national variation in the rates of organizational founding. It argues that some nations became more entrepreneurial than others through their adaptive response to ecological adversity. Nations that historically faced low ecological adversity developed cultural systems that favored rule-breaking versus rule-following (cultural looseness versus tightness). These behavioral and psychological adaptations developed to cope with adversity affected the cultural support for entrepreneurial activity, and a host of behavioral determinants of organizational founding, including national attitudes, abilities, and aspirations toward entrepreneurship, opportunity perception, risk acceptance, and opportunity motivations for entry into entrepreneurship – factors predictive of higher rates of organizational founding. Consistent with this explanation, archival evidence about the prevalence of ecological adversity in 230 geopolitical regions of the world shows that low levels of ecological adversity correspond to high levels of cultural looseness, which contributed to high rates of organizational founding.
Social trust and patterns of growth
Christian Bjørnskov
Southern Economic Journal, July 2022, Pages 216-237
Abstract:
The association between social trust and long-run economic growth is well documented. However, which determinants of growth are affected by social trust remains an open question. This paper therefore explores to which extent social trust affects the rate of factor accumulation versus productivity improvements. Previous studies indicate that social trust could affect both the accumulation of physical and human capital and the rate of productivity increases. Existing literature also indicates that part of the growth effects may be due to how trust affects the quality of formal institutions. The effects of trust are estimated in a panel of 64 countries observed in 5-year periods between 1977 and 2017, using growth accounting to separate patterns of growth. The results unequivocally show that social trust predominantly affects long-run growth by affecting the growth of productivity and that only a small share of that effect runs through the effects of trust on formal institutions.
When in Rome: Local social norms and income differences
Natasha Burns et al.
Financial Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
We investigate whether social capital influences tournament incentives and income differences between the chief executive officer (CEO) and median worker. We find that firms headquartered in US counties with stronger norms of cooperation or social capital have lower tournament and income differences. Firm value is higher when compensation is consistent with local norms. The results hold for alternative measures of social capital, instrumental variables, and quasi-experiments related to the legalization of marijuana and firm headquarter relocation. These findings suggest that local social norms influence income differences and firm performance.
Gender Pay Gap across Cultures
Natasha Burns et al.
NBER Working Paper, June 2022
Abstract:
We employ a cross-country sample to examine whether cultural differences help explain gender compensation variations across corporate executives. The results show that the cultural differences, which are embedded in societies from long prior to the compensation decisions, provide significant explanatory power to the observed gender gap in executive compensation. Using an Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition with variables that have previously been shown to be significant determinants of executive compensation, we find that adding cultural measures to the model increases the explanatory power from 44% to 95% of the gender compensation gap.
Pre-colonial Ethnic Institutions and Party Politics in Africa
Francesco Amodio, Giorgio Chiovelli & Dylan Munson
Journal of Comparative Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine the role of ethnic institutions on party politics in African democracies. We combine geo-referenced data from 15 countries, 32 parliamentary elections and around 2700 electoral constituencies. First, we document a strong negative association between the degree of pre-colonial ethnic institutional centralization and the local level of competition between political parties in democratic elections today. Second, to address concerns about unobservable differences in geography or history, we show that results hold true when leveraging for identification the redrawing of constituency boundaries over time. Pre-colonial ethnic institutions shape local electoral outcomes and matter for the present and future of African democracies.
Context Matters: Differential Gendering of Physics in Arabic-speaking, Hebrew-speaking, and Single-Sex State Schools in Israel
Carmel Blank et al.
Sex Roles, June 2022, Pages 620–633
Abstract:
Although physics is one of the most male-dominated educational fields in Europe and North America, this is not the case in all parts of the world. The present study investigates contextual variability in the physics gender gap by leveraging unique characteristics of the Israeli state educational system, including its highly standardized national curriculum and its distinct school sectors that differ on key analytical dimensions. First, comparison of schools serving different sociocultural groups reveals strong overrepresentation of boys in advanced physics courses in the Hebrew-speaking but not the Arabic-speaking school sector. This pattern aligns with previous cross-national studies showing more gender-integration of STEM fields in contexts characterized by more socioeconomic precarity and in Muslim-majority societies. Second, comparison of advanced physics course-taking between coeducational and single-sex schools provides no support for claims about the degendering effects of single-sex education. Results are consistent with accounts that treat educational gender segregation as the product of contextually contingent sorting processes rather than stable characteristics of boy and girl students. Initiatives aimed at addressing the gender gap in STEM fields must be calibrated to the diverse sociocultural contexts in which these sorting processes unfold.