Background
National Audience Tastes in Hollywood Film Genres: Cultural Distance and Linguistic Affinity
Wayne Fu
Communication Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Studies of transnational media flow and reception discuss audiences as cultural-linguistic groups that make idiosyncratic content choices, but say little to distinguish or explain their collective tastes. The literature on (inter)cultural consumption suggests that cultural preferences are more similar among societies that share a cultural or linguistic affinity than those that do not. Examining national acceptance of, and taste in, Hollywood films within a global sample of countries, this study quantifies the dissimilarities in genre preferences between the United States and importing countries based on 2002-2007 box-office sales. The analysis shows that genre taste dissimilarities are related positively to cultural distance between countries, and negatively to the English proficiency of the importing country. Furthermore, the economic attributes of the importer have no effect on taste dissimilarity. The analysis also shows that the genre tastes of individual countries have converged toward those of American audiences during these years.
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Cultural Differences in "Thank You"
Hee Sun Park & Hye Eun Lee
Journal of Language and Social Psychology, June 2012, Pages 138-156
Abstract:
This research investigated cultural differences in the use of, and responses to, gratitude statements in unsolicited email advertising messages. Study 1 found that Americans, compared with Koreans, were more positive about a message that included a gratitude statement (i.e., "Thank You"). Study 2 showed no cultural differences in responses to an email message that included a gratitude statement and one that omitted a gratitude statement. When participants in Study 3 were instructed to pay attention to the gratitude statement itself, Americans, compared with Koreans, viewed the gratitude statement more positively and considered the advertiser of the gratitude statement-included message as more credible. Americans had a greater intention to include a gratitude statement in their own advertising messages than did Koreans. In fact, Study 4 showed that when participants saw a gratitude statement-included example, a greater number of Americans, compared with Koreans included a gratitude statement in their own message.
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Cultural Proximity and Loan Outcomes
Raymond Fisman, Daniel Paravisini & Vikrant Vig
NBER Working Paper, May 2012
Abstract:
We present evidence that shared codes, religious beliefs, ethnicity - cultural proximity - between lenders and borrowers improves the efficiency of credit allocation. We identify in-group preferential treatment using dyadic data on the religion and caste of bank officers and borrowers from a bank in India, and a rotation policy that induces exogenous matching between officers and borrowers. Cultural proximity increases lending on both intensive and extensive margins and improves repayment performance, even after the in-group officer is replaced by an out-group one. Further, cultural proximity increases loan dispersion and reduces loan to collateral ratios. Our results imply that cultural proximity mitigates informational problems that adversely affect lending, which in turn relaxes financial constraints and improves access to finance.
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Natalie Shook & Russ Clay
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The current study investigated whether intergroup contact through roommate assignment in college dormitories affects the academic well-being of minority and majority students at a predominantly White university. Participants were first-year students randomly assigned to either a majority or minority group roommate. During the beginning and end of their first semester at college, participants completed a questionnaire packet which included ratings of their sense of belonging and identification with their university. At the end of the school year, participants' official grade point averages (GPA) were also recorded. In general, students randomly assigned to an interracial roommate relationship reported an increased sense of belonging at university at the end of the first semester at college. Specifically for minority students, those randomly assigned to a majority group roommate reported a stronger sense of belonging at university and received a higher GPA than minority students randomly assigned to a minority roommate. Analyses suggested that sense of belonging partially mediated the effect of room type on minority students' GPA. Room type did not affect majority students' GPA. These findings have implications for improving academic satisfaction, performance, and retention.
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Cultural influences on Facebook photographs
Chih-Mao Huang & Denise Park
International Journal of Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Prior research in social psychology indicates that East Asians from collectivistic and interdependent sociocultural systems are more sensitive to contextual information than Westerners, whereas Westerners with individualistic and independent representation have a tendency to process focal and discrete attributes of the environment. Here we have demonstrated that such systematic cultural variations can also be observed in cyberspace, focusing on self-presentation of photographs on Facebook, the most popular worldwide online social network site. We examined cultural differences in face/frame ratios for Facebook profile photographs in two studies. For Study 1, 200 digital profile face photographs of active Facebook users were randomly selected from native and immigrant Taiwanese and Americans. For Study 2, 312 Facebook profiles of undergraduate students of six public universities in East Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan) and the United States (California and Texas) were randomly selected. Overall, the two studies clearly showed that East Asian Facebook users are more likely to deemphasize their faces compared to Americans. Specifically, East Asians living in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan exhibited a predilection for context inclusiveness in their profile photographs, whereas Americans tended to prioritize their focal face at the expense of the background. Moreover, East Asian Facebook users had lower intensity of facial expression than Americans on their photographs. These results demonstrate marked cultural differences in context-inclusive styles versus object-focused styles between East Asian and American Facebook users. Our findings extend previous findings from the real world to cyberspace, and provide a novel approach to investigate cognition and behaviors across cultures by using Facebook as a data collection platform.
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Carla Jeffries et al.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Two studies documented the "David and Goliath" rule - the tendency for people to perceive criticism of "David" groups (groups with low power and status) as less normatively permissible than criticism of "Goliath" groups (groups with high power and status). The authors confirmed the existence of the David and Goliath rule across Western and Chinese cultures (Study 1). However, the rule was endorsed more strongly in Western than in Chinese cultures, an effect mediated by cultural differences in power distance. Study 2 identified the psychological underpinnings of this rule in an Australian sample. Lower social dominance orientation (SDO) was associated with greater endorsement of the rule, an effect mediated through the differential attribution of stereotypes. Specifically, those low in SDO were more likely to attribute traits of warmth and incompetence to David versus Goliath groups, a pattern of stereotypes that was related to the protection of David groups from criticism.
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Conservatism, Openness, and Creativity: Patents Granted to Residents of American States
Stewart McCann
Creativity Research Journal, Fall 2011, Pages 339-345
Abstract:
This study was conducted to determine the relation of creative production to conservatism and openness to experience with American states as the units of analysis. Patents per state population from 2001 to 2005 served as the criterion. Conservatism was gauged by a composite based on (a) state-aggregated conservative self-placement among over 141,000 respondents to 122 national telephone surveys between 1976 and 1988 and (b) state percentage voting for Bush in 2004. State openness scores were based on state-aggregated survey responses of over 600,000 residents to a common Big Five personality questionnaire. For 46 states (excluding Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada, and Idaho because of lack of suitable data), patents per state population was negatively related to conservatism (r = - .65) and positively related to openness (r = .50). These associations persisted when state socioeconomic status (SES), estimates of IQ, and degree of urbanization were statistically considered. Multiple regression analysis showed that conservatism and openness together accounted for 46.5% of the criterion variance without controls and 22.7% with SES controlled. Variance in state creative production accounted for by conservatism and openness indicated that the 2 predictors had both overlapping and separate components but that conservatism was the predominant of the 2 dispositional variables.
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Political-economy of pension plans: Impact of institutions, gender, and culture
Raj Aggarwal & John Goodell
Journal of Banking & Finance, forthcoming
Abstract:
National pension systems are an important part of financial intermediation and worker welfare in most countries, but how and why do they differ internationally? Controlling for important political, economic and social institutions, we document that international differences in pension progressivity, or how pensions reflect lifetime earnings, are negatively related to masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, long-term orientation, employment rights, average pension levels, social trust and economic inequality. We also find that pension progressivity is positively related to the economic and societal role of women, the extent of Catholicism; as well as political voice and accountability. These results provide important insights for both public policy and MNC managers.
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Class, gender and culture in the experience of menopause. A comparative survey in Tunisia and France
Daniel Delanoë et al.
Social Science & Medicine, July 2012, Pages 401-409
Abstract:
The experience of menopause can vary strongly from one society to another: frequency of hot flushes, other somatic and psychological symptoms, and changes in family and social relations. Several studies have shown that country of residence, country of birth, ethnicity, and social class all play roles in these variations. But few comparative anthropological studies have analysed the social processes that construct the experience of menopause or considered menopausal women's social and financial autonomy. To study the impact of the social status accorded to menopausal women and their social resources, during 2007 and 2008 we conducted a series of 75 in-depth interviews with women in different sociocultural settings: Tunisian women in Tunisia, Tunisian women in France, and French women in France, all aged from 45 to 70 years. Our methodological approach to the data included content analysis, typology development and socio-demographic analysis. Quite substantial differences appeared, as a function of social class and cultural environment. We identified three principal experiences of menopause. Tunisian working class women, in Tunisia and France, experience menopause with intense symptoms and strong feelings of social degradation. Among Tunisian middle-class women in both countries, menopause was most often accompanied by a severe decline in aesthetic and social value but few symptoms. For most of the French women, menopause involved few symptoms and little change in their social value. The distribution of types of experiences according to social but not geographic or national factors indicates that, in the populations studied here, the differences in symptoms are not biologically determined. Different experiences of menopause are linked to social class and to the degree of male domination. A given level of independence and emancipation allows women an identity beyond their reproductive function and a status unimpaired by menopause.
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Cultural transmission of civicness
Martin Ljunge
Economics Letters, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper estimates the intergeneration transmission of civicness by studying second generation immigrants in 29 European countries. There is significant transmission of civicness both on the mother's and father's side. The estimates provide evidence on the transmission of trustworthiness.
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Quality of Life, Firm Productivity, and the Value of Amenities across Canadian Cities
David Albouy, Fernando Leibovici & Casey Warman
NBER Working Paper, May 2012
Abstract:
We present hedonic general-equilibrium estimates of quality-of-life and productivity differences across Canada's metropolitan areas. These are based off of the estimated willingness-to-pay of heterogeneous households and firms to locate in various cities, which differ in their wage levels, housing costs, and land values. Using 2006 Canadian Census data, our metropolitan quality-of-life estimates are somewhat consistent with popular rankings, but find Canadians care more about climate and culture. Quality-of-life is highest in Victoria for Anglophones, Montreal for Francophones, and Vancouver for Allophones, and lowest in more remote cities. Toronto is Canada's most productive city; Vancouver is the overall most valuable city.
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Culture, Temporal Focus, and Values of the Past and the Future
Tieyuan Guo et al.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article examines cultural differences in how people value future and past events. Throughout four studies, the authors found that European Canadians attached more monetary value to an event in the future than to an identical event in the past, whereas Chinese and Chinese Canadians placed more monetary value to a past event than to an identical future event. The authors also showed that temporal focus - thinking about the past or future - explained cultural influences on the temporal value asymmetry effect. Specifically, when induced to think about and focus on the future, Chinese valued the future more than the past, just like Euro-Canadians; when induced to think about and focus on the past, Euro-Canadians valued the past more than the future, just like Chinese.
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Mate Value and Self-Esteem: Evidence from Eight Cultural Groups
Robin Goodwin et al.
PLoS ONE, April 2012
Abstract:
This paper explores self-perceived mate value (SPMV), and its association with self-esteem, in eight cultures. 1066 participants, from 8 cultural groups in 7 countries, rated themselves on 24 SPMVs and completed a measure of self-esteem. Consistent with evolutionary theory, women were more likely to emphasise their caring and passionate romantic nature. In line with previous cross-cultural research, characteristics indicating passion and romance and social attractiveness were stressed more by respondents from individualistic cultures, and those higher on self-expression (rather than survival) values; characteristics indicative of maturity and confidence were more likely to be mentioned by those from Traditional, rather than Secular, cultures. Contrary to gender role theory, societal equality had only limited interactions with sex and SPMV, with honesty of greater significance for male self-esteem in societies with unequal gender roles. These results point to the importance of cultural and environmental factors in influencing self-perceived mate qualities, and are discussed in relation to broader debates about the impact of gender role equality on sex differences in personality and mating strategies.
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Cross cultural differences in unconscious knowledge
Sachiko Kiyokawa et al.
Cognition, July 2012, Pages 16-24
Abstract:
Previous studies have indicated cross cultural differences in conscious processes, such that Asians have a global preference and Westerners a more analytical one. We investigated whether these biases also apply to unconscious knowledge. In Experiment 1, Japanese and UK participants memorized strings of large (global) letters made out of small (local) letters. The strings constituted one sequence of letters at a global level and a different sequence at a local level. Implicit learning occurred at the global and not the local level for the Japanese but equally at both levels for the English. In Experiment 2, the Japanese preference for global over local processing persisted even when structure existed only at the local but not global level. In Experiment 3, Japanese and UK participants were asked to attend to just one of the levels, global or local. Now the cultural groups performed similarly, indicating that the bias largely reflects preference rather than ability (although the data left room for residual ability differences). In Experiment 4, the greater global advantage of Japanese rather English was confirmed for strings made of Japanese kana rather than Roman letters. That is, the cultural difference is not due to familiarity of the sequence elements. In sum, we show for the first time that cultural biases strongly affect the type of unconscious knowledge people acquire.
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Cecilia Cheng et al.
Psychological Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Integrating more than 40 years of studies on locus of control (LOC), this meta-analysis investigated whether (a) the magnitude of the relationship between LOC and psychological symptoms differed among cultures with distinct individualist orientations and (b) depression and anxiety symptoms yielded different patterns of cultural findings with LOC. We included studies that examined global self-ratings of LOC and at least 1 of the criterion variables in nonclinical samples (age range: 18-80 years). Data were analyzed on the basis of 152 independent samples, representing the testing of 33,224 adults across 18 cultural regions. Results revealed moderately strong relationships for external LOC with depression symptoms (k = 123, N = 28,490, r = .30, 95% confidence interval [CI] [.27, .32]) and anxiety symptoms (k = 65, N = 13,208, r = .30, 95% CI [.27, .33]). Individualism explained 20% of unique variance only in the external LOC-anxiety relationship: The link between external LOC and anxiety symptoms was weaker for collectivist societies (k = 8, N = 2,297, r = .20, 95% CI [.13, .28]) compared with individualist societies (k = 54, N = 9,887, r = .32, 95% CI [.29, .34]). Such cultural differences were attributed to the reduced emphasis on agentic goals in more collectivist societies. It is noteworthy that external LOC does not carry the same negative connotations across cultures, and members of collectivist societies may be more ready to endorse such items. Culture has been examined at the country level, and the findings may not be applicable to any particular person in a cultural region. Implications for integrating cultural meaning of perceived control into formulation of theories, research design, and intervention programs are discussed.
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Natascha Hausmann et al.
Applied Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
This research examined relationships between nation-level differences in cultural positivity and life satisfaction, and individual affective organisational commitment among employees in a large multinational sample consisting of 30 nations. Hierarchical Linear Modeling was used to take into account the multilevel structure of the data. As hypothesised, cultural positivity and life satisfaction significantly predicted affective organisational commitment, after controlling for job satisfaction and job role (blue-collar workers, white-collar workers, or management) at the individual level, as well as acquiescence, human development and classical value dimensions at the national level. Both life satisfaction and cultural positivity showed incremental relationships with affective organisational commitment when tested together in the same model. By investigating the importance of affective variables as a predictor of job attitudes, this research contributes to our knowledge of cultural universals and particulars in human behavior (cf. Kagitcibasi & Poortinga, 2000; Triandis, 1994). From a managerial point of view, cultural differences in affectivity appear to require attention when interpreting the results of organisational commitment measures administered in multinational contexts.
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Culture shapes electrocortical responses during emotion suppression
Asuka Murata, Jason Moser & Shinobu Kitayama
Social Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous work has shown that emotional control is highly valued in Asian culture. However, little is known about how this cultural value might influence emotional processing. Here, we hypothesized that Asians are ‘culturally trained' to down-regulate emotional processing when required to suppress emotional expressions. Such down-regulation, however, is unlikely for European Americans because their culture values emotional expression (vs control) more. To test these predictions, we adopted the parietal late positive potential (LPP) of the event-related potential as an objective indicator of emotional processing. Both Asian and European Americans were exposed to either unpleasant or neutral pictures while instructed to either attend or suppress expression of emotions. Both groups showed an equally pronounced parietal positivity ∼600 ms post-stimulus. As predicted, however, Asians subsequently showed a significant decrease of the parietal LPP in the suppression (vs attend) condition. The initial positivity completely disappeared 2000 ms post-stimulus. In contrast, for European Americans the parietal LPP suppression effect was completely absent although there was an early occurring, sustained increase in frontal positivity in the suppression (vs attend) condition. Implications for culture and emotion research are discussed.