It's a local issue
A History of Violence: The Culture of Honor and Homicide in the U.S. South
Pauline Grosjean
Journal of the European Economic Association, October 2014, Pages 1285–1316
Abstract:
The paper tests the popular hypothesis that the high prevalence of homicide in the South of the United States originates from the settlement by herders from the fringes of Britain in the 18th century. I find that historical Scots-Irish presence is associated with higher contemporary homicide, particularly by white offenders, and that a culture of violence was transmitted to subsequent generations — but only in the South and, more generally, where historical institutional quality was low. The interpretation is that the Scots-Irish culture of honor prevailed and persisted as an adaptive behavior to weak institutions. As institutional quality converged between the South and North over the last 200 years, the influence of the culture of honor has been fading over time. The results are robust to controlling for state fixed effects and for a large number of historical and contemporary factors, as well as to relying on instrumental variables for historical settlements. The results are also specific to a particular type of homicide and background of settlers.
----------------------
Focusing on the Negative: Cultural Differences in Expressions of Sympathy
Birgit Koopmann-Holm & Jeanne Tsai
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Feeling concern about the suffering of others is considered a basic human response, and yet we know surprisingly little about the cultural factors that shape how people respond to the suffering of another person. To this end, we conducted 4 studies that tested the hypothesis that American expressions of sympathy focus on the negative less and positive more than German expressions of sympathy, in part because Americans want to avoid negative states more than Germans do. In Study 1, we demonstrate that American sympathy cards contain less negative and more positive content than German sympathy cards. In Study 2, we show that European Americans want to avoid negative states more than Germans do. In Study 3, we demonstrate that these cultural differences in “avoided negative affect” mediate cultural differences in how comfortable Americans and Germans feel focusing on the negative (vs. positive) when expressing sympathy for the hypothetical death of an acquaintance’s father. To examine whether greater avoided negative affect results in lesser focus on the negative and greater focus on the positive when responding to another person’s suffering, in Study 4, American and German participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 conditions: (a) to “push negative images away” (i.e., increasing desire to avoid negative affect) from or (b) to “pull negative images closer” (i.e., decreasing desire to avoid negative affect) to themselves. Participants were then asked to pick a card to send to an acquaintance whose father had hypothetically just died. Across cultures, participants in the “push negative away” condition were less likely to choose sympathy cards with negative (vs. positive) content than were those in the “pull negative closer” condition. Together, these studies suggest that cultures differ in their desire to avoid negative affect and that these differences influence the degree to which expressions of sympathy focus on the negative (vs. positive). We discuss the implications of these findings for current models of sympathy, compassion, and helping.
----------------------
The Agricultural Origins of Time Preference
Oded Galor & Ömer Özak
NBER Working Paper, August 2014
Abstract:
This research explores the origins of the distribution of time preference across regions. It advances the hypothesis, and establishes empirically, that geographical variations in natural land productivity and their impact on the return to agricultural investment have had a persistent effect on the distribution of long-term orientation across societies. In particular, exploiting a natural experiment associated with the expansion of suitable crops for cultivation in the course of the Columbian Exchange, the research establishes that agro-climatic characteristics in the pre-industrial era that were conducive to higher return to agricultural investment, triggered selection and learning processes that had a persistent positive effect on the prevalence of long-term orientation in the contemporary era.
----------------------
Public Opinion and the French Capital Punishment Debate of 1908
James Donovan
Law and History Review, August 2014, Pages 575-609
Abstract:
Academics have traditionally associated capital punishment most closely with authoritarian regimes. They have assumed an incompatibility between the death penalty and the presumably humane values of modern liberal democracy. However, recent scholarship on the United States by David Garland has suggested that a considerable degree of direct democratic control over a justice system actually tends to favor the retention and application of the death penalty. The reason why the United States has retained capital punishment after it has been abolished in other Western nations is not because public opinion is more supportive of the death penalty in America than in Europe or in Canada. Rather, it is because popular control over the justice system is greater in the United States than in other countries and this strengthens the influence of America's retentionist majority. However, the experience of the United States in this regard has not been unique. The same link between democratic control and retention of the death penalty can be seen in the history of the effort to abolish capital punishment in France. In 1908, a bill in the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house of the French Parliament) to abolish capital punishment was defeated, in large part because of strong opposition from the public. In 1981, majority public opinion in France still favored retention of the death penalty, but in that year, the nation's Parliament defied popular sentiment and outlawed the ultimate punishment. Historians have so far provided little insight into why abolition succeeded in 1981 when it failed in 1908. The explanation for the different outcome appears to have been the greater degree of influence public opinion exerted over the nation's justice system at the turn of the twentieth century than at its end.
----------------------
Individualist–Collectivist Culture and Trust Radius: A Multilevel Approach
André van Hoorn
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
We apply a multilevel approach to examine empirically the nexus between individualist and collectivist culture on the one hand and people’s radius of trust on the other. People’s trust level (i.e., the intensity with which people trust other people) has been extensively studied. Increasingly, however, researchers are seeing a need to move beyond trust level and study trust radius (i.e., the width of the circle of people among whom a certain trust level exists) as the second quintessential component of trust. Results for up to 44,845 individuals from 36 countries show, first, that we can validly apply multilevel modeling to the study of trust radius. Second, consistent with prior theoretical expectations, individualism is associated with a broader trust radius, whereas collectivism is associated with a narrower trust radius. Considering the strength of the associations found, trust radius might be best understood as an inherent part of the individualism–collectivism cultural syndrome. The key contribution of this note is to reveal how exactly individualism–collectivism relates to trust, specifically its radius. In addition, the note demonstrates the feasibility of a multilevel approach to studying trust radius with much potential for follow-up research on this most vital trust construct.
----------------------
Menachem Klein
Israel Studies, Fall 2014, Pages 134-153
Abstract:
Using sources on everyday life of average citizens, the article shows that an Arab–Jewish hybrid identity already existed in Palestine in the late nineteenth century, prior to the introduction of Arab or Jewish national movements. Afterwards it competed with them over the loyalty of its original members. Arab–Jewish identity was part of Palestine’s modernizing order rather than its old one. It prevailed in joint neighborhoods, religious festivals, spoken languages, schools, and joint coffee shops. Unlike other Middle East Arab–Jewish communities, in Palestine it included both Ashkenazi Jews and a certain type of Zionist.
----------------------
Can Cultural Norms Reduce Conflicts? Confucianism and Peasant Rebellions in Qing China
James Kai-sing Kung & Chicheng Ma
Journal of Development Economics, November 2014, Pages 132–149
Abstract:
Can culture mitigate conflicts triggered by economic shocks? In light of the extraordinary emphasis that Confucianism places on subordination and pacifism, we examine its role in possibly attenuating peasant rebellion within the historical context of China (circa 1651–1910). Our analysis finds that, while crop failure triggers peasant rebellion, its effect is significantly smaller in counties characterized by stronger Confucian norms as proxied by Confucian temples and chaste women. This result remains robust after controlling for a long list of covariates and instrumenting Confucian norms using ancient Confucian sages (500 B.C.-A.D. 550) to address concerns of measurement error and reverse causality.
----------------------
Being Different Leads to Being Connected: On the Adaptive Function of Uniqueness in “Open” Societies
Kosuke Takemura
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The current research proposes that high need for uniqueness (NFU) brings individuals positive life outcomes by helping them be connected with, rather than isolated from, others in societies where social relationships are mobile and generally open to outsiders. In societies characterized by a high mobility of relationships (relational mobility) that may result in market-like competitive circumstances (e.g., America), NFU may increase chances of social success by leading individuals to develop their unique “selling points.” In contrast, high NFU may bring worse results in closed societies (e.g., Japan) because of the associated risk of being ostracized. This hypothesis was examined and confirmed by three studies that employed cross-national as well as cross-regional comparisons within a single nation. A pilot study first confirmed that for societies higher in relational mobility, a high NFU person was viewed more favorably as a friend. Studies 1 and 2 found that NFU was more positively associated with life satisfaction, relationship satisfaction (Study 2), as well as income (Study 2) in societies higher in relational mobility.
----------------------
Aner Sela & Jonah Berger
University of Pennsylvania Working Paper, July 2014
Abstract:
Metacognition impacts judgment and decision making, but might its effects vary by culture? Culture shapes the meaning people extract from experiences, and as a result, we suggest it may impact the inferences people draw from metacognitive perceptions. Specifically, whereas cultures with a disjoint agency model (e.g., European-American) see choice as diagnostic of the inner self, cultures with a conjoint agency model (e.g., South-East Asian) see choice more as reflecting external considerations. Consequently, conjoint agency contexts are less likely to use metacognitive experiences that accompany choice as an input to judgments about inner preferences and priorities. Accordingly, we show that Americans – but not Indians – interpreted metacognitive perceptions of choice difficulty, thoughtfulness, and decision-effort as an indication of inner states such as preference certainty and decision importance. Further, priming participants with agency models from the other culture reversed these effects. These findings further understanding of metacognition, culture, and the meaning of choice.
----------------------
Politics and Parents - Intergenerational Transmission of Values after a Regime Shift
Sarah Necker & Andrea Voskort
European Journal of Political Economy, December 2014, Pages 177–194
Abstract:
Exploiting the “natural experiment” of German reunification, we study whether socialism has an enduring effect on people’s basic values. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we show that individuals that lived in the German Democratic Republic assign different importance to six out of nine values. The first subsequent generation differs in a similar way from their West German control group. The positive association between parents’ and children’s values does not significantly differ between East and West German families. The finding is consistent with the notion that parents are motivated by the belief that their own values are the best for the child to have. The effect of intergenerational transmission on the persistence of values is small to moderate. The link tends to be higher if the importance of a domain is more disputed in the population.
----------------------
Knowledge and Belief Understanding Among Iranian and Australian Preschool Children
Ameneh Shahaeian et al.
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
For more than three decades, considerable research effort has been expended in documenting children’s development of a theory of mind (ToM), or the recognition that behavior is determined by mental states. Studies comparing ToM development in children from Western and non-Western countries have shown differences in patterns of development in various ToM tasks. Specifically, Iranian children are slower than their Australian counterparts to acknowledge that people have diverse beliefs, but at the same time they have relatively advanced understanding of how people acquire new knowledge. In the current study, our aim was to further investigate this cross-cultural pattern by evaluating 3- and 4-year-old Australian and Iranian children’s belief and knowledge understanding across a range of distinct tasks designed to reflect culturally familiar situations. Results confirmed that the Iranian children were faster than the Australians in mastering tasks assessing the understanding of how and when knowledge is acquired. Iranian children, however, lag behind in passing diverse belief tasks. Scores in false belief tasks were comparable across both countries. These findings are discussed with reference to socio-cultural differences across the two countries.
----------------------
A Tear in the Iron Curtain: The Impact of Western Television on Consumption Behavior
Leonardo Bursztyn & Davide Cantoni
NBER Working Paper, August 2014
Abstract:
This paper examines the impact of exposure to foreign media on the economic behavior of agents in a totalitarian regime. We study private consumption choices focusing on former East Germany, where differential access to Western television was determined by geographic features. Using data collected after the transition to a market economy, we find no evidence of a significant impact of previous exposure to Western television on aggregate consumption levels. However, exposure to Western broadcasts affects the composition of consumption, biasing choices in favor of categories of goods with high intensity of pre-reunification advertisement. The effects vanish by 1998.
----------------------
William Tsai et al.
Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The current study examined whether writing content related to self-enhancing (viz., downward social comparison and situational attributions) and self-improving (viz., upward social comparison and persistence) motivations were differentially related to expressive writing outcomes among 17 Asian American and 17 European American participants. Content analysis of the essays revealed no significant cultural group differences in the likelihood of engaging in self-enhancing versus self-improving reflections on negative personal experiences. However, cultural group differences were apparent in the relation between self-motivation processes and changes in anxiety and depressive symptoms at 3-month follow-up. Among European Americans, writing that reflected downward social comparison predicted positive outcomes, whereas persistence writing themes were related to poorer outcomes. For Asian Americans, writing about persistence was related to positive outcomes, whereas downward social comparison and situational attributions predicted poorer outcomes. Findings provide evidence suggesting culturally distinct mechanisms for the effects of expressive disclosure.
----------------------
Culture of Corruption? The Effects of Priming Corruption Images in a High Corruption Context
Ronald Fischer et al.
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine what situational cues may influence corruption intentions of individuals in a high corruption context. We primed Brazilian participants with images related to corruption, but with different behavioral connotations (either images suggesting political corruption or images of a Malandro, a powerless antihero who blurs moral boundaries by breaking the law to survive). Corruption intentions increased in Studies 1 and 2 when individuals were primed with political corruption images, compared with a control condition. In Study 2, Brazilians who strongly identified with their country were more likely to endorse corruption scenarios, particularly when primed with Malandro images due to the dual activation of positive national symbols and morally ambiguous connotations. These findings highlight that conceptually related symbols within a cultural system can be linked to differential behavioral patterns. We outline some implications for corruption and cultural research, in particular, the need to study intracultural variability of psychological processes.
----------------------
The Subtlety of Sound: Accent as a Marker for Culture
Morteza Dehghani et al.
Journal of Language and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Aspects of language, such as accent, play a crucial role in the formation and categorization of one’s cultural identity. Recent work on accent emphasizes the role of accent in person perception and social categorization, demonstrating that accent also serves as a meaningful indicator of an ethnic category. In this article, we investigate whether the accent of an interaction partner, as a marker for culture, can induce cultural frame-shifts in biculturals. We report the results of three experiments, performed among bicultural and monocultural individuals, in which we test the above hypothesis. Our results demonstrate that accent alone can affect people’s cognition.
----------------------
Charles Yuji Horioka
Review of Economics of the Household, September 2014, Pages 411-437
Abstract:
This paper discusses three alternative assumptions concerning household preferences (altruism, self-interest, and a desire for dynasty building) and shows that these assumptions have very different implications for bequest motives and bequest division. After reviewing some of the literature on actual bequests, bequest motives, and bequest division, the paper presents data on the strength of bequest motives, stated bequest motives, and bequest division plans from a new international survey conducted in China, India, Japan, and the United States. It finds striking inter-country differences in bequest plans, with the bequest plans of Americans and Indians appearing to be much more consistent with altruistic preferences than those of the Japanese and Chinese and the bequest plans of the Japanese and Chinese appearing to be much more consistent with selfish preferences than those of Americans and Indians. These findings have important implications for the efficacy and desirability of stimulative fiscal policies, public pensions, and inheritance taxes.
----------------------
Aya Murayama et al.
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study focused on cultural differences in perceived relationship and task conflict within groups and preferences for active and agreeable conflict-management behavior. Task conflict (low vs. high) and relationship conflict (low vs. high) were manipulated within subjects in a 2 × 2 × 2 (culture) mixed design. Japanese (n = 100) and American (n = 121) undergraduate students rated each scenario with respect to task conflict, relationship conflict, and preferred conflict-management behavior. Results showed that task and relationship conflict were mistaken for each other in both cultures; however, Americans misattributed strong task conflict to relationship conflict more than Japanese. Cultural differences in preferred conflict management also emerged. Japanese preferred active conflict management more than Americans in the strong (vs. weak) task conflict situation when relationship conflict was low (vs. high), whereas Americans preferred active conflict management more than Japanese when relationship conflict was high — regardless of task conflict. Finally, Americans preferred agreeable conflict-management behavior more than Japanese when both types of conflict were low.