Understanding Intergenerational Cultural Transmission Through the Role of Perceived Norms

The Basic Premise

The recent normative approaches to cultural psychology (Chiu et al., 2010; Fischer et al., 2009; Shteynberg et al., 2009) suggest that cultural members do not always passively internalize cultural ideas and act out these internalized orientations. Cultural members also actively construct and share knowledge about their culture, and this knowledge could be distinct from their internalized orientations (e.g., Fischer et al., 2009; Tam, Leung, et al., 2012; Wan et al., 2007; Zou et al., 2009). What is more, cultural members tend to strategically use such cultural knowledge to guide their actions to meet demands in the cultural ecology (Chiu et al., 2010; Gelfand & Harrington, 2015).

To explicate the implications of these normative approaches for the understanding of intergenerational cultural transmission, I introduce the perceived norms perspective here. This perspective premises that when selecting cultural ideas for transmission, parents consider not only their own orientations but also their understanding about the culture’s norms. This basic premise has received robust support in recent studies. Tam and Lee (2010), with regard to a list of values, measured Singaporean mother participants’ personal endorsement (i.e., the extent to which they endorsed these values), perceived norms (i.e., the extent to which they perceived these values to be widely endorsed by Singaporeans), and transmission preference (i.e., the extent to which they wanted to transmit these values to children). They found that in most of the values examined, both personal endorsement and perceived norms were significantly associated with transmission preference. That is, the more parents endorse a value, or the more they consider this value to be widely endorsed by fellow Singaporeans, the more they want to transmit it to children. These findings were replicated in a more recent series of studies conducted in Hong Kong and the United States. Using multi-level analyses, Tam, Lee, Kim, Li, and Chao (2012) tested their intersubjective model of value transmission and found that within an average parent, both personal endorsement and perceived norms significantly and independently predicted transmission preference (and in turn his or her child’s actual values).

The Role of Goals

As noted, cultural members use their understanding of the culture’s norms strategically to meet certain goals. The perceived norms perspective, thus, further suggests that goals determine the extent to which parents refer to perceived norms when selecting which cultural ideas to transmit.

It has been well documented that norms serve important epistemic function of reducing uncertainty (Chiu, Morris, Hong, & Menon, 2000). Some cultural psychology studies have found that people who are particularly concerned about cognitive closure exhibit a greater tendency to adopt cultural norm-consistent behavior (e.g., Chao, Zhang, & Chiu, 2010; see Gelfand & Harrington, 2015). A similar pattern has been found for intergenerational transmission of values too. In one study (Tam, Lee, et al., 2012, Study 1), a stronger association between perceived norms and transmission preference was found among parents who had a stronger need for closure.

Some goals are specific to the familial context. For example, parents are concerned about their children’s adaptation to society (Kuczynski et al., 1997; Schönpflug, 2009a). Parents thus recognize a need to transmit values that they know are important in the society (e.g., Inkeles, 1955; Youniss, 1994). The perceived norms perspective suggests that the influence of perceived norms on parents’ transmission preference should become particularly pronounced when this goal of helping children adapt to society is salient. This hypothesis has been confirmed in a recent study. Based on the fact that social adaptation is a more pressing concern for immigrant than veteran families (e.g., Youniss, 1994), Tam, Lee, et al. (2012, Study 1) found that transmission preference was more strongly predicted by perceived norms among immigrant than veteran parents.

A similar picture has been revealed in parents with a bicultural background (e.g., ethnic minorities). To these parents, when they help their children adapt to society, they need to consider which society, the settlement society or the ethnic society, is more relevant to their children’s future. Such consideration in turn influences the extent to which they refer to perceived norms when they construct their transmission preference. A recent study confirmed this view. Tam and Chan (2015) measured personal endorsement, perceived norms in the settlement society, perceived norms in the ethnic society, and transmission preference of ethnic minority parents in Hong Kong. They found that these parents’ transmission preference was predicted by both sets of perceived norms, but the strength of this prediction depended on their expectation about their children’s future. When they had a stronger expectation that their children would return to the ethnic society (stay in the settlement society) in the future, the degree of reference to their perceived norms in the ethnic society (the settlement society) became larger.

Another goal that is often observed among parents is the concern about preserving the culture in the next generation (Berry, 2008). This goal is particularly salient among parents who strongly identify with their culture (Hughes et al., 2006). Accordingly, the perceived norms perspective suggests that this cultural preservation goal drives parents, particularly those who hold a strong cultural identity, to transmit cultural ideas that are perceived to be normative in the culture, and this should hold true even if they now settle in a culturally different society (wherein such ideas do not have much social adaptation utility). Tam and Chan (2015) found confirming evidence to this suggestion. They found that ethnic minority parents’ transmission preference was predicted by their perceived norms in the ethnic society, and this prediction was particularly pronounced among those with a strong ethnic identity and remained significant even when their expectation about their children’s returning to the ethnic society in the future (i.e., the social adaptation goal) was statistically controlled for.

In line with the suggestions by Tam and Chan (2015), a more recent study provides preliminary evidence that reference to perceived norms when constructing their transmission preference could indeed bear the benefits parents wish for (i.e., social adaptation and cultural preservation). Using a sample of immigrant families in Hong Kong, Chan and Tam (2015) found that mothers who to a larger extent referred to their perceived norms in the settlement society indeed had children with fewer difficulties in adapting to that society. Similarly, they found that mothers who more strongly referred to their perceived norms in the ethnic society indeed had children with stronger identification with that society. In short, it appears that reference to perceived norms in the construction of transmission preference can really help parents meet their goals.

Implications

Not all cultural ideas are transmitted across generations. What determine this selectivity? The perceived norms perspective highlights the need to consider the role of perceived norms. Parents refer to both their own orientations and their understanding of the culture’s norms when they select cultural ideas for transmission. This premise implies that, collectively speaking, ideas that are either widely endorsed by parents or widely perceived by parents to be normative in the culture are likely to be selected for transmission to the next generation and thereby retained in a culture. Extrapolating from this implication, it seems conceivable to label values that are both widely endorsed and widely perceived to be normative as the core values of a culture because they are most likely to be retained.

The perceived norms perspective offers an alternative interpretation of cross-generation differences. Past studies often considered values dissimilarity between two successive generations as an indication of ineffective or disrupted cultural transmission (Rowe, 1994; see Kuczynski et al., 1997) and explained such dissimilarity in terms of changes external to families and in the broader societal structures (e.g., socioeconomic prosperity, modernization). Nevertheless, when one takes the perceived norms perspective into account, cross-generation differences do not necessarily indicate failed transmission. Rather, such differences could be intended (see also Trommsdorff, 2009). What parents select for transmission could be different from what they personally possess. Thus, even when children fully accept what parents want to transmit, it is still possible that parents and children do not share the same set of cultural ideas.

The above argument helps resolve a riddle in the study of intergenerational cultural transmission. Some argue that intergenerational cultural transmission is non-responsive to environmental variability and not facilitative to cultural change (Laland, 1993) because when effective, it gives rise to parent–child similarity, implying absence of novelty and change (Boyd & Richerson, 1985). Accordingly, research on cultural change seldom considers the intergenerational transmission process (Boehnke, 2001). Nevertheless, from the perceived norms perspective, intergenerational cultural transmission and cultural change are not incompatible (see also Inkeles, 1955). Rather, intergenerational cultural transmission can give rise to changes across generations. When parents are not assumed to pursue a complete replica of their own values in their children, it becomes possible for parents to introduce changes in the culture they are aware of into their transmission endeavors and thereby contribute to the spread of such changes in the next generation. In this process, parents do not have to internalize such changes. As long as their understanding of what fellow cultural members value and believe is updated, their transmission endeavors change accordingly. In this view, parents act as “cultural middlemen,” channeling changes in the culture to the next generation based on their understanding of such changes (Tam & Chan, 2015; Tam, Lee, et al., 2012).

Directions for Future Extension

Up to date, works derived from the perceived norms perspective have examined intergenerational cultural transmission only. Future studies should consider other forms of cultural transmission (e.g., horizontal transmission, oblique transmission). Take transmission in schools as an example. Some studies showed that school types or teachers’ values do not have any significant effect on students’ values (e.g., Astill, Feather, & Keeves, 2002). One may conclude that there is no effective cultural transmission in schools. Nevertheless, from the perceived norms perspective, this conclusion is premature. The values that schoolteachers or administrators hold may differ from the values they want to transmit to students. It is possible that they construct their teaching practice with close reference to their understandings of the culture’s norms, particularly when they consider social adaptation or cultural preservation to be important.

The discussion thus far assumes that who are transmitters and who are receivers can be easily identified and the boundary between the two roles is static. This assumption is obviously an over-simplification, however. Sometimes children adopt the role of transmitters and introduce new cultural ideas to parents, and parents play the role of receivers and accept these ideas from children (see Taris, 2000). To deepen the understanding of intergenerational cultural transmission from the perceived norms perspective, future studies should relax this assumption and consider the dynamicity of the boundary between transmitters and receivers. Apparently, more complicated research designs (e.g., longitudinal studies) will be needed in these studies.

Although transmission of values has been well researched, studies about transmission of other cultural ideas are scarce (see Boehnke, Hadjar, & Baier, 2009). Future extension of the perceived norms perspective may focus on social axioms, another core element of culture (Leung et al., 2002). Social axioms differ from values; the former refer to generalized beliefs about how the world and humans are, whereas the latter refer to a subjective appraisal of how the world and humans should be (Leung et al., 2002). Only one study has ever examined intergenerational transmission of social axioms (Boehnke et al., 2009), but this study did not find any strong indication of parent–child similarity. As noted, one should not interpret this lack of similarity as evidence of ineffective transmission. From the perceived norms perspective, it is possible that parents refer to perceived norms, not their personal belief, when they consider which social axioms they want to emphasize in their transmission endeavors. This hypothesis remains to be tested.