Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology

Differences in the reported use of reward allocation principles based on equity, equality, and need in work organizations in Germany, United Kingdom, New Zealand, the United States, and Brazil are investigated. Organization-level and nation-level predictors are used to explain reported differences. Organizational, macroeconomic, and Schwartz's nation-level value indices are all found to be significant predictors. Reliance on equity is predicted by organization-level variables and high nation-level mastery. Reliance on equality is only influenced by organization-level variables. Reliance on need is predicted by the unemployment rate and high nation-level embeddedness. The results indicate that reward allocation studies that focus solely on individual-level factors will fail to detect important sources of variance. The need to consider multiple levels of explanation in cross-cultural research is discussed.

In this article, the authors posit that dispositional learning orientation and self-set goal level are two critical motivational antecedents to cross-cultural adjustment. They collected longitudinal field data from 117 sojourning international undergraduate students. Regression results indicate that self-set academic and socialinteraction goal levels are positively related to academic and social adjustment, respectively. A dispositional learning orientation is positively related to academic and social adjustment but the relationship is mediated by the self-set goal level. They discuss contributions to and implications for cross-cultural adjustment research.

Ethnic minority status and health minority status (i.e., presence of illness) may facilitate repressive adaptive style (RAS) in an additive fashion, and a “double stigma” hypothesis has been proposed to explain this additive effect. The authors compare RAS in European American, Mexican American, and Mexican children and examine the association of RAS to the traditional values of simpatia and collectivism. Results do not confirm the hypothesis that minority status contributes to RAS; however, collectivism is a significant predictor of defensiveness supporting a cultural hypothesis for RAS.

This study examines the relationship between commitment forms (organizational commitment, occupational commitment, job involvement, work involvement, and group commitment) and cultural values (individualism versus collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity versus femininity). Five groups of Israeli teachers who are assumed to represent different cultural groups (secular Jews, orthodox Jews, kibbutz teachers, Druze, and Arabs) are examined. Of the 2,269 questionnaires that are distributed in 54 schools in northern Israel, 1,328 usable questionnaires are returned, a response rate of 59%. The findings, using MANCOVA and regression analysis, show the strong effect of culture on multiple commitments. First, the five cultural groups related to commitment forms even when cultural values are controlled. Second, all of the cultural values are related to forms of commitment, and they add to the variance already explained by the cultural groups. The findings and their implications for the continuation of research on commitment and culture are discussed.

Intracultural variation and response behavior are understood as integral parts of cultural models of parenting that provide independent information. German, Euro-American, and Greek middle-class women representing the independent cultural model; Cameroonian Nso and Gujarati farming women representing the interdependent cultural model; and urban Indian, Chinese, Mexican, and Costa Rican women representing an autonomous-related model were recruited. The results confirm that participants with an interdependent cultural model respond more extremely on the scales, but the expected lower intracultural variation in this group was confirmed only partially.

Results from two groups of biculturals (Hong Kong undergraduates, Chinese Americans) and a group of European Americans in two studies showed that in the presence of applicable cues of a culture, individuals with expert knowledge in the culture spontaneously make inferences about the culture's moral values, producing a Stroop-like effect. Although both biculturals and European Americans made spontaneous cultural inferences from American cultural cues, only biculturals made spontaneous inferences from Chinese cultural cues. Moreover, American-Chinese bicultural individuals can switch between correspondent cultural inferences from American and Chinese cultural cues numerous times within one experimental session. Implications on cultural adaptation and cultural competence are discussed.

This study employs an expanded conceptualization and methodology of acculturation orientations to examine the identity and acculturation patterns of Palestinian Arab Christian adolescents in Israel, who can be seen as a “double minority”—Arabs in the midst of the majority Jewish population and Christians within Israel's dominantly Muslim Arab society. We examined the acculturation attitudes of 281 Palestinian Arab Christian adolescents in Israel and their perceptions of the expectations held by majority peers regarding their preferred mode of acculturation vis-à-vis two majority groups: Israeli Jews and Muslim Arabs. Findings suggest that Palestinian Arab Christian adolescents in Israel wish to maintain their ingroup identity; however, they expressed more willingness to adopt elements of the Jewish society than did Muslim Arabs. They also feel stronger assimilation pressures coming from Israeli Jews. These results are explained primarily in terms of differences between the two majority groups in their control over valuable resources.