Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology

The concept of value of children (VOC) was introduced three decades ago and has recently gained increasing importance due to ongoing significant demographic changes in many parts of the world, namely declining birth rates and increasing life expectancy. Even though the concept of VOC suggests interdisciplinary and cross-cultural research, these methodologies were only recently used as part of a collaborative international enterprise aiming to revise and extend the original VOC study. The extended study is based on psychological and sociological approaches and makes use of more sophisticated methods of cross-cultural comparison and multilevel analyses. The thematic scope has also been expanded beyond childbearing to childrearing and also deals with parent-child relations over the entire lifespan. The present special section provides an overview of ongoing theoretical and methodological progress on the basis of four selected studies on VOC and intergenerational relations in different cultures.

This study examines some aspects of intergenerational relationships in different sociocultural contexts. Using data from Germany, Israel, Palestine, and Turkey from the Value of Children and Intergenerational Relationships Project, mother—adolescent dynamics are studied. Mothers’ expectation of future support from grown-up offspring and the adolescents’ support to the mother are the main dependent variables under consideration. Socioeconomic standing, particularly mother’s education, cultural values concerning family independence or interdependence, intergenerational intimacy, and support are found to affect the dependent variables. Although on one hand systematic patterns of predicted interrelationships are found in line with Kagitcibasi’s theory of family change, the complexity of the dynamics involved and the diversity of the samples prevent drawing clear dimensions of variation based on the comparative analyses.

This study contributes to research regarding the value of children (VOC) by comparing adolescents’ VOC and their intentions to have children across 12 cultures and by exploring the relations between these constructs at the individual and cultural levels using multilevel modeling. A total of 3,348 adolescents from 12 cultures participated in this study. On average, adolescents reported that they intended to have about two children and also reported emotional VOC as being highly important. Adolescents from cultures with a low as compared to a high level of economic development reported a higher importance of the utilitarian-normative VOC. Results of the multilevel analyses showed that the reported emotional VOC was positively related to the number of children adolescents intended to have at the individual level, whereas the utilitarian-normative VOC was not related to adolescents’ intention to have children. At the cultural level, the VOC dimensions were only partly related to adolescents’ intention to have children. The results are discussed with regard to adolescents’ future family orientation and in relation to the VOC approach.

In the current article, the author (a) integrates two major theoretical approaches for the explanation of inheritance expectations, namely, the institutional approach of cultural anthropology and the interactionist approach of family research and social gerontology; (b) takes into account the institutional settings of kinship systems and inheritance regimes on the societal level; and (c) relates these institutional settings to the intergenerational relationships between parents and parents-in-law and their offspring. At the societal level, these relations are formulated as two hypotheses: The lineage hypothesis refers to the inheritance regime and its impact on individual inheritance expectations, whereas the welfare hypothesis refers to the relation between levels of affluence and quality of inheritance (instrumental or expressive inheritance).The empirical analysis is based on standardized interviews with women from India, China, Palestine, Turkey, Indonesia, Russia, Germany, and the United States (N = 5,282), which were collected for the Value of Children in Six Cultures research project. Descriptive results show strong cross-cultural differences in matrilineal, patrilineal, and bilineal inheritance expectations. In subsequent multivariate logistic regression analyses, the author tested societal, relational, and individual predictors on inheritance expectations. The results support the lineage and welfare hypotheses but provide no evidence for exchange-based assumptions on the effects of the quality of intergenerational relationships on inheritance expectations.

The exchange of support between generations is a fundamental feature of intergenerational relationships. Although most studies have concentrated on the impact of social support on the receiver, effects on subjective well-being of the provider of support have been studied less often. Given cultural differences in the norms and values of intergenerational relationships, the present study compared samples from rural and urban China, Indonesia, and Germany. The results showed that in the different cultural contexts elderly mothers’ well-being was differently related to help that they provided to their adult daughters. The results are discussed from a culture-informed perspective on intergenerational relationships.

Inspired by recent advances in creative cognition research, the authors examined in the current research some creative benefits of multicultural experiences. Study 1 showed that European American undergraduates had better creative performance immediately after being exposed to American and Chinese cultures or to a hybrid culture formed by fusing American and Chinese cultures; this effect was also observed 5 to 7 days after the initial exposure. Studies 2 and 3 showed that exposure to multicultural experiences is positively related to the likelihood of engaging in some creativity-supporting processes—generation of unconventional ideas (Study 2) and receptiveness to ideas originated from foreign cultures (Study 3). Finally, in Studies 4 and 5, the authors found that need for cognitive closure (or the need for firm answers) and existential terror significantly attenuated the positive link between multicultural experiences and receptiveness to ideas originated from foreign cultures. The authors discussed these findings’ implications on multicultural learning and creativity.

The authors collected and compared preference data on characteristics desired in long-term romantic partners between college students in two diverse countries, the United States and Russia. Based on evolutionary perspectives,the authors predicted that participants representing different cultures would retain certain adaptive gender differences. In addition, the authors included other attributes as potentially desirable in a long-term partner from studies within the field of positive psychology and predicted that these character strengths and virtues would feature prominently. Results suggested that the positive internal states of love, happiness, and kindness were among the most important qualities desired in a long-term romantic partner by both Russians and Americans. Gender differences were revealed for preferences in partner age and physique in both cultures as well as positive psychology’s traits of gratitude for Russians and forgiveness in the American sample. Overall, positive internal attributes were rated as highly important and the authors recommend these should be more fully considered in future studies on mate preferences.

This article examines the influence of different situational contexts on the arousal of need for achievement in student samples from different cultural contexts. Implicit achievement motivation was assessed by a Thematic Apperception Test—type story test for which two different instructions were used: Although one group was informed that the best performance would be identified (me-oriented instruction), the other group was told that only the performance of the whole group (we-oriented instruction) would be evaluated. In Study 1, analyses revealed that Cameroonian participants who received the we-oriented instructions showed a significantly higher achievement motivation even if study groups did not differ in explicit life goals. In Study 2, the relationship between situational context and arousal of need for achievement was scrutinized in Chinese and German student samples. Within both cultural groups, students who were assigned to the me-oriented condition showed the highest levels of need for achievement. Findings are discussed with respect to differences in students’ self-construal.

The performances of Russian-English bilinguals and English monolinguals living in the United States, and Farsi-English bilinguals living in the United Arab Emirates and Farsi monolinguals living in Iran, were compared on the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults to investigate whether the sociocultural context modulates the influence of bilingualism on an individual’s creativity. The findings revealed an interactive influence of bilingualism and sociocultural context on creative potential, suggesting that the contribution of bilingual development to creative potential differs across cultures.