Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology

Is East Asian religious tolerance, as opposed to Western monotheistic prejudice, a stereotype or a reality? Based on theoretical and empirical evidence, we hypothesized low prejudice as a function of East Asian religiosity. We examined whether this holds true for interreligious, anti-atheist, ethnic, and anti-gay prejudice. In Study 1, analysis of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) 2008 data from Eastern religious and Christian samples in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan (total N = 3,555) showed, contrarily to Christians, high interreligious tolerance and weaker if no anti-gay prejudice as a function of Eastern religiosity. In Study 2, Eastern religiosity among Taiwanese (n = 222) was negatively related to prejudice against various religious outgroups (except atheists), especially among those low in authoritarianism. In Study 3, Eastern religiosity among Taiwanese (n = 102) was negatively related to implicit interreligious (Muslims) and ethnic (Africans) prejudice; prosociality partially mediated the former association. Eastern religious tolerance seems to be true, but not unlimited.

Terror Management Theory predicts that mortality salience (MS) instigates cultural worldview defenses, especially among individuals with lower self-esteem. That MS intensifies positive evaluations of pro-U.S. essay authors, and negative evaluations of anti-U.S. essay authors have been documented as supportive evidence. However, the evidence to date may have been limited to where praising for the former and rejection of the latter authors is consistent with a shared cultural script and thus normative. In the case of Australian people, the cultural script of cringe prescribes them to evaluate their country modestly and to reject high praise of their country. We therefore predicted that MS (vs. control) should lead Australians, with low self-esteem in particular, to evaluate pro-Australia essay authors less positively while not affecting their evaluations of anti-Australia essay authors. Results from two studies were consistent with this prediction. It is important to distinguish MS effects on adherence to cultural norms from those on reaffirming collective self-esteem, and to consider relevant cultural scripts when interpreting evidence for worldview defenses.

The authors propose that cross-cultural differences in sensitivity to social rejection, or the extent to which one is alert to potential rejection from significant others, can be understood as an adaptation to different social ecological contexts varying in the degrees of relational mobility. In societies low in relational mobility, such as East Asia, relationships and group memberships are stable and exclusive, and thus it is difficult for individuals to recover once rejected from current relationships or groups. In these contexts, one would expect people to be continuously paying attention to negative feedback from others to avoid potential rejection. In contrast, this type of anxiety will be less pronounced in societies high in relational mobility, such as North America, because there are a greater number of relationship alternatives available, even if individuals were to be excluded from a particular relationship. Results from two cross-national studies showed that, as expected, individuals’ perceptions of relational mobility partially mediated rejection sensitivity (Study 1) and Taijin Kyofusho, an allocentric subtype of social anxiety (Study 2).

This article presents two studies that aim to unpack cultural variations in general social anxiety (SA) and the offensive-type of Taijin Kyofusho (OTKS)—a type of SA characterized by the extreme fear of offending others. Cultural variations in the expression and manifestation of SA are well established; however, the mechanisms underpinning this relation are unclear. The present studies use the Parallel Multiple Mediation Model to study how SA and OTKS are jointly shaped by self-construal and intolerance of uncertainty (IU). Study 1 compared Euro-Canadians and Chinese migrants in Canada. Results showed a mean group difference in OTKS, but not SA, with the difference mediated by IU. Study 2 tested this pattern of multiple mediations in Japanese, Chinese, and Euro-Canadian cultural contexts. Results showed significant differences among these three cultural groups on both SA and OTKS via multiple mediators (e.g., independent vs. interdependent self-construals and IU). Findings in both studies revealed that OTKS seems to be a psychopathology that is not specific to Japanese participants. The underlying mechanisms and processes of OTKS are also significantly different from SA. Significant cultural variations in SA and OTKS between Chinese versus Japanese cultural contexts were observed in Study 2. These studies demonstrate the conceptual and empirical advantages of using more complex models to unpack the psychological mechanisms shaping cultural variations in SA and OTKS.

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.

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.

Immigrant students in many European countries have lower educational attainments than their mainstream classmates. The present study investigated family-related conditions for early adolescents’ acculturation orientations and psychological and sociocultural school adjustment in Germany. Analyses were based on data from 695 mostly second- and third-generation secondary school students from more than 50 countries. Parental acculturation expectations and cultural practices in the family (e.g., religion and language use) as well as their level of school involvement were the best predictors of pupils’ psychological and sociocultural outcomes. The importance of religion in the family differed most across immigrant groups and was strongly linked to adolescents’ ethnic orientation. Implications for research, educators, and policy makers are discussed.

This article challenges the common assumption that basic human values remain stable during the lifetime of an individual. It demonstrates that migrants’ values are highly likely to change after emigrating to a new country. Using cross-sectional data, we estimated the link between individual values of intra-European migrants and country of birth and residence, as well as values that are common there. Values were measured by Schwartz’s questionnaire as well as Inglehart’s Self-Expression items. Cross-classified multilevel regression models were applied to the sample of migrants, selected from five rounds of the European Social Survey. The results demonstrated the significance of both the country of residence and the country of birth as well as values, which are common in these countries. Surprisingly, the association of migrants’ values with the country of residence appeared to be higher than the one of country of birth. Furthermore, migrants’ values better correspond to values that are common in the country of residence than values widespread in the country of birth. Assuming that value-based self-selection of migrants is negligible, the results support the idea that basic values are subject to change over an individual life span and not only during one’s formative years.

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.

Current-day cross-cultural psychology typically attends to a linguistic equivalence requirement for the assessment of one and the same psychological construct in different cultures. The present article suggests loosening the requirement of using identically worded items in all cultures included in a cross-cultural comparison in favor of following a more emic methodology in instrument development. Using purely illustrative material on the relationship of paternal warmth and trust in five cultures (Germany, Moldova–Russian, Togo–French, Zambia–English, and Zimbabwe–Shona), an approach is suggested that develops items autonomously within the cultures included in a comparison, subsequently ascertains structural and measurement equivalence of covariance matrices obtained on the basis of items differently worded in different cultures, and finally validates the measurement by showing the equality of the relationship of the differentially measured latent construct under scrutiny (here, paternal warmth) with the comparison variable (here, trust) in all cultures. The authors hope to offer first steps toward a quantitative emic comparative psychology and discuss further research needs.

The previous studies showed that the use of first person singular pronoun, that is, “I,” primes the independent self, whereas the use of the first person plural pronoun, that is, “we,” primes the interdependent self. A different line of research discovered a strong correlation between societal level of individualism and the overall requirement of explicit personal pronoun use in a language. The present study provided a competitive test of these two hypotheses by utilizing Google Books Ngram database of published books in different languages. The sample consisted of published work in American English, British English, English publications other than American and British English, Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Russian, and Spanish corpora. The results extended the previous individual-level priming experiments on first person singular versus plural pronouns and showed that the relative percentage of first person singular pronoun use in written material across languages reflected the cultural-level individualism. However, there was not a reliable relation between the overall use of explicit pronouns and societal level of individualism.