Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism

世界経済・社会統計 = World development indicators

Introduction 1. Woman's Place in Man's Life Cycle 2. Images of Relationship 3. Concepts of Self and Morality 4. Crisis and Transition 5. Women's Rights and Women's Judgment 6. Visions of Maturity References Index of Study Participants General Index

In a Different Voice. Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge, MA (Harvard University Press) 1982.

Behavioral scientists routinely publish broad claims about human psychology and behavior in the world's top journals based on samples drawn entirely from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Researchers - often implicitly - assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that these "standard subjects" are as representative of the species as any other population. Are these assumptions justified? Here, our review of the comparative database from across the behavioral sciences suggests both that there is substantial variability in experimental results across populations and that WEIRD subjects are particularly unusual compared with the rest of the species - frequent outliers. The domains reviewed include visual perception, fairness, cooperation, spatial reasoning, categorization and inferential induction, moral reasoning, reasoning styles, self-concepts and related motivations, and the heritability of IQ. The findings suggest that members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans. Many of these findings involve domains that are associated with fundamental aspects of psychology, motivation, and behavior - hence, there are no obvious a priori grounds for claiming that a particular behavioral phenomenon is universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation. Overall, these empirical patterns suggests that we need to be less cavalier in addressing questions of human nature on the basis of data drawn from this particularly thin, and rather unusual, slice of humanity. We close by proposing ways to structurally re-organize the behavioral sciences to best tackle these challenges.

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The WEIRDest People in the World

Are Americans more individualistic and less collectivistic than members of other groups? The authors summarize plausible psychological implications of individualism-collectivism (IND-COL), meta-analyze cross-national and within-United States IND-COL differences, and review evidence for effects of IND-COL on self-concept, well-being, cognition, and relationality. European Americans were found to be both more individualistic-valuing personal independence more-and less collectivistic-feeling duty to in-groups less-than others. However, European Americans were not more individualistic than African Americans, or Latinos, and not less collectivistic than Japanese or Koreans. Among Asians, only Chinese showed large effects, being both less individualistic and more collectivistic. Moderate IND-COL effects were found on self-concept and relationality, and large effects were found on attribution and cognitive style.

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Rethinking individualism and collectivism: evaluation of theoretical assumptions and meta-analyses.

The authors investigate differences in individualism and collectivism between the four largest ethnic groups in the United States (African Americans, Asian Americans, Latino Americans, and European Americans). It has been asserted that U.S. minorities score higher in collectivism compared to European Americans, whereas European Americans score higher in individualism than minorities. The authors reexamined these assumptions using meta-analytic techniques with new data (total N = 1,510). Asian Americans and African Americans but not Latinos scored higher in collectivism than did European Americans. African Americans exhibited the highest levels of individualism. The authors discuss the cultural, historical, and social factors that should be taken into account to adequately characterize cultural orientation of socially constructed groups.

Cultural Orientations in the United States (Re)Examining Differences among Ethnic Groups

M H Bond (2002), A P Fiske (2002), S Kitayama (2002), and J G Miller (2002) joined D Oyserman, H M Coon, and M Kemmelmeier (2002) in highlighting limitations of the individualism-collectivism model of culture Concern is warranted; nevertheless, individualism-collectivism helps structure discourse on the influence of culture on the mind To avoid level-of-analysis entanglements, Oyserman et al propose an integrative model that includes distal, proximal, and situated cultural features of societies and internalized models of these features, highlights the importance of subjective construal, and uses evolutionary perspectives to clarify the basic problems cultures address Framed this way, it is clear that, depending on situational requirements, both individualism- and collectivism-focused strategies are adaptive; thus, it is likely that human minds have adapted to think both ways

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Cultural psychology, A new look: reply to Bond (2002), Fiske (2002), Kitayama (2002), and Miller (2002).

Using data provided by the 1993 International Social Survey Programme, the authors examine the relationship between economic factors, values, and environmental attitudes both at the societal level and the individual level. They tested the hypothesis derived from Inglehart that postmaterialist values mediate the relationship between economics and support for the environment. In a multilevel analysis, they also explored whether the relationship between individuals’ income and their attitudes toward the environment varies as a function of societal-level indicators. Results demonstrate that economic factors predicted proenvironmental attitudes at the societal level and less so at the individual level, but at neither level was the influence of economic factors mediated through postmaterialist values. Further, a society’s recent economic growth, but not current levels of economic development, predicted to what extent individuals’ proenvironmental views were linked to their personal economic resources.

Values, Economics, and Proenvironmental Attitudes in 22 Societies

Using two multilevel analyses of residents in 12 (1992 Eurobarometer; N = 3,902) and 22 (2006 European Social Survey, N = 38,867) European societies, respectively, we examined loneliness as a function of dominant cultural values. Levels of loneliness were higher in collectivistic compared with individualistic societies, but societies differed in terms of their predictors of loneliness. In collectivistic societies, the absence of interactions with family was more closely linked to loneliness than was the case in individualistic societies. Conversely, in individualistic societies, the absence of interactions with friends and having a confidant was more closely linked to loneliness than in collectivistic societies. Findings are consistent with the notion that autonomy and choice with regard to interaction partners have greater implications for well-being in individualistic societies whereas traditional social bonds are more potent in collectivistic societies.

Markus Kemmelmeier

Papers

Rethinking individualism and collectivism: evaluation of theoretical assumptions and meta-analyses.

Cultural Orientations in the United States (Re)Examining Differences among Ethnic Groups

Cultural psychology, A new look: reply to Bond (2002), Fiske (2002), Kitayama (2002), and Miller (2002).

Values, Economics, and Proenvironmental Attitudes in 22 Societies

What Predicts Loneliness? Cultural Difference Between Individualistic and Collectivistic Societies in Europe: