Ecologies shape cultures; cultures influence the development of personalities. There are both universal and culture-specific aspects of variation in personality. Some culture-specific aspects correspond to cultural syndromes such as complexity, tightness, individualism, and collectivism. A large body of literature suggests that the Big Five personality factors emerge in various cultures. However, caution is required in arguing for such universality, because most studies have not included emic (culture-specific) traits and have not studied samples that are extremely different in culture from Western samples.

Women and Men in Society

Cultural Influences on Personality

A theory of sexism as ambivalence, not just hostility, toward women is presented. Ambivalent Sexism Theory distinguishes between hostile and “benevolent” sexism (each addresses issues of power, gender differentiation, and sexuality). Benevolent sexism encompasses subjectively positive (for the sexist) attitudes toward women in traditional roles: protective paternalism, idealization of women, and desire for intimate relations. Hostile sexism encompasses the negative equivalents on each dimension: dominative paternalism, derogatory beliefs, and heterosexual hostility. Both forms of sexism serve to justify and maintain patriarchy and traditional gender roles. The validity of a measure of these constructs, the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI), is reviewed. Comparisons are offered between the ASI and other measures of sexist attitudes (e.g., the AWS), with suggestions for the proper domains of different scales.

Hostile and Benevolent Sexism: Measuring Ambivalent Sexist Attitudes Toward Women

Cultural systems vary widely across the world. Partly this is due to different cultures' occupying different ecological and environmental niches. But partly it is due to similar circumstances giving rise to multiple stable equilibriums, each with a distinct cultural form. Using insights and examples from various fields, this article illustrates the way that multiple equilibriums can emerge and the forces that push a culture toward one equilibrium point or another. Considerations of game theory principles, mutual interdependence, historical circumstance, dependence on initial conditions, and crucial choice points are highlighted in discussing the ways humans create and re-create their culture. Cultural traits develop within physical, social, intracultural, and intercultural niches, and implications of this for how culture might be studied and the benefits of combining an "equilibrium" perspective and a "meaning" perspective are discussed.

Cultural variation: considerations and implications.

Despite recent developments in “fiscal sociology” (i.e. the sociological analysis of taxation and public finances), few efforts have been made to synthesize scholarly developments in the field. This is particularly surprising because much of the literature on the determinants of taxation bears directly on the debates in political sociology about the social, political, institutional, and other determinants of government policy. This essay reviews and integrates the literature on tax policy formation and relates it to these general debates. It also explores some of the important but often neglected effects that taxation has on such phenomena as political revolution, state building, economic organization, labor force participation, and philanthropy. Thus, this essay demonstrates the significance and reviews recent developments in fiscal sociology.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2083385.pdf

Women and Men in Society

Citations

Cultural Influences on Personality

Hostile and Benevolent Sexism: Measuring Ambivalent Sexist Attitudes Toward Women

Cultural variation: considerations and implications.

The state and fiscal sociology

Culture, Gender, and Labor Force Participation: A Cross-National Study

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