The Effects of Work Environment and In-Group Membership on the Leadership Preferences of Anglo-Australians and Chinese Australians

The effects of in-group membership and work environment on the leadership preferences of Anglo-Australians and Chinese Australians were examined. Leadership styles were based on Misumi's PM theory. Subjects were sixty Anglo-Australian and sixty Chinese Australian males, all of whom were full-time white-collar employees in large organizations. Leadership profiles, vignettes describing different work environments, and in-group/out-group membership scenarios were constructed. Although PM-type leadership was clearly the most popular style of leadership with both cultural groups, the leadership preferences of the Chinese Australians were more affected by the work environment than were those of the Anglo-Australians. The in-group/out-group effect on leadership preferences was not significant for both cultural groups. There were cultural differences in the rank orderings of the four leadership styles. A significant in-group/out-group effect was found for the rank orderings of both cultural groups. Despite clear cultural differences in leader selection and rank orderings, Bontempo's INDCOL Scale did not detect cultural differences in individualism-collectivism.

Cross-Cultural Industrial and Organizational Psychology

This article aims at critically evaluating the theory and scope of cross-cultural industrial and organizational (I/O) research, emphasizing its past and its future. In the theory section, the author discusses the ways sociocultural context influences organizational phenomena. Also discussed are issues such as the level of theory, assumption of linearity, unilateral effect of culture on organizations, conceptualization of culture, and atheoretical nature of research. In the second section, three areas of research, which are underrepresented in cross-cultural I/O literature, are discussed: staffing, performance management, and employee health and safety. It is argued that compared to traditional research topics of cross-cultural I/O psychology (e.g., leadership, motivation, work values, etc.), these topics are more central to the field, more related to improvement of human potential and conditions at work, and better able to guide practices in various cultural contexts.

A Cross-Cultural Ranking of Stressful Life Events in Germany, India, South Africa, and the United States

Five groups of college and university students (N= 555) from four countries ranked 32 life events according to the amount of stress each was perceived to cause. The analyses of the rankings revealed substantial agreement on the relative stressfulness of life events among Americans, Germans, Indians, non-White South Africans, and White South Africans. The results suggest that standard measures of life stress can be used cross-culturally with some degree of confidence.

Antecedents and Consequences of Fairness Perceptions in Personnel Selection

Drawing on Gilliland’s selection fairness framework, we examined antecedents and behavioral effects of applicant procedural fairness perceptions before, during, and after a personnel selection procedure using a six-wave longitudinal research design. Results showed that both perceived post-test fairness and pre-feedback fairness perceptions are related to job offer acceptance and job performance after 18 months, but not to job performance after 36 months. Pre-test and post-test procedural fairness perceptions were mainly related to formal characteristics and interpersonal treatment, whereas pre-feedback fairness perceptions were related to formal characteristics and explanations. The impact of fairness attributes of formal characteristics and interpersonal treatment diminished over time, whereas attributes of explanation were only associated with pre-feedback fairness. Results are discussed in terms of theoretical implications for fairness research and for hiring organizations.

Early Socialization Contexts and Social Experiences of Infants in Rural and Urban Gujarat, India

In this study, the early social experiences of infants from a rural, traditionally agricultural community are compared with those of urban infants of the same region. Using spot observations, infants'daily social experiences were assessed when they were about 3 months of age. Based on overarching sociocultural orientations, the authors expected rural and urban caregivers to provide their infants with the same amount of body contact, kissing, and body stimulation. Based on different educational profiles of the caregivers, less eyetoeye contact, exclusive attention, and object stimulation by rural compared to urban caregivers were expected. Differences between mothers and other caregivers in their interaction with the infant and during distress and nondistress waking states of the infant were explored. The results confirmed their expectations partially. Urban infants experienced more eye-to-eye contact and more exclusive attention but also more body contact. There were no differences in kissing, body stimulation, and object stimulation.

Physical Self-Perceptions in Adolescence

This study examines the generalizability of the form, structural parameters, and latent means of a hierarchical multidimensional model of physical self-perceptions in adolescents from three cultures. A children's version of the physical self-perception profile (PSPP-C) was administered to samples of British, Hong Kong, and Russian high school students. A structural equation model that hypothesized a hierarchical structure with global self-esteem as a super ordinate construct and physical self-worth as a domain-level construct governing the PSPP-C subdomains fit the data adequately. Tests of the cross-cultural generalizability of the proposed model supported the invariance of the factor pattern and model parameters across the samples. Latent means analysis suggested that the factor means were significantly higher in the British sample, a finding that supports the results of cross-cultural studies of self-esteem in other domains.

Repeated acupuncture treatments modulate amygdala resting state functional connectivity of depressive patients

As a widely-applied alternative therapy, acupuncture is gaining popularity in Western society. One challenge that remains, however, is incorporating it into mainstream medicine. One solution is to combine acupuncture with other conventional, mainstream treatments. In this study, we investigated the combination effect of acupuncture and the antidepressant fluoxetine, as well as its underlying mechanism using resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) in patients with major depressive disorders. Forty-six female depressed patients were randomized into a verum acupuncture plus fluoxetine or a sham acupuncture plus fluoxetine group for eight weeks. Resting-state fMRI data was collected before the first and last treatments. Results showed that compared with those in the sham acupuncture treatment, verum acupuncture treatment patients showed 1) greater clinical improvement as indicated by Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) and Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) scores; 2) increased rsFC between the left amygdala and subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC)/preguenual anterior cingulate cortex (pgACC); 3) increased rsFC between the right amygdala and left parahippocampus (Para)/putamen (Pu). The strength of the amygdala-sgACC/pgACC rsFC was positively associated with corresponding clinical improvement (as indicated by a negative correlation with MADRS and SDS scores). Our findings demonstrate the additive effect of acupuncture to antidepressant treatment and suggest that this effect may be achieved through the limbic system, especially the amygdala and the ACC.

American and Nigerian Hospital Personnel Attitudes Toward Gerontology Patients

The attitudes of American and Nigerian hospital personnel toward the aged were assessed. The samples (N = 144) were drawn from four hospitals in the United States and Nigeria. Two of the hospitals provide mainly psychiatric services, while the other two provide general medical care. A total of 21 bipolar semantic differential adjectives were selected and used to form 7-point rating scales. It was found that Nigerians have a significantly more positive attitude than Americans toward "old man" on the full scale and the evaluative subscale. There was no difference between the attitudes of general hospital and psychiatric hospital personnel.

Cross-Cultural Generalizability of the Five-Factor Model of Personality

Increasing interest is being directed toward demonstrating the cross-cultural generalizability of the five-factor model of personality. This report outlines the development and initial validation of a Korean version of the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO PI-R), a commercially available instrument designed to capture these five major dimensions. Study 1 involved Korean nationals (320 men and 334 women) and documented the reliability and structural validity of the new translation. Correlations with the Korean version of the MBTI and Impostor Phenomenon Scale provided preliminary validity evidence. Study 2 included 57 men and 59 women who were bilingual Korean expatriates living in the United States. These individuals took both the Korean and English versions of the NEO PI-R. Results indicated that the Korean version can be considered a parallel form to its English counterpart. The etic and emic implications of these results are discussed.

An Etic-Emic Analysis of Individualism and Collectivism

An analysis of the responses of 1,614 subjects from 10 cultures shows that the Leung Bond procedure provides illuminating ways of extracting both strong (Separation From In-Groups, Independence, and Personal Competence) and weak (Task Orientation) eticsrelevant to individualism, and weak etics (Dependence on Others, Sociability) relevant to collectivism. Additional richness in the available information is provided when intracultural factor analyses are carried out in each culture. It appears that the most complete picture is obtained when both etics and emics are examined.

Homesickness among American and Turkish College Students

This study explored the following questions: (a) Are there cultural differences in the degree of reported homesickness? (b) What variables differentiate the homesick from the nonhomesick? (c) Do these differentiating dimensions vary across cultures? The participants were 75 American and 69 Turkish 1st-year female college students. They completed two personality inventories and a 60-item Homesickness Questionnaire. There was a significant difference in the number of homesick students in the two culture groups. Further, the mean homesickness rating of the American sample was significantly less than the mean homesickness rating of the Turkish participants. Some aspects of the experience of homesickness transcended cultural boundaries (e.g., lower social presence, greater dependence on parental guidance, problems with personal well-being) and others were found to be culture specific (e.g., higher socialization and lower flexibility scores for the Turkish homesick group).

The Relationship of the Five-Factor Model of Personality to Job Performance for a Group of Middle Eastern Expatriate Managers

Studies in the United States and Europe have investigated the relationship of the Five- Factor Model of personality to effectiveness for domestic managers. This article reports on the relationship of the Five-Factor Model of personality to job performance for a group of Middle Eastern expatriate managers. Job performance ratings from the expatriate’s host- and home-country bosses indicate that agreeableness and conscientiousness were related to home-country ratings of job performance, but not host-country ratings.

Contributions of Mexican Ethnopsychology to the Resolution of the Etic-Emic Dilemma in Personality

The controversy over the existence of etic (universal) and emic (idiosyncratic) psychological concepts and principles can be best resolved empirically. Data and theory pertinent to the generalizability or specificity of theory and measurements in the area of personality are presented. The study of personality traits involves at least two fundamental aspects: (a) the conceptualization of the construct and its characteristics, and (b) the operationalization of constructs, usually through objective psychological tests. From the cultural perspective, it is indispensable to assess the validity of the universalistic (etic) or the particularistic (emic) approach to the various psychological concepts and phenomena. In an effort to clarify this problem, Mexican findings that support the need for the development of "ethnopsychologies" to explain the interaction of psychological phenomena and social and cultural contexts are presented.

Toward a Multifaceted Model of the Structure of Social Justice Judgments

This study explores the potential cross-cultural generalizability of a conceptual framework for understanding the multifaceted universe of contents and structure of human social justice judgments (SJJ). The hypothesized framework identifies four elemental facets needed to define SJJ and specifies the types of justice contents people are likely to distinguish when evaluating the justness of a distribution—principles and distributive rules, social resources, sign of the outcome distribution (positive or negative), and the type of social context in which resources are distributed. To empirically verify the fit between the hypothesized structure, smallest space analysis was applied, and earlier findings obtained in an Israeli sample were compared to findings obtained in East and West German samples. Separate replications conducted in the East and West German samples revealed that the multidimensional configurations of SJJ intercorrelations could be partitioned into distinct regions of items that correspond to the facets’ hypothesized elements and their expected arrangements

Self-Construals, Coping, and Stress in Cross-Cultural Adaptation

This study examines differences in the independent and interdependent self-construals of American and East Asian students studying in the United States and the influence of these self-construals on coping and stress. Path analysis revealed that the importance of the independent self-construal was positively related to direct coping strategies, which predicted reduced levels of stress for the international students. Ratings of the importance of the interdependent self-construal were positively related to increased stress for the Asian students. The self-constuals and direct coping were the strongest predictors of stress for East Asian students; variables commonly identified in other research addressing cross-cultural adaptation (e.g., number of host country friends, relationships with conationals, language ability, and previous cross-cultural experience) did not significantly predict stress for the international students. The effects of the self-construals and coping were moderated by culture, however, and were not predictive of perceived stress for American students.

Stereotypes: A source of bias in affective and empathic forecasting

People’s emotional states often depend on the emotions of others. Consequently, to predict their own responses to social interactions (i.e., affective forecasts), we contend that people predict the emotional states of others (i.e., empathic forecasts). We propose that empathic forecasts are vulnerable to stereotype biases and demonstrate that stereotypes about the different emotional experiences of race (Experiment 1) and sex groups (Experiment 2) bias empathic forecasts. Path modeling in both studies demonstrates that stereotype-biased empathic forecasts regarding how a target individual will feel during a social interaction are associated with participants’ affective forecasts of how they will feel during that interaction with the target person. These affective forecasts, in turn, predict behavioral intentions for the social interaction before it even begins. Stereotypes can therefore indirectly bias affective forecasts by first influencing the empathic forecasts that partly constitute them. In turn, these potentially biased affective forecasts determine social behaviors.

Some Thoughts on the Future of Cross-Cultural Social Psychology

This article presents some predictions for the future of cross-cultural social psychology. It begins with the argument that all social psychology is cultural and that there is ever-growing acceptance of this fact. The results of this acceptance will be an increase in the pervasiveness of culture as a variable, a growth in multicultural research teams, and a recentering of research in social psychology. The introduction of non-Western constructs and theories, such as the interdependent self and relationship harmony, will increase in the future and bring with them a focus on research on interpersonal interactions and relationships. Finally, a model is presented that it is hoped will lead to studies that include both group-level and individual-level variables. It is concluded that an increase in complexity of studies and the incorporation of interdisciplinary research will lead to greater understanding of the mutual effects of culture and social behavior.

Cross-Cultural Construct Validity of the Five-Factor Model of Personality among Korean Employees

Based on a sample of 717 employees of Korean firms administered the Korean version of the NEO-PI-R, this study used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to examine the construct validity of the five-factor model (FFM) of personality in Korea. CFA results indicated that the FFM fit the Korean data as well as it fit the U.S. normative data reported in the NEO-PI-R manual. Furthermore, the pattern of intercorrelations among the FFM dimensions in the Korean sample was similar to that in the U.S. normative data sample, with the only noteworthy difference being the hypothesized stronger relation between Agreeableness and Conscientiousness in the Korean sample. In neither sample was the FFM assumption of orthogonality supported. Study results support the hypothesis that the basic structure of personality is similar across cultures and indicate that the FFM can describe this common structure if the assumption of trait orthogonality is abandoned.

Causal Attribution and Depression

In a study using American college students, Seligman, Abramson, Semmell, and Baeyer (1979) found support for the learned helplessness model of depression. A replication with Filipino college students points to the possible confounding influence of overall attributional style. Restated in such a way as to isolate and remove this confounding factor, the learned helplessness model is supported by the Philippine data, and the model holds for affective and somatic as well as psychological symptoms. We applied the restated model to a new sample of American college students and found results consistent with those in the Seligman study. However, the predictability of the model for our American sample extends to affective and psychological, but not somatic, symptoms of depression.

Cross-Cultural Variations of Adolescents' Future Orientation

This study addresses sociocultural variations of adolescents' subjective image of the future, or future orientation. Analysis of the responses-bf Israeli Druze, Arab and Jewish male adolescents (N = 152) to an open-ended, future orientation questionnaire partly supports the hypotheses that Druze adolescents will express fewer concerns regarding the future (salience), describe their concerns with less detail and concreteness (specificity) and that the importance of each future orientation domain relative to the other domains (density) will be different for Druze than for Arab and Jewish adolescents. Results are interpreted in terms of modernity (Jews) versus early and advanced stages of transition to modernity (Druzes and Arabs, respectively) and suggest that the intervening intrapersonal process explaining Druze future orientation involves alignment with powerful agents and related secondary control beliefs.

Social Decision-Making Strategies in Individualist and Collectivist Cultures

Social decision-making strategies among adolescents who grew up in Finland and experienced Western individualistic educational practices (n = 1,123) were compared with adolescents who grew up in Estonia (n = 428) during the period of Soviet collectivist culture. Subjects were provided three everyday social problems, namely mobbing, teasing, and stealing. The fixed alternative solutions for these problems assessed aggressiveness, prosociality, social responsibility, and withdrawing. The findings showed that Estonian adolescents were more aggressive and showed lower levels of social responsibility than their Finnish peers. In contrast to the official Soviet educational goal, withdrawing was shown to be the most typical way of solving social problems among Estonian students. We discuss the role of the nuclear family in the collectivist society. The results also support the claim that personal responsibility is not likely to be engendered if collective identity is expected to be present before the personal identity has developed.

Unpackaging Culture’s Influence on Self-Esteem and Embarrassability

A growing body of research supports the notion that individuals simultaneously hold two views of self. Members of collective cultures have stronger interdependent images of self, but less strong independent images, than do individualist groups. University students in Hong Kong ( n = 271), Hawaii ( n = 146), and mainland United States ( n = 232) completed the Self-Construal Scale, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and the Modigliani Embarrassability Scale. As expected, levels of independence and interdependence were related to ethnocultural group (Euro-American, Asian American, and Hong Kong Chinese). Independence and interdependence accounted for most of the variance in embarrassability attributable to ethnocultural group. Contrary to predictions based on terror management theory, there was no difference in the relation between self-construal and self-esteem across the three ethnocultural groups. Across all groups, a more independent and less interdependent self-construal predicted higher levels of self-esteem. It is concluded that similar psychological processes contribute to self-esteem and embarrassability across the ethnocultural groups in the study.

Demographic Correlates of Individualism and Collectivism

The demographic correlates of idiocentrism and allocentrism (the within-culture measures of individualism and collectivism) were investigated in Sri Lanka. A sample of 438 Sri Lankan respondents, from a wide variety of demographic contexts, provided data for the study. Factor analysis revealed that idiocentrism and allocentrism in Sri Lanka are independent, unipolar factors, rather than opposites on a single, bipolar dimension. Socioeconomic status was a strong negative correlate of allocentrism, and urban residence was a strong positive correlate of idiocentrism; English language fluency, overseas experience, age, occupational status, and educational level were also correlated with the value syndromes. The findings were discussed both within the context of Sri Lankan culture and in terms of their applicability to other cultural settings.

Music Listening modulates Functional Connectivity and Information Flow in the Human Brain

Listening to familiar music has recently been reported to be beneficial during recovery from stroke. A better understanding of changes in functional connectivity and information flow is warranted in order to further optimize and target this approach through music therapy. Twelve healthy volunteers listened to seven different auditory samples during an fMRI scanning session: a musical piece chosen by the volunteer that evokes a strong emotional response (referred to as: "self-selected emotional"), two unfamiliar music pieces (Invention #1 by J. S. Bach* and Gagaku - Japanese classical opera, referred to as "unfamiliar"), the Bach piece repeated with visual guidance (DML: Directed Music Listening) and three spoken language pieces (unfamiliar African click language, an excerpt of emotionally charged language, and an unemotional reading of a news bulletin). Functional connectivity and betweenness (BTW) maps, a measure for information flow, were created with a graph-theoretical approach. Distinct variation in functional connectivity was found for different music pieces consistently for all subjects. Largest brain areas were recruited for processing self-selected music with emotional attachment or culturally unfamiliar music. Maps of information flow correlated significantly with fMRI BOLD activation maps (p<0.05). Observed differences in BOLD activation and functional connectivity may help explain previously observed beneficial effects in stroke recovery, as increased blood flow to damaged brain areas stimulated by active engagement through music listening may have supported a state more conducive to therapy.

The Cross-Cultural Perspective in the Study of Personality

In this article, we examine the rationale for cross-cultural studies of personality, (including the search for cultural universals). Note the uncertain cross-cultural relevance of mainstream personality theories, and address current cross-cultural research on the following personality-relevant topics: personality structure and assessment, implications of individualism-collectivism for traits and their measurement, values and beliefs, emotions and subjective well-being, and motivation. Some of the best support for cross-cultural universality has been obtained in studies of the five-factor model of personality, the content and structure of values, a limited number of basic emotions, and higher order mood dimensions. Topics that need to be studied further include the following: (a) how to separate the many factors that influence personality scores across cultures, (b) the degree of cross-cultural comparability of the nomological nets of personality dimensions, and (c) the integration of trait-psychology and cultural-psychology perspectives.

Cultural Familiarity and Language Factors in the Structure of Category Knowledge

This study examined the influence of cultural familiarity and language factors in producing cross-cultural variations in typicality gradients. Thirty Chinese speakers living in Taiwan and 30 English speakers from the United States rated the proto typicality of exemplars from 10 super ordinate categories. Another 30 persons from each culture rated the relative familiarity in their experience of each exemplar. Strong cross-cultural variations were found in typicality gradients. Cultural familiarity was found to be correlated with typicality structures in both cultures but was more strongly related to the typicality gradients of American than Taiwanese-Chinese participants. However, for Chinese speakers, super ordinate category classifiers tended to be correlated with typicality gradients, particularly for those categories in which the familiarity and typicality relationships were low. It is concluded that language structure may moderate the influence of other important variables in producing cross-cultural variation in category structures.

Social Dominance Orientation and the Legitimization of Inequality Across Cultures

The authors tested three hypotheses from social dominance theory in four cultures: (a) that individual differences in social dominance orientation (SDO), or the preference for group-based inequality, can be reliably measured in societies that are group-based hegemonies; (b) that SDO correlates positively with attitudes supporting hegemonic groups and correlates negatively with attitudes supporting oppressed groups; and (c) that men are higher on SDO than women. For the most part, the results confirmed the hypotheses. SDO scales were internally reliable and were administered in English, Chinese, and Hebrew. SDO scores correlated with sexism, measured in culturally appropriate ways, in every culture, and with ethnic prejudice and other attitudes concerning the local hegemony except in China. Men were higher on SDO than women in most samples. Findings are discussed in terms of ideological and psychological facilitators of group dominance.

Evolution, Culture, and the Five-Factor Model

Following areview of evolutionary approaches to the five-factor model (FEM), I develop a synthetic perspective that incorporates three levels of analysis: personality systems as universal psychological mechanisms, systematic group (i.e., gender, birth order, age, ethnic) differences that can be illuminated by evolutionary theory, and individual differences. At the level of universal mechanisms, personality systems are species-typical systems with adaptive functions in the human environment of evolutionary adaptedness. At the level of group differences, the evolutionary theory of sex, parent-offspring conflict theory, and life history are used to analyze sex, age, and ethnic differences in personality systems. At the level of individual differences, variation in personality consists of a range of viable evolutionary strategies for humans. Humans evaluate and act on the genetic and phenotypic diversity represented by this range of viable strategies to solve adaptive problems. Evolutionary perspectives on cross-cultural variation are noted and illustrated.

The Construction and Validation of a Social Support Measure for Sojourners

Research on stress, coping, and cross-cultural adaptation has been frequently hampered by the use of inadequate and inappropriate measures of sojourner social support. An attempt is made here to develop an instrument that assesses social support in an acculturation context and integrates generic conceptualizations of the construct with the unique circumstances of a sojourning population. The construction and validation of the Index of Sojourner Social Support (ISSS) Scale were based on three studies. Study 1 describes the process of item generation; Study 2 deals with the development and validation of the ISSS; and Study 3 presents a preliminary cross-cultural validation of the instrument. A cross-validation procedure was used for the validation of both the internal and external structures of the ISSS. On the whole, multiple-groups covariance structure analyses showed the ISSS to possess a stable two-factor internal structure (socioemotional support and instrumental support) and a logical external structure of nomological relationships to received social support, locus of control, sense of mastery, interpersonal trust, depression, and social desirability.

Values and their Relationship to Environmental Concern and Conservation Behavior

Recent research has examined the relationship between values and attitudes about environmental issues. Findings from these studies have found values of self-transcendence (positively) and self-enhancement (negatively) to predict general concern for environmental problems. Other recent findings have differentiated between environmental attitudes based on concern for self (egoistic), concern for other people (social-altruistic), and concern for plants and animals (biospheric).This article reports the results from a study of the relationship between values and environmental attitudes in six countries: Brazil, Czech Republic, Germany, India, New Zealand, and Russia. Results show strong support for the cross-cultural generalizability of the relationship between values and attitudes and on the structure of environmental concern. In addition, analyses of the relationship between values and environmental behavior show evidence for norm activation only for self-transcendence; results for self-enhancement show a consistently negative relationship.

The Development of Ethnic Attitudes

Empirical research reported in the literature over the past 18 years was integrated and critically evaluated to determine the age at which ethnic attitudes are formed, their course of development after this age of onset, and psychological factors influencing attitude development. Conclusions were drawn about the effects of age and ethnic status that differed in certain respects from those made a decade ago. The development of ethnic attitudes was found to parallel certain developments in affective, perceptual, and cognitive processes, such as the differentiation between groups and between individuals. Within this framework, differences between majority and minority children were discussed in terms of the effects of social factors on affect, perception, and cognition.

The Role of Top-team Diversity and Perspective Taking in Mastering Organizational Ambidexterity

Although the role of top teams has been recognized in ambidextrous organizations, it remains unclear which characteristics and how the cognitive processes of top teams are used to address the dual cognitive challenges of ambidexterity. To address this puzzle, I developed a model in which I theorize that a top team with task-related diversity engaging in perspective taking will influence the achievement of an ambidextrous organization. Moreover, I further theorize that transformational leadership of the CEO will help diverse top teams master ambidexterity by influencing the team's cognitive processes. The results show that diverse teams can address the differentiating-integrating challenges of ambidexterity when they engage in perspective taking. The results also confirm that transformational leadership strengthens the relationship between a diverse top team's perspective taking and ambidextrous orientation.

Children's Concepts of Death

The concept of death in childhood develops as a cognitive process influenced by environmental factors. A total of 337 ten-year-old children belonging to the four major religious groups in Israel filled out Smilansky's (1981) Development of Death Concept Questionnaire. The groups' responses to this questionnaire revealed differences in the degree to which they had internalized the Western scientific concept of death, with the Jewish and Christian children's responses showing more internalization of this concept than the Moslem and Druze children's responses. Interpretation of the findings based on the situational, cultural, and socialization patterns that possibly differentiate among these groups were suggested and discussed.

Burnout and Engagement in University Students

This study examines burnout and engagement—the hypothesized opposite of burnout—in university students from Spain ( n = 623), Portugal ( n = 727), and the Netherlands ( n = 311). Confirmatory factor analyses showed that the expected three-factor structures of the adapted versions of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) for students (including Exhaustion, Cynicism, and Reduced Efficacy) and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) for students (including Vigor, Dedication, and Absorption) fitted to the data of each sample. However, a rigorous test revealed that most factor loadings of the MBI were not invariant across all samples. Results with the UWES were slightly better, indicating invariance of factor loadings of Absorption in all samples and of Vigor in two of the three samples. Furthermore, as hypothesized, the burnout and engagement subscales were negatively correlated. Finally, irrespective of country, Efficacy and Vigor were positively related to academic performance, that is, the number of passed exams relative to the total number of exams in the previous term.

Beyond Left-Right Ideology in the Study of Justice Perception

This article outlines an alternative to traditional left-right ideological spectrum approaches to studying political opinion formation and distributive justice perception within cultures, highlighting instead the tension that exists between an interdependence distributive worldview focused on intimacy and social connectedness, and an independence distributive worldview focused on personal control and mastery over one’s life space. Employing data from the Cross-Cultural Variations in Distributive Justice Perception project, (a) quantitative measures of individual differences in personality orientations and (b) qualitative-interpretive measures of word-use patterns (in discussing distributive fairness issues) are applied within two exemplary cultural contexts (Jamaica, New Zealand) to examine the potential utility of the interdependence-independence model as a viable explanatory alternative to left-right theories of justice orientation. Profiles are constructed of salient features differentiating the distributive worldviews of interdependents and independents in Jamaica and New Zealand, and implications of this model are drawn for the study of distributive justice perception processes across cultures

Understanding Policy Diffusion in the U.S.: An Information-Theoretical Approach to Unveil Connectivity Structures in Slowly Evolving Complex Systems

Detecting and explaining the relationships among interacting components has long been a focal point of dynamical systems research. In this paper, we extend these types of data-driven analyses to the realm of public policy, whereby individual legislative entities interact to produce changes in their legal and political environments. We focus on the U.S. public health policy landscape, whose complexity determines our capacity as a society to effectively tackle pressing health issues. It has long been thought that some U.S. states innovate and enact new policies, while others mimic successful or competing states. However, the extent to which states learn from others, and the state characteristics that lead two states to influence one another, are not fully understood. Here, we propose a model-free, information-theoretical method to measure the existence and direction of influence of one state's policy or legal activity on others. Specifically, we tailor a popular notion of causality to handle the slow time-scale of policy adoption dynamics and unravel relationships among states from their recent law enactment histories. The method is validated using surrogate data generated from a new stochastic model of policy activity. Through the analysis of real data in alcohol, driving safety, and impaired driving policy, we provide evidence for the role of geography, political ideology, risk factors, and demographic and economic indicators on a state's tendency to learn from others when shaping its approach to public health regulation. Our method offers a new model-free approach to uncover interactions and establish cause-and-effect in slowly-evolving complex dynamical systems.

The Effects of Urbanization on Interpersonal Behavior

Research conducted in Western societies has revealed urban-small town differences in a number of social behaviors, including differences in the "pace of life," affiliative behavior toward strangers, and helping behavior toward strangers. The present series of field studies was carried out in Papua New Guinea to see if similar urban-rural differences existed there. In the first series of studies, people in Port Moresby, the largest city, were found to carry out certain activities at a greater speed than people observed in two rural centers. In the second series of studies, interactions between buyers and sellers in traditional marketplaces and in European-style shops were found to exhibit less positive affect in the large city than in the rural areas. However, in the third set of studies, interactions with tourists of European descent were found to be equally positive in urban and rural areas. The findings in relation to tourist-host contacts are discussed in relation to the special role the tourist occupies in many developing countries.

Happiness

This cross-cultural study explored the perceptions of people about what can make a person happy. A total of 215 students answered one of three open-ended questions: from Canada, French-speakers (n = 57) and English-speakers (n = 54), from El Salvador (n = 42), and from the United States (n = 62). Content and correspondence analyses revealed that factors contributing to happiness were perceived similarly across the four groups. The most stated factors overall were the importance of family relationships, of pursuing and reaching valued goals, and of a positive attitude toward self. On the other hand, whereas the Salvadoran participants referred specifically to religious values and sociopolitical conditions, the North American samples referred more to hedonistic factors (enjoying activities and life's little pleasures) and personal sources of power on their happiness (positive attitude toward life, personal strengths). Cross-cultural differences are discussed in relation to collectivism and individualism.

Testing a Goal-Orientation Model of Antecedents to Career Calling

The dual-process framework proposes that there are two main orientations that affect goal development and management. We examined this framework as an explanatory model for the development of career calling, using a sample of young adults ( N = 213, Mage 19.9 years). The model included goal orientation (assimilation and accommodation) as distal, trait-based characteristics influencing goal approach (engagement and disengagement), which, in turn, influences the development of a calling (an important domain-specific goal) and calling-related strategies (goal-implementation actions). The model was largely supported: Assimilation related positively to engagement and negatively to disengagement. Engagement related positively to calling and strategies, and engagement and disengagement mediated between assimilation and calling, explaining 45% of the variance in calling. Few studies have tested antecedents to career calling, meaning little research has focused on its development. This study illustrates a potential explanation for the development of a calling based on goal-setting and self-regulation approaches.

The Relationship of Family Bonds to Family Structure and Function Across Cultures

This study, using a contextual approach, explores the relationship of family bonds to family structure and function across five cultures: Greece, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Britain, and Germany. Its long-term goal is the construction of measures of family structure and functioning that are useful in cross-cultural research. Differences in emotional closeness, geographic proximity to relatives, and frequency of telephone contacts and meetings were not found among the five cultures with respect to members of the nuclear family. Differences between Greece and Cyprus, selected as relatively collectivist cultures, and Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, individualist cultures, on these variables were found with respect to members of the extended family. By showing a pattern of cross-cultural similarity and differences, although moderate, among extended family members, this study shows that family structure and function are context variables that can explain variability between psychological variables and thus add to the explanatory power of cross-cultural psychology.

Perceived Trustworthiness of Occupations

The present study examines the perceived trustworthiness of nineteen selected occupations based on U.S. and Korean student samples. Specifically, it compares the rating and ranking methods of assessing trustworthiness, examines the possibility of sex and culture differences, and evaluates the effects of subjects' levels of trustfulness. The relative trustworthiness of the nineteen occupations was highly similar across rating and ranking methods, sex, culture, and level of trustfulness. However, there was a significant relationship between level of trustfulness and level of perceived trustworthiness. Implications of these findings for future work on trustworthiness, and for survey research in general, are discussed.

Cumulative life events, traumatic experiences, and psychiatric symptomatology in transition-aged youth with autism spectrum disorder

Background

Co-occurring mood and anxiety symptomatology is commonly observed among youth with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) during adolescence and adulthood. Yet, little is known about the factors that might predispose youth with ASD to mood and anxiety problems. In this study, we focus on the role of cumulative stressful life events and trauma in co-occurring psychopathology among youth with ASD who are preparing to exit high school. Specifically, we examined the distribution of cumulative life events and traumatic experiences and their relations with mood and anxiety symptomatology.

Methods

Participants included 36 youth with ASD, all of whom were in their last year of high school. Cumulative life events and trauma were assessed by parent report. Mood and anxiety symptomatology was determined using a variety of methods (structured interview, questionnaire, self- and informant report). Frequencies were used to examine the distributions of cumulative life events (count of total events) and trauma (coded into any trauma vs. no trauma), as well as mood and anxiety symptomatology (categorized into clinical-level, sub-threshold, or none for each). Bivariate relations between life events/trauma and mood/anxiety symptomatology were assessed using analysis of variance and chi-square. Ordinal logistic regression models were used to test whether significant bivariate relations remained after controlling for the sex of the youth with ASD and his/her IQ.

Results

Over 50 % of youth had experienced at least one trauma. Nearly one half had clinical-level mood or anxiety symptomatology. There was a statistically significant relation between absence/presence of trauma and mood symptomatology; nearly 90 % of the youth with clinical-level mood symptoms had at least one trauma, compared to 40 % of those with no mood symptomatology.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that contextual factors such as trauma might be important for the development of mood symptomatology in individuals with ASD. Although this idea is well-accepted in typically developing populations, contextual factors are rarely studied in investigations of psychopathology or transition outcomes in ASD. Given the high rates of psychiatric comorbidities in this population, future research should continue to identify the range of possible factors—both behavioral and contextual—that might influence the emergence of these disorders.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s11689-016-9160-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Scenarios for the Measurement of Collectivism and Individualism

This article presents a method that uses scenarios for the measurement of horizontal (H)and vertical (V) individualism (I) and collectivism (C) across cultures, with university samples. The scenarios were developed by using focus groups, to cover a wide range of social situations often found among university students. Graduate student judges indicated which responses to each scenario represented HI, VI, HC, or VC judgments. When the judges did not agree on these judgments, the scenarios were eliminated. Scenarios that did not distinguish responses obtained from the Illinois and Hong Kong samples were also eliminated. This resulted in a set of 16 scenarios that provide efficient measurement of the constructs. The method converges with a method that uses attitude items.

The Equivalence of the Behavior Problem Index Across U.S. Ethnic Groups

In this study, the authors examine the equivalence of the factor structure of a commonly used symptom checklist of behavioral and emotional problems—the Behavior Problem Index (BPI)—across African American, Hispanic, and White children in the United States. The sample is drawn from the 1998 data file of the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, a U.S. data set. The results of the study suggest that the BPI is not equivalent across the three ethnic groups. These findings are consistent when equivalence is tested for a one-factor model, a two-factor model using the internalizing and externalizing dimensions of the BPI, and a six-factor model using the subscales of the BPI. Item-level analyses identify the statistically significant items that are associated with nonequivalence across ethnic groups. The implications of nonequivalent measures for cross-cultural research and practice with families and children are discussed.

The Effects of Self-Efficacy and Relationship Harmony on Depression Across Cultures

Cross-cultural theories of individualism and collectivism have stimulated the development of the personal constructs of independence and interdependence to help us understand the working out of their cultural dynamics. To delineate the contributions of both personal or independent and interpersonal or interdependent predictors of depressive symptomatology, this study assessed self-efficacy and relationship harmony (peer and family) among adolescents in Hong Kong and the United States. By applying both level- and structure- oriented techniques, the authors tested cultural differences in the levels of the constructs and their linkage across gender and culture. The path leading from self-efficacy to depressed symptoms was significantly stronger for American adolescents than for Hong Kong adolescents, whereas the path of relationship harmony was statistically equivalent across the two cultures. Both pathways supplemented one another in their effects on depressive symptomatology in both cultures, underscoring the importance of managing both agency and communion in promoting psychological health.