Residential mobility and conditionality of group identification

Residential mobility and psychological transformation in China: From relational to institutional trust

As one of the important drivers of social change in China, residential mobility has caused a dramatic change in the interpersonal environment, but it remained little known how residential mobility would influence the basis of interpersonal interaction-trust. The present research aimed to explore the effect of residential mobility on two kinds of trust, relational trust and institutional trust, by two studies. Study 1 explored the correlational relationship between regional residential mobility and two kinds of trust using data from the China General Social Survey 2010 and the Sixth National Population Census of China, and analyzed the data using hierarchical linear modeling. Study 2 switched to the individual level and investigated the causal relationship between individual residential mobility and two kinds of trust in the laboratory using the writing task for priming residential mobility and the situational selection task for trust. Study 1 found that individuals exhibited lower relational trust when they lived in a region of higher residential mobility. For institutional trust, the indicator about the permission to register household in inflow cities could significantly positively predict this. Study 2 found that the primed mindset of high (vs. low) residential mobility reduces relational trust and enhances institutional trust. In conclusion, the present research revealed that residential mobility promotes the transformation of individuals' trust mode from relational to institutional trust in social life, thus expanding the research field of residential mobility as a socioecological factor and extended the understanding of psychological transformation under the background of social change in China.

Ancestral Diversity: A Socioecological Account of Emotion Culture

Cultural differences in emotion expression, experience, and regulation can cause misunderstandings with lasting effects on interpersonal, intergroup, and international relations. A full account of the factors responsible for the emergence of different cultures of emotion is therefore urgent. Here we propose that the ancestral diversity of regions of the world, determined by colonization and sometimes forced migration of humans over centuries, explains significant variation in cultures of emotion. We review findings that relate the ancestral diversity of the world's countries to present-day differences in display rules for emotional expression, the clarity of expressions, and the use of specific facial expressions such as the smile. Results replicate at the level of the states of the United States, which also vary in ancestral diversity. Further, we suggest that historically diverse contexts provide opportunities for individuals to exercise physiological processes that support emotion regulation, resulting in average regional differences in cardiac vagal tone. We conclude that conditions created by the long-term commingling of the world's people have predictable effects on the evolution of emotion cultures and provide a roadmap for future research to analyze causation and isolate mechanisms linking ancestral diversity to emotion.

Residential mobility predicts COVID-19 and seasonal flu vaccination behaviors in the United States

Aim

Vaccination is one of the most effective strategies to contain the transmission of infectious diseases; however, people's intentions and behavior for vaccination vary across different regions and countries around the world. It is not clear how socioecological factors such as residential mobility influence people's vaccination behaviors for infectious diseases.

Methods

We analyzed public data on residential mobility and vaccination rates for COVID-19 and seasonal flu in the United States and explored how residential mobility in the previous year influenced vaccination rates for COVID-19 and seasonal flu (2011-2018) across 50 states of the US. The data were accessed and analyzed in 2021.

Results

Study 1 demonstrated that collective-level residential mobility predicted COVID-19 vaccination rates across the United States (B = -168.162, 95% CI [-307.097, -29.227], adjusted R ² = 0.091, p = 0.019). Study 2 corroborated this finding by documenting that collective-level residential mobility predicted vaccination rates for seasonal flu from 2011 to 2018 across the United States (B = -0.789, 95% CI = [-1.018, -0.56], adjusted R ² = 0.222, p < 0.001). The link between residential mobility and vaccination behavior was robust after controlling relevant variables, including collectivism, cultural tightness-looseness, and sociodemographic variables.

Conclusions

Our research demonstrated that residential mobility is an important socioecological factor that influences people's vaccination behaviors for COVID-19 and seasonal flu. The results enrich our understanding of the socioecological factors that influence vaccination behaviors and have implications for developing tailored interventions to promote vaccination during pandemics of infectious diseases.

Population Migration Damages the Natural Environment: A Multilevel Investigation of the Relationship Between Residential Mobility and Pro-Environmental Behaviors

Residential mobility is increasing worldwide, and it objectively boosts economic strength. However, frequent moves create a specific habitat in which environmental degradation is aggravated. This research explored the relationship between residential mobility and pro-environmental behavior (PEB) from the perspective of environmental adaptation. We conducted five studies to test the hypothesis that high residential mobility decreased private-sphere PEBs at both personal and regional levels. The results showed that high personal residential mobility (Study 1) and high regional residential mobility (Study 2) were negatively correlated with self-reported private-sphere PEBs. Study 3 suggested that individuals primed with a high (vs. low) residential mobility mindset showed less actual private-sphere PEBs. Studies 4 and 5 further demonstrated that the preference for collective benefits played a mediating role in this relationship. These findings extend the adverse impacts of residential mobility to natural environments and highlight the role of social habitat changes in understanding environmental degradation.

Relationship Seekers Versus Relationship Selectors: Influence of Residential Mobility on How to Evaluate Others

The present study examined the effect of residential mobility on impression formation. In the study, participants were first engaged in a residential mobility priming task where they were asked to imagine and describe either frequent moving life (high-mobility condition) or less frequent moving life (low-mobility condition). They then evaluated their attitudes toward four types of target persons: competent vs. incompetent and warm vs. cold. As a result, in the high-mobility condition, the effect of competence was observed only when participants evaluated a warm person, whereas in the low-mobility condition, it appeared only when participants evaluated a cold person. The potential influence of individual residential mobility on the relationship formation is also discussed.

Cultural differences in social support seeking: The mediating role of empathic concern

Prior research has found that East Asians are less willing than Westerners to seek social support in times of need. What factors account for this cultural difference? Whereas previous research has examined the mediating effect of relational concern, we predicted that empathic concern, which refers to feeling sympathy and concern for people in need and varies by individuals from different cultures, would promote support seeking. We tested the prediction in two studies. In Study 1, European Canadians reported higher empathic concern and a higher frequency of support seeking, compared to the Japanese participants. As predicted, cultural differences in social support seeking were influenced by empathic concern. In Study 2, both empathic concern and relational concern mediated cultural differences in support seeking. Japanese with lower empathic concern but higher relational concern were more reluctant than European Americans to seek social support during stressful times. Finally, loneliness, which was more prevalent among the Japanese than among the European Americans, was partially explained by social support seeking.

War Against COVID-19: How Is National Identification Linked With the Adoption of Disease-Preventive Behaviors in China and the United States?

Fighting the COVID-19 pandemic requires large numbers of citizens to adopt disease-preventive practices. We contend that national identification can mobilize and motivate people to engage in preventive behaviors to protect the collective, which in return would heighten national identification further. To test these reciprocal links, we conducted studies in two countries with diverse national tactics toward curbing the pandemic: (1) a two-wave longitudinal survey in China (Study 1, N = 1200), where a national goal to fight COVID-19 was clearly set, and (2) a five-wave longitudinal survey in the United States (Study 2, N = 1001), where the national leader, President Trump, rejected the severity of COVID-19 in its early stage. Results revealed that national identification was associated with an increase in disease-preventive behaviors in both countries in general. However, higher national identification was associated with greater trust in Trump's administration among politically conservative American participants, which then was associated with slower adoption of preventive behaviors. The reciprocal effect of disease-preventive behaviors on national identification was observed only in China. Overall, our findings suggest that although national identification may serve as a protective factor in curbing the pandemic, this beneficial effect was reduced in some political contexts.

The residential stability mindset increases racial in-group bias in empathy

With the deepening of internationalization, the population's mobility has greatly increased, which can impact people's intergroup relationships. The current research examined the hypothesis that residential mobility plays a crucial role in racial in-group bias in empathy (RIBE) with three studies. By manipulating the residential mobility/stability mindset and measuring subjective pain intensity ratings (Study 1) and event-related potentials (ERPs, Study 2) of Chinese adults on painful and neutral expressions of Asian and Caucasian faces, we found that the RIBE in subjective ratings and N1 amplitudes increased and P3 amplitudes decreased in the stability group. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) manipulation in Study 3 further found that anodal stimulation of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) increased the RIBE of participants with residential stability experience but had no effect on those with residential mobility experience. As residential mobility continues to increase worldwide, we may observe concomitant changes in racial intergroup relationships.

Effect of uncertainty-dependent residential mobility on loss aversion

The current research aimed to examine the relationship between residential mobility and loss aversion, a ubiquitous decision-making bias conceptualized in prospect theory. Combining correlational, experimental, and electroencephalography approaches, we tested the hypothesis that residential mobility may increase loss aversion. The results revealed a positive correlation between residential mobility and loss aversion (Study 1). These effects were moderated by individuals' residential mobility/stability mindsets. Behaviorally, we observed a positive association between residential mobility history and loss aversion among individuals with a high (vs. low) subjective uncertainty after manipulating their residential mobility mindset by priming them with a mobile or stable lifestyle (Study 2). On the neural level, we found that the mindset of residential mobility (vs. stability) enhanced the differential feedback-related negativity (FRN) modulations between the large-win and large-loss conditions among Chinese participants with a high subjective uncertainty (Study 3). In conclusion, residential mobility elevated loss aversion by enhancing feelings of subjective uncertainty. Our findings provide novel insights into how changes in the socioecological environment shape individuals' decision-making bias.

Neoliberalism can reduce well-being by promoting a sense of social disconnection, competition, and loneliness

Neoliberalism has become the dominant ideology in many parts of the world. Yet there is little empirical research on its psychological impact. On the basis of a social identity approach to health, we hypothesize that, by increasing competition and by reducing people's sense of connection to others, neoliberalism can increase loneliness and compromise our well-being. Study 1 (N = 246) shows that the more neoliberal people perceive society to be, the worse their well-being, and that this relationship is mediated via loneliness. In two experiments, we showed that exposure to neoliberal ideology increases loneliness (Study 2, N = 204) and, through this, decreases well-being (Study 3, N = 173). In Study 4 (N = 303), we found that exposure to neoliberal ideology increased loneliness and decreased well-being by reducing people's sense of connection to others and by increasing perceptions of being in competition with others. In Study 4, the effect of neoliberalism on well-being was evident for liberals only. We discuss the potential impact of neoliberalism on different social groups in society.

Socio-Ecological Hypothesis of Reconciliation: Cultural, Individual, and Situational Variations in Willingness to Accept Apology or Compensation

The main goal of the present research is to examine socio-ecological hypothesis on apology and compensation. Specifically, we conducted four studies to test the idea that an apology is an effective means to induce reconciliation in a residentially stable community, whereas compensation is an effective means in a residentially mobile community. In Studies 1, 2a, and 2b, American and Japanese participants (national difference in mobility; Study 1) or non-movers and movers (within-nation difference in mobility; Studies 2a and 2b) imagined the situations in which they were hurt by their friends and rated to what extent they would be willing to maintain their friendships upon receipt of apology or compensation. The results showed that compensation was more effective in appeasing residentially mobile people (i.e., Americans and movers) than stable people (i.e., Japanese and non-movers), while apology was slightly more effective appeasing residentially stable people than residentially mobile people (significant in Study 1; not significant in Studies 2a and 2b). In Study 3, by conducting an economics game experiment, we directly tested the hypothesis that mobility would impair the effectiveness of apology and enhance the effectiveness of compensation. The results again partially supported our hypothesis: In the high mobility condition, compensation increased one's willingness to continue the relationship with the offender, when compared to willingness in the low mobility condition. The importance of socio-ecological perspective on the forgiveness literature is discussed.

Residential Mobility Fosters Sensitivity to the Disappearance of Happiness

We conducted two studies to examine the hypothesis that residential mobility would evoke anxiety and foster sensitivity to signs of disapproval, such as the disappearance of happiness. American and Japanese participants were asked to watch happy-to-neutral movies and sad-to-neutral movies and judge the point at which they thought that their initial expressions had disappeared. We found that, regardless of cultures, participants who had experienced frequent moving (Study 1) and those asked to imagine and describe a mobile lifestyle of frequent moving (Study 2) judged the disappearance of happy faces faster than those who did not experience or imagine frequent moving. Our results were also in line with the previous finding in which Japanese were more vigilant than Americans in regards to the disappearance of happy faces. Moreover, we found that imagining a mobile lifestyle made participants feel more concerned than when imagining a stable lifestyle. The implications for the social skills needed for people in the globalising world are discussed.

The psychology of residential mobility: a decade of progress

Residential mobility has become a common experience for people in most parts of the world. As the number of people moving to different cities, states, and countries increases, it is critical to understand how this residential mobility affects one's thoughts, emotions, and actions. Psychological research on residential mobility over a decade is such an endeavor. We briefly summarize the earlier research in psychology that demonstrated the importance of residential mobility in understanding important psychological constructs such as self-concepts, social relationships, and well-being. We then review recent evidence in psychology and relevant fields that replicated and extended the earlier research. We discuss what is missing in the current literature and what additional research is needed in the future.

Historical Migration Patterns Shape Contemporary Cultures of Emotion

Human emotional behavior varies across cultures. Smiling at a passing stranger on the street may seem perfectly normal in one culture and profoundly strange or even suspicious in another. What are the origins of cultural differences in emotional expression, communication, and regulation? We review new evidence in favor of one answer to this question. A socioecological factor, historical heterogeneity—defined as the ancestral diversity of the world’s regions based on human migration patterns over centuries—accounts for important cultural variations in emotional experience and expression. We summarize findings from studies of large global samples that link the migratory history of a country’s population with present-day cultural differences in how overtly and clearly emotions are expressed to others, in the frequency and meaning of smiles, and in associated character traits. New research also extends the analysis to the historical heterogeneity of the United States, and country-level findings are replicated at the level of the states. We suggest that enduring emotional behaviors and traits evolve from the opportunities and challenges posed by the commingling of people of diverse ancestries. We conclude by highlighting the questions and challenges for future research stemming from this approach.

Which foods may be addictive? The roles of processing, fat content, and glycemic load

Objectives

We propose that highly processed foods share pharmacokinetic properties (e.g. concentrated dose, rapid rate of absorption) with drugs of abuse, due to the addition of fat and/or refined carbohydrates and the rapid rate the refined carbohydrates are absorbed into the system, indicated by glycemic load (GL). The current study provides preliminary evidence for the foods and food attributes implicated in addictive-like eating.

Design

Cross-sectional.

Setting

University (Study One) and community (Study Two).

Participants

120 undergraduates participated in Study One and 384 participants recruited through Amazon MTurk participated in Study Two.

Measurements

In Study One, participants (n = 120) completed the Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS) followed by a forced-choice task to indicate which foods, out of 35 foods varying in nutritional composition, were most associated with addictive-like eating behaviors. Using the same 35 foods, Study Two utilized hierarchical linear modeling to investigate which food attributes (e.g., fat grams) were related to addictive-like eating behavior (at level one) and explored the influence of individual differences for this association (at level two).

Results

In Study One, processed foods, higher in fat and GL, were most frequently associated with addictive-like eating behaviors. In Study Two, processing was a large, positive predictor for whether a food was associated with problematic, addictive-like eating behaviors. BMI and YFAS symptom count were small-to-moderate, positive predictors for this association. In a separate model, fat and GL were large, positive predictors of problematic food ratings. YFAS symptom count was a small, positive predictor of the relationship between GL and food ratings.

Conclusion

The current study provides preliminary evidence that not all foods are equally implicated in addictive-like eating behavior, and highly processed foods, which may share characteristics with drugs of abuse (e.g. high dose, rapid rate of absorption) appear to be particularly associated with “food addiction.”

Living in the tide of change: explaining Japanese subjective health from the socio-demographic change

Today, countries around the world are caught in the tide of change toward Gesellshaft, or individualistic socio-demographic condition. Recent investigations in Japan have suggested negative impacts of change on emotional and motivational aspects of the Japanese self (Norasakkunkit et al., 2012; Ogihara and Uchida, 2014). Building on previous findings, in Study 1, we measured socio-demographic change toward individualistic societal condition during 1990-2010-two decades marked by great economic recession-at the levels of prefecture and city using archival data. In Study 2, we tested whether Japanese adults' general health, satisfaction with life, self-esteem, and perceived social support were negatively predicted by the change using social survey. Results of hierarchical linear modeling showed small but unique negative effects of the change on several health measures, suggesting that this change had an impact on health, above and beyond individual personality traits, and demographics. Additionally, interdependent happiness, the type of cultural happiness grounded in interdependence of the self (Hitokoto and Uchida, 2014), showed an independent positive relationship with all aspects of health examined. Implications for health studies in changing socio-demographic condition are discussed in the context of Japanese society after economic crisis.

The association of food characteristics and individual differences with ratings of craving and liking

Craving and liking are related to eating-related problems, but less is known about the association of specific food characteristics (e.g., sugar, fat) with craving/liking. The relation of individual differences in eating behavior with these craving and liking patterns is also relatively unknown. We examine the nomothetic impact of sugar, fat and processing on food craving and liking and the moderation of these effects by idiographic factors (e.g., Body Mass Index [BMI], hunger). One hundred and five overweight and obese women completed craving and liking ratings on 180 foods that differed in levels of sugar, fat and processing. Food craving was linked positively to fat content, but negatively to sugar. Food liking was associated negatively with sugar content and processing level. Addictive-like eating predicted elevated overall food craving and liking, and increased craving and liking for processed foods. Attempted restriction efforts were unrelated to craving and liking. BMI was associated with less craving for fattier foods and lower liking for the average food. Hunger was associated with increased craving for the average food. These findings highlight the role of fat in cravings and differences in craving and liking based on BMI, loss of control over eating, and hunger. These findings are relevant to theories of problematic eating and the development of eating-related interventions.

Socioecological psychology

Socioecological psychology investigates humans' cognitive, emotional, and behavioral adaption to physical, interpersonal, economic, and political environments. This article summarizes three types of socioecological psychology research: (a) association studies that link an aspect of social ecology (e.g., population density) with psychology (e.g., prosocial behavior), (b) process studies that clarify why there is an association between social ecology and psychology (e.g., residential mobility → anxiety → familiarity seeking), and (c) niche construction studies that illuminate how psychological states give rise to the creation and maintenance of a social ecology (e.g., familiarity seeking → dominance of national chain stores). Socioecological psychology attempts to bring the objectivist perspective to psychological science, investigating how objective social and physical environments, not just perception and construal of the environments, affect one's thinking, feeling, and behaviors, as well as how people's thinking, feeling, and behaviors give rise to social and built environments.

Self and Agency in Context: Ecologies of Abundance and Scarcity

This work considers sociocultural foundations of self and agency in material affordances associated with affluence and poverty. We first review work that links independent self-construal and disjoint agency to material abundance. We then report an experiment among students at North American ( n = 52) and West African ( n = 60) universities, in which we manipulated abundance and scarcity concepts and assessed effects on a pronoun-selection measure of self-construal. Participants in the North American setting and abundance condition selected first-person pronouns (particularly, I and me) with greater frequency than did participants in the West African setting and scarcity condition. In contrast to modernity accounts, which propose that individualism promotes prosperity, results are consistent with the alternative account: that abundance can promote independent or disjoint varieties of self and agency. Discussion focuses on the distinction between cultural and structural varieties of sociocultural influence and contributions of international perspectives to psychological science.

Social Ecology

This article presents a socioecological approach (accounting for physical, societal, and interpersonal environments) to psychological theorizing and research. First, we demonstrate that economic systems, political systems, religious systems, climates, and geography exert a distal yet important influence on human mind and behavior. Second, we summarize the historical precedents of socioecological psychology. There have been several waves of ecological movements with distinct emphases in the history of psychological science, such as K. Lewin’s (1936, 1939) field theory and U. Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) ecological approach to human development. Environmental and community psychologies, created in the late 1960s and early 1970s, promoted social activism through basic and applied research on ecological factors and social outcomes. Most recently, the rise of cultural psychology has encouraged psychologists to pay attention to cultural factors in basic psychological processes, but note that less attention has been given to socioecological factors per se. We highlight the benefits of bringing the socioecological perspective back to mainstream psychological theorizing and research.

The socio-ecological approach turns variance among populations from a liability to an asset

We emphasize the value of the socio-ecological approach in addressing the problem of population variances. The socio-ecological perspective studies how social and natural habitats shape human behaviors, and are in turn shaped by those behaviors. This focus on system-level factors is particularly well-suited to studying the origins of group differences in human behavior.

The Psychology of Residential Mobility: Implications for the Self, Social Relationships, and Well-Being

Residential mobility is an increasingly important personal and societal issue in both the United States and the world in general. However, it has received relatively limited attention in psychological theorizing and research. This article demonstrates the importance of residential mobility in understanding the self, social relationships, and well-being. Recent research has shown that residential mobility (number of moves for an individual or percentage having moved recently for a neighborhood) is associated with the primacy of the personal over the collective self. It is also associated with "duty-free" friendships and group memberships rather than obligatory friendships and group memberships. Overall, residential mobility is associated with lower levels of well-being at the individual level of analysis. Finally, residential mobility is associated with personal forms of subjective well-being (based on self-esteem, the verification of the personal self) as opposed to interpersonal forms of subjective well-being (based on social support, the verification of the collective selves). In short, residential mobility is a powerful, parsimonious explanatory construct in the self, social relationships, and subjective well-being and may be a key to understanding the future of mind and behavior in the increasingly mobile world.