Our scientific publications.
"Bridging Cross-Cultural Psychology with Societal Development Studies"
Special section in JCCP is already available - please see here.
Recent major papers:
The realization that most behavioral science research focuses on cultures labeled as WEIRD—Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (Arnett, 2008; Henrich et al., 2010; Thalmayer et al., 2021)—has given an impetus to extend the research to more diverse populations. Confucian East Asian societies have relatively strong social and technological infrastructure to advance science and thus have gained much prominence in cross-cultural studies. This has inadvertently fostered another bias: the dominance of WEIRD–Confucian comparisons and a tendency to draw conclusions about “non-WEIRD” cultures in general based on data from Confucian societies. Here, analyzing 1,466,019 scientific abstracts and, separately, coverage of 60 large-scale cross-cultural psychological projects (Nsamples = 2,668 from Ncountries = 153 covering nparticipants = 3,722,940), we quantify the dominance of Confucian over other non-WEIRD cultures in psychological research. Our analysis also reveals the underrepresentation of non-European Union postcommunist societies and the almost total invisibility of Pacific Island, Caribbean, Middle African, and Central Asian societies within the research database of psychology. We call for a shift in cross-cultural studies toward midsize (7+ countries) and ideally large-scale (50+ countries) cross-cultural studies, and we propose mitigations that we believe could aid the inclusion of diverse researchers as well as participants from underrepresented cultures in our field. People in all world regions and cultures deserve psychological knowledge that applies to them. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Psychological science tends to treat subjective well-being and happiness synonymously. We start from the assumption that subjective well-being is more than being happy to ask the fundamental question: What is the ideal level of happiness? From a cross-cultural perspective, we propose that the idealization of attaining maximum levels of happiness may be especially characteristic of Western, educated, industrial, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) societies but less so for others. Searching for an explanation for why “happiness maximization” might have emerged in these societies, we turn to studies linking cultures to their eco-environmental habitat. We discuss the premise that WEIRD cultures emerged in an exceptionally benign ecological habitat (i.e., faced relatively light existential pressures compared with other regions). We review the influence of the Gulf Stream on the Northwestern European climate as a source of these comparatively benign geographical conditions. We propose that the ecological conditions in which WEIRD societies emerged afforded them a basis to endorse happiness as a value and to idealize attaining its maximum level. To provide a nomological network for happiness maximization, we also studied some of its potential side effects, namely alcohol and drug consumption and abuse and the prevalence of mania. To evaluate our hypothesis, we reanalyze data from two large-scale studies on ideal levels of personal life satisfaction—the most common operationalization of happiness in psychology—involving respondents from 61 countries. We conclude that societies whose members seek to maximize happiness tend to be characterized as WEIRD, and generalizing this across societies can prove problematic if adopted at the ideological and policy level.
This paper explores the differences between five components of subjective well-being: happiness, meaning, harmony, spirituality, and religiosity. This is a pressing question, as growing research suggests that a good life encompasses more than just happiness, underscoring the need to understand the distinctions between subjective well-being components. Quantitative approaches often reveal high correlations between them, making differentiation difficult. To address this, we employed a mixed-methods design, including a quantitative analysis of open-ended responses from 1,084 British participants. Our findings indicate that happiness is primarily oriented toward small communities, while the other components are more broader communities-oriented. These results contribute to a nuanced understanding of human flourishing and lay the groundwork for further research into the distinctions between well-being components.
Dilemmas in navigating between various aspects of well-being are common, but remain unexplored in psychological research. In this paper, we introduce a novel method of assessing well-being dilemmas and their dynamics. In five studies run across the United States, Poland and Japan, we studied the dilemma between the pursuit of happiness and the pursuit of meaning. Our findings revealed common trends across three countries and two research designs: while the majority prioritize happiness, a substantial segment of individuals place a higher value on meaning. Furthermore, these preferences are linked to one’s current state of well-being. As individuals attain a baseline level of both happiness and meaning, the emphasis on happiness diminishes. This suggests a hierarchical framework wherein individuals initially seek to fulfil their happiness before turning their attention to meaningful endeavors. We discuss our findings in the context of previous research on subjective well-being in the cultural context.
Recommended readings:
Few papers worth special attention.Psychological science tends to treat subjective well-being and happiness synonymously. We start from the assumption that subjective well-being is more than being happy to ask the fundamental question: What is the ideal level of happiness? From a cross-cultural perspective, we propose that the idealization of attaining maximum levels of happiness may be especially characteristic of Western, educated, industrial, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) societies but less so for others. Searching for an explanation for why “happiness maximization” might have emerged in these societies, we turn to studies linking cultures to their eco-environmental habitat. We discuss the premise that WEIRD cultures emerged in an exceptionally benign ecological habitat (i.e., faced relatively light existential pressures compared with other regions). We review the influence of the Gulf Stream on the Northwestern European climate as a source of these comparatively benign geographical conditions. We propose that the ecological conditions in which WEIRD societies emerged afforded them a basis to endorse happiness as a value and to idealize attaining its maximum level. To provide a nomological network for happiness maximization, we also studied some of its potential side effects, namely alcohol and drug consumption and abuse and the prevalence of mania. To evaluate our hypothesis, we reanalyze data from two large-scale studies on ideal levels of personal life satisfaction—the most common operationalization of happiness in psychology—involving respondents from 61 countries. We conclude that societies whose members seek to maximize happiness tend to be characterized as WEIRD, and generalizing this across societies can prove problematic if adopted at the ideological and policy level.
The realization that most behavioral science research focuses on cultures labeled as WEIRD—Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (Arnett, 2008; Henrich et al., 2010; Thalmayer et al., 2021)—has given an impetus to extend the research to more diverse populations. Confucian East Asian societies have relatively strong social and technological infrastructure to advance science and thus have gained much prominence in cross-cultural studies. This has inadvertently fostered another bias: the dominance of WEIRD–Confucian comparisons and a tendency to draw conclusions about “non-WEIRD” cultures in general based on data from Confucian societies. Here, analyzing 1,466,019 scientific abstracts and, separately, coverage of 60 large-scale cross-cultural psychological projects (Nsamples = 2,668 from Ncountries = 153 covering nparticipants = 3,722,940), we quantify the dominance of Confucian over other non-WEIRD cultures in psychological research. Our analysis also reveals the underrepresentation of non-European Union postcommunist societies and the almost total invisibility of Pacific Island, Caribbean, Middle African, and Central Asian societies within the research database of psychology. We call for a shift in cross-cultural studies toward midsize (7+ countries) and ideally large-scale (50+ countries) cross-cultural studies, and we propose mitigations that we believe could aid the inclusion of diverse researchers as well as participants from underrepresented cultures in our field. People in all world regions and cultures deserve psychological knowledge that applies to them. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
History has not ended (Fukuyama, 1992; Haas & Omura, 2022). The Euro-American political, economic, and social system seems not to be the one-size-fits-all model welcomed by all people. Promoting Western values and solutions as the “human development syndrome” (Inglehart & Oyserman, 2004) seems like cultural colonialism. Also, we are not doomed to a clash of civilizations (Huntington, 1993). Our diversified cultural and religious identities do not have to be the source of endless conflicts. The vast majority of societies enjoy peaceful coexistence with other—culturally different—societies...
Cultural psychologists often treat binary contrasts of West versus East, individualism versus collectivism, and independent versus interdependent self-construal as interchangeable, thus assuming that collectivist societies promote interdependent rather than independent models of selfhood. At odds with this assumption, existing data indicate that Latin American societies emphasize collectivist values at least as strongly as Confucian East Asian societies, but they emphasize most forms of independent self-construal at least as strongly as Western societies. We argue that these seemingly “anomalous” findings can be explained by societal differences in modes of subsistence (herding vs. rice farming), colonial histories (frontier settlement), cultural heterogeneity, religious heritage, and societal organization (relational mobility, loose norms, honor logic) and that they cohere with other indices of contemporary psychological culture. We conclude that the common view linking collectivist values with interdependent self-construal needs revision. Global cultures are diverse, and researchers should pay more attention to societies beyond “the West” and East Asia. Our contribution concurrently illustrates the value of learning from unexpected results and the crucial importance of exploratory research in psychological science.
Major papers organised into topics:
Please click on the topic below to expand the list of papers.JCCP's special section on "Bridging Cross-Cultural Psychology with Societal Development Science":
macropsychology:
well-being:
societal development:
emotions:
gender and family:
smile:
honor cultures: