Publications

Empirical tests of Schwartz’s theory of culture-level value priorities have predominantly been performed using an averaging approach–as values of the average individual in a culture. However, from a theory of measurement standpoint such an approach seems inadequate. We argue that the averaging approach is an insufficiently accurate methodology in capturing the compatibilities-incompatibilities between values of individuals within cultures. We propose an approach based on the distribution of values of individuals in a given culture–the distribution approach. Using data from two rounds of the European Social Survey, we show how frequencies of specific individual value priorities in a culture can be used toward the description of culture-level value preferences. We recommend a re-conceptualization of Schwartz’s culture-level value theory to an orthogonal two-dimensional structure, namely as Alteration vs. Preservation and Amenability vs. Dominance, which we explain based on heterogeneity in socioecological indicators across countries. We conclude that societal challenges may influence the cultural value climate across countries.

The current paper presents three studies, which suggest that perceiving one’s nation as transgenerational (TG) is related to a differentiation in the evaluation of ethnically German diaspora migrants and ethnically non-German (‘foreign’) migrants. First, we find that unlike ‘classical’ concepts such as right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), social dominance orientation (SDO), and hierarchic self-interest (HSI), TG explains differences in derogatory sentiments expressed towards diaspora and ‘foreign’ migrants. Second, TG is differentially related to positive emotions and behavioral intentions expressed towards these two groups of migrants. Lastly, results indicate that people who perceive the ingroup as TG require ‘for eign’ migrants to fulfill more criteria that make them eligible for citizenship and are thereby more exclusionist than people who include only the current generation into their concept of national identity. The social implications of these findings in face of the so-called refugee crisis in Germany and the wider European Union are discussed.

Drawing on the concept of a gale of creative destruction in a capitalistic economy, we argue that initiatives to assess the robustness of findings in the organizational literature should aim to simultaneously test competing ideas operating in the same theoretical space. In other words, replication efforts should seek not just to support or question the original findings, but also to replace them with revised, stronger theories with greater explanatory power. Achieving this will typically require adding new measures, conditions, and subject populations to research designs, in order to carry out conceptual tests of multiple theories in addition to directly replicating the original findings. To illustrate the value of the creative destruction approach for theory pruning in organizational scholarship, we describe recent replication initiatives re-examining culture and work morality, working parents’ reasoning about day care options, and gender discrimination in hiring decisions. 

Engagement in politics during one’s formative years is conductive to democracy. Youth activism is associated with increased political efficacy and has the potential to empower disadvantaged groups and promote political equality. Moreover, possible positive outcomes of early-life political engagement in various psychological and biographical domains have recently been explored, largely emphasizing the benefits of activism throughout the lifespan. Nevertheless, lifespan developmental psychology and peace psychology have rarely put their lots together, due to the difficulties of designing longitudinal research stretched over periods sufficiently long to claim relevance for lifespan development. In this chapter, we review established theories and recent empirical studies on the political socialization of adolescents and youth, with an emphasis on intergenerational transmission of political worldviews and patterns of engagement, and on the potential of political involvement in adolescence to lead to lifelong engagement and activism. We then explore trajectories of political orientations from adolescence to mid-adulthood, using survey data from a ten-wave panel study of German peace movement activists and sympathizers, first studied in 1985 and reapproached every 3.5 years. We discuss our findings in light of contextual explanations, as well as theories of political socialization and lifespan development. Finally, our review and empirical findings suggest that investments into the capacities and opportunities for constructive youth activism, while likely manifesting themselves at a later period, may pay real dividends for community empowerment and sustainability.

There is probably no more serious challenge to social stability in the contemporary world than the management of inter- cultural relations within culturally plural societies. Intercul- tural contact is a major experience for all contemporary peoples in their daily lives, whether in their social or their work situations. At times, these contacts may be challenging; understanding them through research can contribute to enhancing mutual acceptance among cultural groups. This positive outcome is a goal that citizens and policy-makers in most culturally diverse societies are now seeking. Successful management of these relationships depends on many factors, including the historical, political, eco- nomic, religious and psychological features of the individuals and groups that are interacting. Answers to this fundamental issue are relevant not only to societies as a whole, but also to their constituent institutions, including work organisations. The core question is “How shall we all live and work together?” when we engage those of other cultures.

In this paper, I begin by presenting some core concepts and frameworks to guide a search for answers. These frame- works are then illustrated by their use in two types of organisations: the military and universities. These organisa- tions differ from those in the private sector, but readers may wish to bridge these ideas to their own organisational situa- tions. Third, I provide an overview of a research project (Mutual Intercultural Relations in Plural Societies: MIRIPS). This project proposes and evaluates three core psychological hypotheses of intercultural relations namely, multicultural- ism, contact and integration. The project was carried out in 17 culturally plural societies. The main goal of the project is to evaluate these three hypotheses across societies in order to identify some basic psychological principles that underlie successful intercultural relations. The overall goal of the present paper is to employ these ideas and findings as a basis to propose policies and programmes that may improve the quality of intercultural relationships in societies, ethnocul- tural groups and organisations globally

When immigrants settle into their new societies, variations in their wellbeing are commonly found, due to a number of factors: their generation; their specific settlement context; and their acculturation strategies. With respect to settlement context, the policy of multiculturalism in Canada and of interculturalism in Quebec, provide different contexts for immigrant acculturation and wellbeing. Acculturation strategies are assessed with measures of sense of belonging to Canada and to the province of residence: Canada and Province (strong sense of belonging to both); either Canada only or province only (strong belonging to one or to the other); and neither (strong to neither). Wellbeing is assessed by scales of Life Satisfaction and Mental Health. This study examines whether these context differences may be associated with variations in the acculturation strategies and wellbeing among immigrants and later generations. Samples of adult immigrants and subsequent generations were drawn from those who live in Québec and in the rest of Canada. The distribution of the four profiles among immigrants did not differ between Québec and the rest of Canada. However, among later generations, the ‘Canada only’ profile is lower, while the ‘province only’ is higher, in Québec than in the rest of Canada. These findings suggest a drawing away from identifying with Canada, and an increase in identifying with Québec, in later generations in Québec. This pattern is consistent with the goals of the different incorporation policies in Québec and the rest of Canada. Wellbeing was generally higher in the group with high sense of belonging to both Canada and Québec, and Mental Health was higher in Québec than in the Rest of Canada in all three generations. Implications of these findings for acculturation and settlement policy are discussed.

The study focuses on the relationship between intercultural friendships, social identities, and well-being of ethnic Russians in three different contexts of the North and South Caucasus. We revealed the positive relations of intercultural friendships with the host society identity in all contexts and with the well-being of Russians in the culturally diverse contexts. Ethnic identity is positively related to the self-esteem of Russians in two more inclusive contexts, and, negatively associated with their life satisfaction in the least inclusive context. The ethnic and host society identities mediated the relationship between intercultural friendships and psychological well-being only in the most inclusive context.

Few studies have examined to what extent commonly held stereotypes reflect real intergroup differences in motivational goals. Taking a values perspective (Schwartz et al., 2012), the study examines value preferences among Jews and Russians in Russia, to assess the extent to which commonly held stereotypes reflect values of group members. Results showed that Jews reported substantially higher levels of universalism‐tolerance, benevolence (both caring and dependability), and tradition values, and lower levels of power (both dominance and resources), and universalism‐nature values, than Russians. Results indicated that the widespread Jewish stereotypes of power, achievement, and rootlessness/cosmopolitanism are ungrounded, while the stereotypes of liberalism and particularism are upheld by the reported differences in the value preferences between Jews and the majority population in Russia. The present study underscores the importance of value comparisons between ethnic minority and majority groups for understanding their motivational goals and thus fighting prejudices and discrimination.

The history of research in finance and economics has been widely impacted by the field of Agent-based Computational Economics (ACE). While at the same time being popular among natural science researchers for its proximity to the successful methods of physics and chemistry for example, the field of ACE has also received critics by a part of the social science community for its lack of empiricism. Yet recent trends have shifted the weights of these general arguments and poten- tially given ACE a whole new range of realism. At the base of these trends are found two present-day major scientific breakthroughs: the steady shift of psychology towards a hard science due to the advances of neuropsychology, and the progress of reinforcement learning due to increasing computational power and big data. We outline here the main lines of a computational research study where each agent would trade by reinforcement learning.

Research on Mental Health Literacy (MHL) has been growing internationally. However, the beliefs and knowledge of Ghanaians about specific mental disorders have yet to be explored. This vignette study was conducted to explore the relationships between religiosity, education, stigmatization, and MHL among Ghanaians using a sample of laypeople (N = 409). The adapted questionnaire presented two vignettes (depression and schizophrenia) about a hypothetical person. The results revealed that more participants were able to recognize depression (47.4%) than schizophrenia (15.9%). Religiosity was not significantly associated with recognition of mental disorders but was positively related with both social and personal stigma for depression, and negatively associated with personal and perceived stigma for schizophrenia. Moreover, education was found to relate positively with disorder recognition, and negatively with perceived stigma. Finally, perceived stigma was positively associated with disorder recognition, whereas personal stigma for schizophrenia related negatively to recognition of mental disorders. In conclusion, education but not religiosity predicted identification accuracy, but both predictors were associated with various forms of stigma. Findings from this study have implications for MHL and anti-stigma campaigns in Ghana and other developing countries in the region.

The large inflow of migrants into Europe in recent years has triggered more frequent discussions on how useful a pro-integrative migration policy is for society. There have been many studies considering various aspects of migrant integration policy, but its impact on social capital, particularly on an aspect as crucial as generalized trust, still requires further investigation.  In our study, we use the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) and data on generalized trust and the mainstream population’s perceptions of group threat from immigrants using the European Social Survey (ESS) database to explore the relationship between generalized trust and both the total MIPEX and its components. Our database included 23 European countries and 39,079 respondents. We hypothesized that a pro-integrative migration policy would be connected with generalized trust indirectly via reduced perceived group threat from immigrants. The study identified a positive relationship between total MIPEX scores and generalized trust mediated via lowered perceptions of group threat. However, the effects of eight individual MIPEX components were discovered to be different. We discuss limitations related to the generalizability of our results, given that patterns may be different in North America where cultural distance between majority and most migrant groups are typically higher. We thus suggest that future research on generalized trust examine variables related to values and cultural distance and proximity between the mainstream and migrant groups.

Research on intergroup bias usually focuses on a single dimension of social categorization. In real life, however, people are aware of others’ multiple group memberships and use this information to form attitudes about them. The present research tests the predictive power of identification, perceived conflict, and perceived symbolic threat in explaining the strength of intergroup bias on various dimensions of social categorization in multiple categorization settings. We conduct a factorial survey experiment, manipulating 9 dimensions of social categorization in diverse samples from 4 countries (n 12,810 observations, 1,281 participants representing 103 social groups). The dimensions studied are age, gender, ethnicity, religion, place of residence, education, occupation, income, and 1 country-specific dimension. This approach allows exploring the generalizability of established determinants of bias across dimensions of categorization, contexts, and target groups. Identification and symbolic threat showed good generalizability across countries and categorization dimensions, but their effects varied as a function of participant and target groups’ status. Identification predicted stronger bias mainly when the participant belonged to a higher status and the target belonged to a lower status group. Symbolic threat predicted stronger bias mainly when the target was a minority group member. Conflict predicted bias only in few cases, and not only the strength but also the direction of the effects varied across countries, dimensions, and target and participant groups. These findings help to clarify the limits of generalizability of established determinants of intergroup bias and highlight the need for new explanations of social–cognitive processes among minority group members.

Italy is increasingly becoming a culturally complex society. This poses numerous challenges for developmental and educational psychology, mainly in terms of how to encourage adequate levels of social harmony by promoting positive development of both immigrant and autochthonous youth. Within this perspective, the current paper presents the Italian findings of the Mutual Intercultural Relations in Plural Societies (MIRIPS) international project, postulating the centrality of three core hypotheses: integration, multiculturalism, and contact. Two studies were performed to investigate these hypotheses. Study 1 comprised 188 Tunisian adolescents aged 13-18 (51% F; Mage=15.94), while Study 2 included 282 Italian adolescents aged 13-18 (58% F; Mage=16.34). Data collection involved completion of the Italian version of the MIRIPS questionnaires, including security, contact, attitudes, acculturation, and well-being measures. In both studies, hypotheses were simultaneously tested by a SEM approach. The tested theoretical models fit the data well. For Tunisian adolescents, establishing contacts with Italian peers was associated with acculturation outcomes of integration (contact hypothesis), that, in turn, were related to higher well-being (integration hypothesis). Also, higher levels of perceived discrimination were related to acculturation outcomes of separation (multiculturalism hypothesis). For Italian adolescents, feelings of security were linked to higher multicultural ideology and tolerance (multiculturalism hypothesis) as well as to higher contact with immigrants, that, in turn, were connected to lower segregationist attitudes (contact hypothesis). Moreover, higher levels of acculturation expectation of multiculturalism (the idea that nondominant/ immigrant groups should be integrated by both maintaining the original culture and adopting the dominant/hosting culture) were linked to higher self-esteem (integration hypothesis). The findings substantially supported the three core hypotheses and provided insights for decision-makers and practitioners to design effective social policies and educational programs to enhance the quality of intercultural relations among youth in Italy.

Sex differences in aspects of independent versus interdependent self-construal and depressive symptoms were surveyed among 5,320 students from 24 nations. Men were found to perceive themselves as more self-contained whereas women perceived themselves as more connected to others. No significant sex differences were found on two further dimensions of self-construal, or on a measure of depressive symptoms. Multilevel modeling was used to test the ability of a series of predictors derived from a social identity perspective and from evolutionary theory to moderate sex differences. Contrary to most prior studies of personality, sex differences in selfconstrual were larger in samples from nations scoring lower on the Gender Gap Index, and the Human Development Index. Sex differences were also greater in nations with higher pathogen prevalence, higher self-reported religiosity, and in nations with high reported avoidance of settings with strong norms. The findings are discussed in terms of the interrelatedness of selfconstruals and the cultural contexts in which they are elicited and the distinctiveness of student samples.

International relations between China and Russia have a long-lasting history. At the same time interpersonal contacts between these two ethnic groups face difficulties associated with language, cultural distance, prejudices and other factors. This article presents a review of studies on the problem of Russian-Chinese intercultural interaction. Due to its interdisciplinary nature the studies are scattered both methodologically and with respect to its theoretical foundations. In this regard, we conditionally divide the considered works into four main areas: studying the perception of the image of Russia and China among Russians and Chinese, classification of Sino-Russian communication barriers, cross-cultural analysis of communication components, and indigenous concepts of Chinese psychology related to the process of intercultural interaction. A brief review of the modern research results gained by Russian and Chinese authors on effective communication and building trustful relationships is given. The results of studies revealing important differences at the level of verbal and non-verbal communication are presented. Particular attention is paid to cross-cultural research aimed at identifying etic and emic attributes of the situation of intercultural interaction. The most common approaches to understanding the concept of trust and its operationalization in Chinese studies are described. The importance of further studying mechanisms of building trustful relationships between representatives of the two countries is noted. In conclusion, unresolved problems and current trends in the study of intercultural communication are identified.

This research examines the relationship of social capital with the acculturation attitudes and sociocultural adaptation of 122 migrants from Central Asian republics of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan) and 136 migrants from South Korea. The questionnaire included scales for assessing acculturation attitudes (integration, assimilation, and separation), individual social capital (bridging and bonding), and sociocultural adaptation. Using parallel mediation analysis, we found that acculturation attitudes for migrants from Central Asia are secondary to their social capital in relation to sociocultural adaptation. However, among migrants from South Korea, social capital is not linked to their acculturation attitudes, and in general, its role in sociocultural adaptation is lower as compared to the role of acculturation attitudes. As a whole, our research shows that although sociocultural adaptation for all ethnic groups is linked to acculturation attitudes and social capital, acculturation attitudes for certain ethnic groups can be dependent on social capital.

Stereotypes are ideological and justify the existing social structure. Although stereotypes persist, they can change when the context changes. Communism’s rise in Eastern Europe and Asia in the 20th century provides a natural experiment examining social-structural effects on social class stereotypes. Nine samples from post-communist countries (N = 2241), compared with 38 capitalist countries (N=4344), support the historical, socio-cultural rootedness of stereotypes. More positive stereotypes of the working class appear in post-communist countries, both compared with other social groups in the country and compared with working-class stereotypes in capitalist countries; post-communist countries also show more negative stereotypes of the upper class. We further explore whether communism’s ideological legacy reflects how societies infer groups’ stereotypic competence and warmth from structural status and competition. Post-communist societies show weaker status-competence relations and stronger (negative) competition-warmth relations; respectively, the lower meritocratic beliefs and higher priority of embeddedness as ideological legacies may shape these relationships.

This article aims to explicate the role of social cohesion in the relationship between adherence to common values and life satisfaction. Shared values are often assumed to be a constitutive element of social cohesion and are used in measurement of the concept. However, sociopsychological theory of values sees social cohesion rather as a moderator of the link between value congruence and life satisfaction, not as a constituent of value congruence. Based on a representative survey of the city of Bremen, Germany (N = 2605), we predict life satisfaction from person-group value congruence and neighbourhood social cohesion. We find no relationship between value congruence and social cohesion, but a significant positive moderating effect of social cohesion on the relationship between value congruence and life satisfaction. The findings suggest that sticking to common values does not increase social cohesion, but that positive effects of value congruence are more pronounced in high-cohesion neighbourhoods.

This paper studies the social mechanism underlying the integration hypothesis and presents a model about the mediating role of social capital obtained when testing the integration hypothesis. The mediation model holds that the individual's commitment to integration allows him/her to form bridging social capital, which is accompanied by a higher level of life satisfaction. The study took place in Dagestan, which is the most ethnically diverse republic of the Russian Federation, involving respondents from three main ethnic groups: ethnic Russians, Avars, and Dargins. Our research identifies two adaptation scenarios for ethnic groups. The first scenario involves an integration strategy and bridging social capital, while the second involves a separation strategy without any involvement of social capital. Based on the results of the study, practical recommendations were offered to support integration processes in multicultural regions. For this it is necessary to assess whether the integration hypothesis applies to all ethnic groups within the region; to take measures to create a “supraethnic” identity among the residents of multicultural regions; to introduce a quota for government representation for each ethnic group to reduce interethnic competition; to introduce training on intercultural interaction and ethnic tolerance into the educational programs at schools.