Do I need ethnic culture to be free? A critique of Will Kymlicka’s liberal nationalism

Abstract

As part of a vigorous debate about the politics of multiculturalism, Will Kymlicka has sought to find grounds within liberal political theory to defend rights for cultural groups. Kymlicka argues that the individual’s ability to choose the good life necessarily takes place in a cultural context such that access to one’s ethnic or national culture constitutes a condition of autonomy. Thus, in liberal societies where the culture of minority ethnic groups or nations is under threat, these groups should enjoy certain special rights so as to uphold the autonomy of their individual members. However, Kymlicka’s ‘liberal nationalist’ argument relies on a problematic isomorphism between culture and identity. Very simply, I shall argue that an individual’s culture is not necessarily given by their membership of an ethnic group or nation, thus breaking the link between individual autonomy and rights for ethnic groups or nations.     

The cultural mosaic: a metatheory for understanding the complexity of culture

Workforce population trends have increased the numbers and kinds of culturally diverse people who work together. Researchers in organizational behavior have often examined culture through values; however, cultural values can be based on collections of people other than traditional nation states. A cultural mosaic is presented as a framework to identify demographic, geographic, and associative features underlying culture. An individual's unique collage of multiple cultural identities yields a complex picture of the cultural influences on that person. Developments in chaos and complexity theories are proposed as a theoretical base for study on the complexity of culture at the individual level. Additional developments in network theory serve as a theoretical base for cultural research at the group level. The cultural mosaic is described as a complex system with localized structures, linking cultural tiles in ordered and chaotic ways. Research propositions examining multiple cultural identities at individual and group levels are discussed.     

The Role of Hofstede's Individualism in National-Level Creativity

It is a widely held belief that culture is a factor that influences creativity. The influence of culture on creativity is, however, relatively understudied and the majority of creativity research focuses on creativity at the level of the individual or organization. In this article, the relationship between Hofstede's cultural values (individualism, power distance and uncertainty avoidance) and national level scores on two separate creativity indexes—the Global Creativity Index (GCI) and the Design and Creativity Index (DCI) was examined. A multivariate multiple linear regression analyses showed a strong positive relationship between individualism and national ranking on the GCI and DCI. No significant relationship was found between the creativity measures and Hofstede's power distance and uncertainty avoidance. The positive relationship between individualism and creativity suggests that autonomy, independence, and freedom—beliefs associated with individualism—are needed for a nation to be creative.     

文化差异影响彝、白、纳西和汉族大学生对黑白的认知

以彝族、白族、纳西族和汉族的大学生为被试,采用颜色相似性判断和颜色再认任务,考察了彝族、白族、纳西族和汉族的大学生对于黑色和白色的认知,意在探究不同民族的黑、白文化是否影响人们对黑、白颜色的认知。结果发现：⑴彝族、白族、纳西族和汉族的黑、白文化影响四个民族的大学生对于黑色和白色的认知;⑵语言和文化对于颜色认知的影响包括间接效应和直接效应。整个研究表明,语言和文化对颜色认知有重要影响     

让智慧插上创造的翅膀：创造动力系统的激活及其条件

创造力是一个集个人、团体、社会、文化相互交织的系统, 因此创造力的培养也需要综合考虑。本文在融合以往创造力研究的基础上, 建构了一套系统创造力培养的“蝴蝶理论”, 创造力培养需要抓住核心来统领全局, 同时兼顾创造力培养所需要统筹兼顾的各个部分。动力系统的激活是创造力培养的核心。新颖、适用的创造性成果的产出, 需要社会文化中的个体或团体在创造性心理动力的基础上来完成。创造性心理动力有效的激活则需要一些基本条件, 如在认知层面, 需要具备一定的能力, 如一般认知能力、思维方法的掌握、元认知以及高效的资源整合能力等; 在非智力因素方面, 基本心理需要的满足, 个性心理的健康发展等是创造力得以发挥的必要条件, 推而广之还包括：合理的社会支持、互动以及文化的包容等等。除了理论方面的整合, 本文还从实践的角度分析如何激活学生的动力系统, 重点分析了什么是兴趣以及如何激发个体的兴趣, 因为以兴趣爱好为核心的内部动机是自主性最高的动力来源。本文从理论(创造力培养的蝴蝶理论)与实践(创造力培养的兴趣激发)两个角度为创造力培养提供了支持。     

心理弹性如何影响员工创造力：心理安全感与创造力自我效能感的作用

摘 要 通过对350名知识型员工及其领导的配对问卷调查,探讨心理弹性对知识型员工创造力的作用机制。结果表明,心理弹性对心理安全感有显著的正向影响;心理安全感完全中介了心理弹性对创造力的影响;创造力自我效能感调节了心理安全感对创造力的正向作用;创造力自我效能感调节了心理安全感在心理弹性与创造力之间的中介作用。     

Personality predicts innovation and social learning in children: Implications for cultural evolution

Innovation and social learning are the pillars of cultural evolution, allowing cultural behaviours to cumulatively advance over generations. Yet, little is known about individual differences in the use of social and asocial information. We examined whether personality influenced 7-11-year-old children's (N = 282) propensity to elect to observe others first or independently generate solutions to novel problems. Conscientiousness was associated with electing for no demonstrations, while agreeableness was associated with opting for demonstrations. For children receiving demonstrations, openness to experience consistently predicted deviation from observed methods. Children who opted for no demonstrations were also more likely than those opting for demonstrations to exhibit tool manufacture on an innovation challenge and displayed higher creativity, as measured by an alternate uses task. These results highlight how new cultural traditions emerge, establish and advance by identifying which individuals generate new cultural variants in populations and which are influential in the diffusion of these variants, and help reduce the apparent tension within the ‘ratchet’ of cumulative culture.     

The Role of Affective Dispositions in Job Satisfaction and Work Strain: Comparing Collectivist and Individualist Societies

The individualism-collectivism dimension cuts across the East and the West. It explains the differing values and cultural breeding that are necessary in acculturating people's affective and cognitive behaviours in accordance with the culture to which they belong. Many empirical studies have investigated the effects of personality traits on job satisfaction and work strain. The personality of individuals affects how they perceive the impact of job satisfaction and work stress. Furthermore, personality traits are influenced by cultural background. This study surveyed 626 nurses from collectivist and individualist societies to find out the possible difference in the role of affective dispositions in self-reported job satisfaction and work strain between these two cultural orientations.     

Teacher's Encouragement on Creativity,Intrinsic Motivation,and Creativity: The Mediating Role of Creative Process Engagement

Drawing on Dewey's pragmatic perspective on talent cultivation and previous research on promoting employee creativity in industry, this study investigates student creativity performance in relation to teacher's encouragement, intrinsic motivation, and creative process engagement. Based on survey data collected from 140 vocational high school students who participated in a nation‐wide contest in Taiwan, path analyses were performed using structure equation modeling techniques. The results indicate that both teacher's encouragement and intrinsic motivation have a significant, although indirect, effect on student creativity, and that creative process engagement, as opposed to teacher encouragement or intrinsic motivation, has a direct and significant mediating effect on student creativity. This finding is in partial agreement with prior research which reports student creativity is positively associated with teacher encouragement and intrinsic motivation, highlighting the mediating role of creative process engagement in facilitating student creative performance.     

创造性人格与员工创造力:一个被调节的中介模型研究

本文基于动机行动和成就动机理论,构建一个被调节的中介模型以检验创造性人格对员工创造力产生的作用机理。以251套来自主管-下属配对的问卷数据为样本,实证分析结果表明:创造性人格可预测员工创造力产生,学习目标导向与绩效证明目标导向在两者之间起部分中介作用;内在动机能够强化个体目标导向对创造力的作用,并显著正向调节创造性人格对员工创造力的间接效应。最后,论文讨论了研究发现对员工创造力产生的理论和实践意义。     

American and Thai Managers′ Explanations for Poor Company Performance: Role of Perspective and Culture in Causal Selection

An experiment is reported that examines the impact of cultural orientation and judgmental perspective on managers′ causal explanations for poor company performance. Results indicate that the explanation offered by subjects depended on the perspective taken. Subjects from an individualist culture (the United States) who were instructed to imagine themselves managers of the target firm compared the target firm′s poor performance to superior performance by the same firm in earlier years, whereas individualist subjects who were instructed to imagine themselves managers of a competing firm compared the poor performance of the target firm to the superior performance of a competitor. By contrast, subjects from a collectivist culture (Thailand) compared the target firm′s poor performance to the superior performance by the same firm in earlier years, regardless of management perspective.     

Cultural Dimensions,Gender, and the Nature of Self-concept: A Fourteen-country Study

Ratings of the importance of and satisfaction with 20 areas of the self were obtained from 3604 first or second year social science undergraduates from 14 countries (15 cultures). Factor analysis at the culture by gender level supported four factors for both sets of ratings. The resulting factor scores were analyzed for mean differences according to the cultural dimension of Individualism-Collectivism by Gender and by correlations with other cultural dimenions and economic indicators. It was found that participants from the 10 collectivist cultures placed greater salience for their self-concepts on “family values” than did those from the individualist cultures. However, this cultural difference was not found for “social relationships”. The expected gender differences, with females valuing “family values” and “social relationships” more highly, were found only for the individualist countries. The findings indicate that there may be a strong cultural level interaction effect between gender and Individualism-Collectivism on the nature of self-conceptions, and that the “family” and “social” aspects of self-concept in collectivist countries need to be considered separately.     

组织创新文化、组织文化强度与员工创新行为：多层线性模型的分析

本研究通过对某大型电网公司156家供电局的10856名员工的问卷调查,检验了组织创新文化、组织文化强度（即员工价值观一致性）与员工创新行为的关系。多层线性分析（HLM）结果表明：（1）组织创新文化与员工创新行为有正向关联;（2）组织文化强度与员工创新行为有负向关联;但是（3）组织文化强度却可以增强创新文化与员工创新行为的正向关系。研究提出,引入组织文化的内容属性和强度属性的交互作用,可以更精确地理解组织文化与个体创新行为的关系。     

留学经验与艺术创造力

采用两个艺术创造力测量任务比较了中国留学生、德国大学生和中国国内学生的艺术创造力水平。使用共感评价技术作为评判艺术作品创造程度、技术水平等维度的方法。研究发现:(1)在艺术创造力任务中,中国留学生没有表现出比中国国内学生的优势,说明可能多元文化经验对创造力表达的影响是有条件的;(2)德国学生的艺术创造力水平高于中国学生,本结果支持前人研究中有关个人主义文化相对于集体主义文化更有助于创造力表达的相关假设;(3)共感评价技术是艺术创造力研究的有效工具。     

Religion and Civic Culture: A Cross-National Study of Voluntary Association Membership

This article explores how religion shapes civic cultures through a cross-national study of voluntary association membership. I adopt a multi-level approach to examine the influence of religion at both individual and country level. First, I hypothesize that Protestants are more likely than Catholics to hold voluntary association membership. Second, I hypothesize that Protestant nations have a higher overall membership rate compared to Catholic nations. Third, I investigate if secularization has reduced individual-level Catholic-Protestant differences in voluntary association membership within a nation. I test the hypotheses using hierarchical nonlinear models with individual-level and country-level data from 29 nations. The findings show that Protestants are more likely than Catholics to be members of voluntary associations, while there is no difference between Protestants and those who belong to "Other" or no religions. At the same time, Catholic nations have lower overall membership rates compared to Protestant nations. The results can be interpreted as a "double negative" Catholic effect. Finally, the effect of secularization on Catholic-Protestant differences is statistically nonsignificant.     

From No Name Woman to Birth of Integrated Identity: Trauma-Based Cultural Dissociation in Immigrant Women and Creative Integration

This paper explores the challenges in integration of ethnic identity among a certain segment of immigrant women who have experienced sexism related traumas in their culture of origin. Unlike other immigrant women who may come from a nontraumatic, average expectable environment of their culture of origin into American culture, these women’s assimilative experiences and integration of identity are more complicated by the fact that their ethnic identity is tied to trauma. These women may find a refuge in the American culture, while defensively dissociating from their culture of origin, disavowing ethnic ties, severing contact with family, or avoiding contact with people from the same ethnic group. Their avoidance of their culture of origin amounts to cultural dissociation. Cultural dissociation is hard to detect and work with because cultural phenomenon in general is a blind spot for most American psychoanalysts. I contend that in order to successfully engage dissociated cultural states, a therapist’s ability to self reflect on her cultural situatedness is crucial. The creative challenge of the analyst-patient dyad is to disentangle the patient’s particular traumatic experiences from nontraumatizing normative aspects of the culture of origin in order to promote a viable ethnic identity.     

蒙、汉大学生的自我构念对知觉加工的影响

首先考察蒙古族和汉族大学生的自我构念特点,并在文化启动下探查自我构念启动对知觉加工的影响。研究发现:(1)内蒙古蒙古族大学生和汉族大学的自我构念表现为互依型倾向,更倾向整体优势知觉加工,蒙古国古大学生表现出独立型倾向,更倾向于局部优势知觉加工。(2)文化启动条件下,自我构念的即时变化影响知觉的加工,独立性自我构念启动下显示出局部加工优先,互依自我构念启动下显示出整体加工优先。该结果提示,不同文化语景的内蒙古和蒙古国的蒙古族个体的自我构念有着差别,文化的嵌入性可促使个体获得主流文化的自我构念,并对知觉过程有影响作用。     

Persian tales on the couch: Notes on folktales as the mirror of the contemporary cultural struggles with gender and sexuality

Abstract

This paper presents a report on our psychoanalytic investigation of cultural folktales, myths, and fables, in which we study, primarily, the extent to which such narratives lurk behind contemporary representations of men and women. Our aim is to identify the multiple narrative structures that form the core plots and storylines of these tales. Following Roland Barthes’ work on mythologies, we want to decode the tales’ ideological components by deciphering the axiomatic assumptions these tales make about the nature of perceived social reality. This represents an attempt to study a mind that is derived from the text. More specifically, we study narratives whose storylines revolve around the struggle between men and women in order to identify the culture’s core concerns about and preoccupations with the relationship between the sexes. We believe that cultural myths or folktales are a royal road to a nation’s collective conscience, and include gendered patterns of defenses, obsessions, fears, and paranoia.     

The development of generosity and moral cognition across five cultures

Morality is an evolved aspect of human nature, yet is heavily influenced by cultural environment. This developmental study adopted an integrative approach by combining measures of socioeconomic status (SES), executive function, affective sharing, empathic concern, theory of mind, and moral judgment in predicting sharing behavior in children (N = 999) from the age of 5 to 12 in five large‐scale societies: Canada, China, Turkey, South Africa, and the USA. Results demonstrate that age, gender, SES, culture, and social cognitive mechanisms explain over 20% of the variance worldwide in children's resource allocation. These findings are discussed in reference to standard cultural comparisons (individualist/collectivist), as well as the degree of market integration, and highlight continuities and discontinuities in children's generosity across urban contexts.     

Creative at Each Age: Age‐Related Differences in Drivers of Workplace Creativity from an Experience Sampling Study

Creativity and innovation are essential agents for change processes and accelerating technical development. Having to face challenges, such as demographic change, organizations require individuals who are creative and innovative at each age. Previous research identified affect as a crucial determinant of creativity, even though empirical findings showed inconsistencies. Drawing on literature on age‐related changes in affective experiences, we investigated the moderating effect of employees’ age on the association between daily positive and negative affect and creativity using a daily diary study. A total of 116 employees responded to daily questionnaires twice a day over five consecutive working days. As expected, hierarchical linear modeling analyses revealed differential effects regarding the affect‐creativity association, dependent on employees’ age. Although older employees were most creative on days when they experienced a high level of positive affect (compared to their mean level of positive affect), younger employees were particularly creative when experiencing negative affect (compared to their mean level of negative affect). We discuss practical implications on how organizations could provide creativity‐enhancing work environments for employees at each age.