Constructing the Citizen

Discussions of citizenship and citizenship education have been conducted largely within the worldview of stable, Western societies and have been based on psychological models that emphasize individual cognition. The concepts of citizenship that evolved in this context have become taken for granted. But during the past decade, different concepts of citizenship have arisen from emergent democracies, from societies in transition, from the dissolution of the left-right spectrum in Western society, and from a changing perspective in psychological theory that attends to language and to social and cultural context. These developments have implications for defining the goals of citizenship education and for formulating educational programs, particularly in relation to identity, positioning, narratives, and efficacy.     

Individual differences and cross-situational consistency of dyadic social behavior

A new theoretical analysis of individual differences and cross-situational consistency of behavior is proposed. The authors hypothesized that the social behavior of mice (Mus musculus) is determined by individual differences among animals in behavior emitted (i.e., actor effects), in behavior elicited from social partners (partner effects), and by unique responses of one animal to another (relationship effects). Each effect represents a distinct facet of individual differences with different psychological meaning; likewise, the cross-situational consistency of each effect has a distinct psychological meaning. Individual differences in behavior emitted were observed, and these actor effects were consistent longitudinally. Individual differences in behavior elicited from social partners were observed, and these partner effects were also consistent longitudinally. Unique responses to specific social partners also determined behavior but were inconsistent longitudinally. The theoretical importance of reconceptualizing the concepts of individual differences and cross-situational consistency in behavior is discussed. ((c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved).     

Ubiquitous Personality-Trait Concepts in 13 Diverse and Isolated Languages: A Cluster–Classification Approach

There is longstanding interest in the generalizability of personality across diverse cultures. To investigate the generalizability of personality concepts, we examined the English translations of individual-difference entries from the dictionaries of 12 small-scale societies previously studied for ubiquity of individual differences plus the dictionary of an additional society not previously studied in this manner. These 13 societies are highly diverse in geographical location, culture, and language family; their languages developed in isolation from modern-world languages. The goal of our exploratory research was to discover ubiquitous personality concepts in these 13 independent societies and their languages, providing a window into personality concepts across a broad range of cultures and languages. This study used clusters of empirically related terms (e.g. brave, courageous, and daring), based on a taxonomy of English-language personality concepts that consisted of 100 personality-trait clusters. English-language definitions of dictionary entries from the 13 languages were matched to the meanings of the synonym clusters. The cluster–classification method uncovered nine ubiquitous personality concepts, plus six that were present in at least 12 of the 13 languages. The nine ubiquitous personality concepts include some not previously identified and suggest a core of possibly universal concepts. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology     

The Social Responsibility of Professional Societies

A consistent position for professional societies with respect to social and moral issues is difficult to forge. The most consistent position is that professional societies qua professional societies should avoid getting involved in any and all social or moral issues. Professional societies should be praised or blamed only on the basis of their success or failure to achieve their professional goals. If, however, we do think that professional societies deserve moral praise and blame with respect to broader moral issues, then the situation gets much more complicated. One contrast explored in this article is between scientific and philosophical societies getting involved in social and moral issues. A second contrast is between individual and group responsibility. If groups are to be praised or blamed, smaller well–integrated groups are the most likely candidates.     

The Idea of Moral Progress

This paper shows that moral progress is a substantive and plausible idea. Moral progress in belief involves deepening our grasp of existing moral concepts, while moral progress in practices involves realizing deepened moral understandings in behavior or social institutions. Moral insights could not be assimilated or widely disseminated if they involved devising and applying totally new moral concepts. Thus, it is argued, moral failures of past societies cannot be explained by appeal to ignorance of new moral ideas, but must be understood as resulting from refusals to subject social practices to critical scrutiny. Moral philosophy is not the main vehicle for disseminating morally progressive insights, though it has an important role in processes that lead to moral progress. Yet we have grounds for cautious optimism, since progressive moral insights can be disseminated and can, sometimes, have constructive social effects.     

God is watching you: priming God concepts increases prosocial behavior in an anonymous economic game

We present two studies aimed at resolving experimentally whether religion increases prosocial behavior in the anonymous dictator game. Subjects allocated more money to anonymous strangers when God concepts were implicitly activated than when neutral or no concepts were activated. This effect was at least as large as that obtained when concepts associated with secular moral institutions were primed. A trait measure of self-reported religiosity did not seem to be associated with prosocial behavior. We discuss different possible mechanisms that may underlie this effect, focusing on the hypotheses that the religious prime had an ideomotor effect on generosity or that it activated a felt presence of supernatural watchers. We then discuss implications for theories positing religion as a facilitator of the emergence of early large-scale societies of cooperators.     

Where Do Social Norms Come From?

ABSTRACT— Where do social norms come from? Part of the answer must surely lie in such norms' ability to support individual adaptive success in local ecologies. This theme is dominant in analyses of social behavior by economic game theorists and behavioral-ecology researchers, but it has been neglected by psychologists. An illustration of the methods and advantages of the adaptationist approach to understanding the emergence of social norms is provided. Some surprising behavioral results from modern industrial societies that reflect social-sharing norms of modern hunter-gatherer societies are consistent with our adaptive analysis.     

社会网络分析在心理研究中的应用

个体不是孤立存在的, 其心理与行为的变化常依赖于与他人存在的关系。社会网络分析正是考虑到了这种依赖性, 发展出相应的处理关系变量的方法。在介绍社会网络理论的中心思想、社会网络分析的基本概念、数据表示方法和研究方法以及在个体水平和关系水平上的静态统计模型后, 使用UCINET软件展现了处理关系数据的基本步骤, 并简述社会网络分析在人格心理学、发展与教育心理学和管理心理学中的应用。     

FORBIDDEN OR FORGIVEN?

This article describes a conceptual framework with which to study rape cross-societally. The model considers the powerful effects of social norms in condoning certain types of rape. It also distinguishes clearly between rape and sex by making the absence of female choice the fundamental factor in defining rape. Using this conceptual model as a guide, rape is examined in a random sample of 35 world societies. Rape is not a forbidden behavior; this research demonstrates the masking effects of social norms that tend to institutionalize rape within various social customs or rituals. The concept of a rape-free culture was not supported; rape was found in all the sample societies once the definition of rape was broadened to include socially condoned rapes. The presence of both normative (condoned) and nonnormative (uncondoned) rapes in a majority of the societies studied illustrates that rape is regulated rather than prohibited. Implications for defining and studying rape in the United States are discussed.     

Variations in subjective culture: A comparison of females and males in three settings

This article examines differences in subjective culture among three societies that vary in their extent of urbanization and differentiation and within these societies between females and males. David Bakan's agency-communion and Talcott Parsons' instrumental-expressive distinctions are used to capture both these ruralurban and male-female differences using data collected with Harry Triandis' antecedent-consequent method of studying subjective culture. Both between-society and within-society differences in subjective culture are found, although they occur independently of each other. Cross-cultural differences are stronger for concepts dealing with group life, and sex differences are stronger for concepts regarding individual actions and self-orientations. Specifications and extensions of existing theory, as well as directions for future research, are suggested.     

Sustainability in multi-religious societies: an Islamic perspective

The question of sustainability in multi-religious societies underscores interrelating theological, moral and cultural issues affecting the very process of social co-existence, cohesion and development. This article discusses Islam’s understanding of the question of sustainability in multi-religious contexts while highlighting the contribution of Islam’s spiritual, moral, and legal values to sustainability. This article sheds light on key Islamic concepts and core values related to sustainable development in multi-religious societies. The study of Islamic insights to sustainability offers valuable considerations for the understanding and amelioration of development in multi-religious or multi-cultural societies.     

Evolving Development: An Evolutionary Perspective on Development for an Interconnected World

The notion of development has been permeated by concepts and methods from positivistic science. As a result, many development initiatives are reductionistic, myopic, and with little or impact on the improvement of the quality of life and the sustainability of communities and societies. This article marks the beginning of a transdisciplinary inquiry among the authors, motivated by direct interest in the issue of development, per se, and in particular, Mexico's development. Our inquiry departs from and weaves together our various areas of expertise and experience, including: systems theory, general evolution theory, economic development, technology transfer, social innovation, sustainable development, environmental behavior, social systems design, and education. The article reviews the concept of development from an evolutionary and systemic perspective. It outlines the foundations of evolutionary development in terms of theory, philosophy, and methodology and provides a conceptual framework for future research aimed at the articulation of a practical model for evolutionary development.     

Nonconscious influences of religion on prosociality: a priming study

Past literature on the automaticity of social behavior indicates that priming a concept automatically activates related behavioral schemas. In the two present studies we examined the impact of religion on prosociality. In the first study, we tested the impact of subliminal priming of religious concepts on prosocial behavior intentions. We found a main effect of this priming, moderated by valence: prosocial behavior tendencies were stronger when positive religious words had previously been subliminally primed. In the second study, we examined the accessibility of prosocial concepts, after the supraliminal activation of religion. Indeed, we found that not only were religion‐related attributes more accessible when primed, but positive religious primes were also able to activate prosocial concepts. While previous research has shown the religion‐prosociality link at the explicit level and in terms of the role of individual religiousness, these results indicate that religious concepts by themselves can nonconsciously activate prosocial behavioral schemas. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social Representations of Human Rights Amongst Czech University Students

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a general legislative framework for democratic societies. Studying the social representations of these basic human rights helps to explain how people understand and assess the basic rights and how these rights relate to everyday life. Over 400 Czech university students rated the 30 articles of the Declaration of Human Rights on various scales (degree of understanding, personal relevance, consequences for individual responsibility, for government, political parties, etc.). A semantic space was identified in which concepts (i.e. the Articles of the Declaration) could be located. A typology (clusters) of articles was then established within that semantic space. A factor analysis of the scales resulted in a two-dimensional solution (‘positive attitude’ and ‘personal influence’). Five clusters of assessed articles were identified within this semantic space. (© 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)     

Japanese social structure and white collar crime: Recruit cosmos and beyond∗

While Japan is today an advanced industrial society, much like the advanced industrial societies of Europe and North America, there are significant cultural and social structural differences found in modem Japan. In this respect, as the first advanced industrial society in Asia, Japan provides us with an interesting test of many sociological theories and concepts which have been formed from the experiences of Western industrial societies. Beginning with the recent example of the Recruit stock scandal in Japan, the present paper will outline some of the important aspects of Japanese social structure, such as extensive group unity and vertical organization, which influence the nature of white collar crime in Japan's current political‐economy. From such an examination as this social scientists can better understand not only white collar crime in Japan, but also the nature of white collar crime in the United States.     

"Economic man" in cross-cultural perspective: behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies

Researchers from across the social sciences have found consistent deviations from the predictions of the canonical model of self-interest in hundreds of experiments from around the world. This research, however, cannot determine whether the uniformity results from universal patterns of human behavior or from the limited cultural variation available among the university students used in virtually all prior experimental work. To address this, we undertook a cross-cultural study of behavior in ultimatum, public goods, and dictator games in a range of small-scale societies exhibiting a wide variety of economic and cultural conditions. We found, first, that the canonical model - based on self-interest - fails in all of the societies studied. Second, our data reveal substantially more behavioral variability across social groups than has been found in previous research. Third, group-level differences in economic organization and the structure of social interactions explain a substantial portion of the behavioral variation across societies: the higher the degree of market integration and the higher the payoffs to cooperation in everyday life, the greater the level of prosociality expressed in experimental games. Fourth, the available individual-level economic and demographic variables do not consistently explain game behavior, either within or across groups. Fifth, in many cases experimental play appears to reflect the common interactional patterns of everyday life.     

Mechanisms underlying an ability to behave ethically

Cognitive neuroscientists have anticipated the union of neural and behavioral science with ethics (Gazzaniga 2005). The identification of an ethical rule--the dictum that we should treat others in the manner in which we would like to be treated--apparently widespread among human societies suggests a dependence on fundamental human brain mechanisms. Now, studies of neural and molecular mechanisms that underlie the feeling of fear suggest how this form of ethical behavior is produced. Counterintuitively, a new theory presented here states that it is actually a loss of social information that leads to sharing others' fears with our own, thus allowing us to treat others as we would like to be treated. Adding to that hypothetical mechanism is the well-studied predilection toward affiliative behaviors. Thus, even as Chomsky hypothesizes that humans are predisposed to utter grammatical sentences, we propose that humans are 'wired for reciprocity'. However, these two neural forces supporting ethical behavior do not explain individual or collective violence. At any given moment, the ability to produce behavior that obeys this ethical rule is proposed to depend on a balance between mechanisms for prosocial and antisocial behaviors. That balance results not only from genetic influences on temperament but also from environmental effects particularly during critical neonatal and pubertal periods.     

The Challenge of Authentic Behavior

The goal of authentic behavior is postulated as an important factor in greater understanding of man as well as in more effective utilization of his potential, particularly in interpersonal relationships. The purposes and criteria for authentic behavior are described. The philosophical and psychological origins of authentic behavior are examined with particular reference to existentialism and humanistic psychology. Suggestions are offered for individual attainment of more authentic behavior. The core concern is the need for seeking greater implicit awareness of experiencing by deriving more felt meaning from experiences that involve both feeling and events or concepts. Such an expanded awareness can lead to the discarding of perceptual distortions and a greater accord between man's nature and the being of the world itself. Emphasis is placed on the serious responsibility for decisions resulting from authentic conduct. Implications of authentic behavior for personal living, for professional functions and for social action are outlined.     

A cultural psychological analysis of cultural change

Life experience appears to be transforming in contemporary societies, with changes taking place in Asia being particularly substantial. There is strong public interest in understanding how these changes affect individual psyches. Scientific understanding of this issue, however, has not kept pace with change. Research findings from Western societies, the USA in particular, provide a model for understanding and predicting patterns of cultural change in Asia. However, the applicability of the model in this region requires critical examination. This article presents an overview of the available evidence in this research field, reviewing available psychological research that examines cultural change in the USA, China, Japan, and Australia. This paper's aim is to stimulate interest in this research area within the community of Asian social psychologists as our Asia‐based insights have much to contribute to the fundamental research question at stake, and the nature of the interplay between a changing social ecology, cultural environment, and participating psyches.