Depth in Cultural Socialization in Families with Children Adopted from China

Parents raising children adopted from a different racial/ethnic group usually engage in cultural socialization—providing activities in adoptees’ birth culture—hoping to instill pride and help adoptees develop a positive identity. Adoptive parents engage in a wide variety of socialization activities, yet adult adoptees have reported not having deep enough exposure from their parents. The present study explored the depth of cultural socialization in transracial adoptive families. Informed by Pinderhughes' Ethnic‐Racial Socialization model, this study developed a continuum examining the depth in cultural socialization with three indicators: (1) the depth of cultural activities, (2) parents’ motivation for cultural socialization, and (3) parental cultural attitudes. Qualitative analyses of 41 White parents raising children adopted from China found that parents’ motivation and acknowledgement of cultural differences reflected deep appreciation of adoptees’ birth culture, however, activities they provided were not as deep. Activities that facilitated close relationships with people who shared adoptees’ background in a natural context appeared to provide the deepest cultural connection. Despite limitations, the study demonstrated that the depth continuum was able to capture variations and nuances in cultural socialization. Suggestions for future research and recommendation for practice were also included.     

建立儒家人文主义的学术传统:由文化“复建”到文化“复兴”

本文回顾了作者跟随杨国枢教授推动本土心理学的学术历程,并依据自己的切身体会,提出本土心理学运动必须以科学哲学作为基础。作者身体力行,在最近二三十年间,深入学习科学哲学的理论,逐步建立本土心理学的相关理论。其最终目标,是打算以儒家文化作为基底,吸纳西方近代文明的菁华,“中学为体,西学为用”,摆脱西方学术的宰制,建立“儒家人文主义”的自主学术传统。作者认为,唯有大力发展本土社会科学,建立华人“自主的社会科学传统”,华人学术社群才有可能走出“学术自我殖民”的心态。     

好友可信度与9~12岁儿童信任的关系及其发展

以361名9~12岁儿童为被试,采用同伴互评和同伴提名的方法考察了好友可信度与9~12岁儿童信任的关系,以及年龄在好友可信度与儿童信任关系上的调节效应。结果表明:总体而言,好友可信度对儿童信任有正向的预测作用。其次,年龄在好友可信度与儿童信任的关系上具有调节效应,随着年龄的增长,好友可信度对儿童信任的正向预测作用也随之增大。     

The Cultural Adaptation of a Community‐Based Child Maltreatment Prevention Initiative

A unique primary prevention effort, Strong Communities for Children (Strong Communities), focuses on changing attitudes and expectations regarding communities' collective responsibilities for the safety of children. Findings from a 6‐year pilot of the initiative in South Carolina have shown promise in reducing child maltreatment, but efforts to adapt the initiative to different cultural contexts have been lacking. No models exist for adapting an initiative that takes a community‐level approach to ensuring children's safety. Thus, this article addresses the gap by providing an overview of the original initiative, how the initiative was adapted to the Israeli context, and lessons learned from the experience. Building on conceptualizations of cultural adaptation by Castro et al. (Prevention Science, 5, 2004, 41) and Resnicow et al. (Ethnicity and Disease, 9, 1999, 11), sources of nonfit (i.e., sociodemographic traits, political conflict, government services, and the presence and role of community organizations) were identified and deep and surface structure modifications were made to the content and delivery. Ultimately, this article describes the adaption and dissemination of a community‐based child maltreatment prevention initiative in Tel Aviv, Israel, and addresses researchers' calls for more publications describing the adaptation of interventions and the procedures that need to be implemented to achieve cultural relevance.     

Living Conditions and Psychological Distress in Latino Migrant Day Laborers: The Role of Cultural and Community Protective Factors

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between typically difficult living conditions and psychological distress in Latino migrant day laborers (LMDLs), with attention to the potentially protective roles of contact with family in country of origin (i.e., communication, sending money, etc.), availability of local culture (i.e., food, music, people from one's country of origin), and utilization of community resources perceived to be culturally competent (i.e., services that are respectful, able to serve Latinos, able to solve problems, in Spanish, etc.). Participants were 344 LMDLs surveyed in the San Francisco Bay Area. As hypothesized: (a) difficult living conditions were related to depression, anxiety, and desesperación [desperation], the latter a popular Latino idiom of psychological distress recently validated on LMDLs; (b) contact with family moderated the relation between difficult living conditions and depression and desesperación but not anxiety and (c) access to local culture, and utilization of community resources, mediated the relation between difficult living conditions and depression and desesperación but not anxiety. Implications for intervening at local and larger levels in order to provide some protection against distress built into the LMDL experience in the United States are discussed.     

Identity motives and cultural priming: Cultural (dis)identification in assimilative and contrastive responses

The present article explores whether effects of cultural primes are influenced by identity motives as well as by construct accessibility. The authors hypothesized that assimilative responses (shifting one’s judgments toward the norm of the primed culture) are driven by identification motives, whereas contrastive responses (shifting away from this norm) are driven by disidentification motives. Evidence for this claim was attained in reanalyzes of past data sets and a new study of Chinese American biculturals, using improved measures of identification and disidentification motives. Consistent with the identity-motive hypotheses, assimilative responses to American-culture primes occurred for high (but not low) identifiers with American culture, and contrastive responses to Chinese-culture primes occurred for high (but not low) disidentifiers with Chinese culture. Results disconfirmed an alternative account predicting that contrast effects hinge on trait self-consciousness. Consistent with an accessibility saturation account, judgment patterns already heightened in accessibility by the task structure were not made more likely by priming.     

Prediction and Cross-Situational Consistency of Daily Behavior across Cultures: Testing Trait and Cultural Psychology Perspectives

Trait and cultural psychology perspectives on the cross-situational consistency of behavior, and the predictive validity of traits, were tested in a daily process study in the United States (N = 68), an individualistic culture, and the Philippines (N = 80), a collectivistic culture. Participants completed the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1992) and a measure of self-monitoring, then reported their daily behaviors and associated situational contexts for approximately 30 days. Consistent with trait perspectives, the Big Five traits predicted daily behaviors in both cultures, and relative (interindividual) consistency was observed across many, although not all, situational contexts. The frequency of various Big Five behaviors varied across relevant situational contexts in both cultures and, consistent with cultural psychology perspectives, there was a tendency for Filipinos to exhibit greater situational variability than Americans. Self-monitoring showed some ability to account for individual differences in situational variability in the American sample, but not the Filipino sample.     

Comprehension of human pointing gestures in young human-reared wolves (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Canis lupus</Emphasis>) and dogs (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Canis familiaris</Emphasis>)

Dogs have a remarkable skill to use human-given cues in object-choice tasks, but little is known to what extent their closest wild-living relative, the wolf can achieve this performance. In Study 1, we compared wolf and dog pups hand-reared individually and pet dogs of the same age in their readiness to form eye-contact with a human experimenter in an object-choice task and to follow her pointing gesture. The results showed that dogs already at 4 months of age use momentary distal pointing to find hidden food even without intensive early socialization. Wolf pups, on the contrary, do not attend to this subtle pointing. Accordingly in Studies 2 and 3, these wolves were tested longitudinally with this and four other (easier) human-given cues. This revealed that wolves socialized at a comparable level to dogs are able to use simple human-given cues spontaneously if the human’s hand is close to the baited container (e.g. touching, proximal pointing). Study 4 showed that wolves can follow also momentary distal pointing similarly to dogs if they have received extensive formal training. Comparing the wolves to naïve pet dogs of the same age revealed that during several months of formal training wolves can reach the level of dogs in their success of following momentary distal pointing in parallel with improving their readiness to form eye-contact with a human experimenter. We assume that the high variability in the wolves’ communicative behaviour might have provided a basis for selection during the course of domestication of the dog.     

Research Ethics in Japanese Higher Education: Faculty Attitudes and Cultural Mediation

Principles of research ethics, derived largely from Western philosophical thought, are spreading across the world of higher education. Since 2006 the Japanese Ministry of Education has required universities in Japan to establish codes of ethical conduct and ensure that procedures are in place to punish research misconduct. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 13 academics in a research-intensive university in Japan, this paper considers how research ethics is interpreted in relation to their own practice. Interviewees articulated a range of ethical issues connected with data gathering and interpretation, applying for and using research funds, relationships with peers and research subjects, and the dissemination of results. The paper also explores the effect of personal values and cultural norms on the Japanese interpretation of research ethics identifying the impact in terms of the treatment of graduate research students and decision-making processes.