Cultural worldviews and climate change: A view from China

We investigated the association between cultural worldviews and climate change risk perceptions, support for climate friendly policies and climate change mitigation behaviours in a large Chinese sample. Items from Dake's cultural theory scales and Kahan's cultural cognition scale were presented to a Qualtrics online panel consisting of 515 Mandarin‐speaking residents of Beijing. A series of factor analyses revealed that the combined item sets were best represented by four‐dimensions: hierarchism, individualism, egalitarianism and fatalism. Mediation analysis revealed that respondents with egalitarian and non‐fatalist worldviews perceived greater risk associated with climate change, which in turn predicted greater support for policies to manage climate change and increased mitigation behaviour. In addition, respondents who scored high on individualism were less likely to support climate change policies, but this effect was not mediated by risk perceptions. Overall, our results suggest cultural worldviews may influence policy support both directly and indirectly through risk perceptions.     

The role of traffic law enforcements in the relationship between cultural variables and traffic fatality rates across some countries of the world

The aims of the present study were to investigate whether cultural variables are related to law enforcements as well as traffic fatality rates and to examine the role of law enforcements of five risk factors for road safety (i.e., national speed law, national drink-driving law, national motorcycle helmet law, national seat-belt law, and national child restraint law) in the relationship between cultural variables and traffic fatality rates across countries of the world. The aggregated data of the study included Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, Schwartz’s value dimensions, law enforcements of five risk factors for road safety, gross national income per capita, and traffic fatality rates for 97 countries of the world. The results showed that most of the cultural variables were associated with law enforcements of five risk factors for road safety and traffic fatality rates of countries. By bootstrapping, among Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, it was found that the indirect effects of long-term orientation (LTO) on fatality rates (FR) through speed, helmet, and child restraint enforcements were significant, separately. Among Schwartz’s value dimensions, the indirect effects of embeddedness on fatality rates through speed and child restraint enforcements were significant, separately. Intellectual autonomy had also significant indirect effects on fatality rates via speed and child restraint enforcements, separately. Finally, it was found that the indirect effects of affective autonomy on fatality rates through speed and helmet enforcements were significant, separately.     

Children's and Mothers' Contribution to Joint Reminiscing in Different Sociocultural Contexts: Who Speaks and What is Said

The study compares mothers' conversation with their 4‐year‐old children about two past events in two autonomy‐oriented (35 German and 42 Swedish families), one relatedness‐oriented (22 Cameroonian Nso families) and one autonomy‐relatedness oriented (38 Estonian families) contexts. German mothers were rather similar to Swedish mothers in talking a lot, providing a lot of information and engaging children into conversation, but they differed from Swedish mothers by talking more about social content. Swedish children were more independent conversational partners to their mothers than other children, including German children. Estonian mothers' contribution to conversation was similar to Cameroonian Nso mothers, except that they asked a lot of open‐ended questions to engage children in conversations. Estonian children did not differ from Swedish and German children in their contribution to conversations. Compared to Swedish mothers, past event talk of Estonian mothers was characterized by a bigger proportion of talk devoted to social content, but also to the child, mental states and non‐social content. It was characteristic of Cameroonian Nso mothers that they focused more on other people and actions, and their conversational dominance was larger. Differences in reminiscing were consistent with different cultural models of self and the type of autonomy – psychological or action – promoted. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reverse-engineering ‘esotericism': how to prepare a complex cultural concept for the cognitive science of religion

The article introduces a framework for preparing complex cultural concepts for the cognitive science of religion (CSR) and applies it to the field of Western esotericism. The research process (‘reverse engineering') rests on a building block approach that, after problematic categories have been deconstructed, seeks to reconstruct new scholarly objects in generic terms that can be operationalized in interdisciplinary contexts like CSR. A four-step research process is delineated, illustrated by a short discussion of previous work on ‘Gnosticism,' ‘magic,' and ‘religion,' before applying it to ‘esotericism.' It is suggested that the implicit scholarly objects of esotericism scholarship can be reconstituted in generic terms as concerned with processes of creating and disseminating ‘special knowledge.' Five definitional clusters are identified in the literature; these provide a basis for formulating research programs on the psychological and cognitive level, drawing on metarepresentational processes, event cognition, and psychological dispositions for altering experience.     

Lang,S. K. W. and Gardiner,B. D. (2014). As they like it – culture-centred counsellor education in the context of Aotearoa New Zealand: A play on bicultural pluralism. British Journal of Guidance and Counselling, 42 (1), 73–85. doi.org./10.1080/03069885.2013.824949

In their article, Lang and Gardiner draw support from the Treaty of Waitangi to deconstruct cultural dominance and reconstruct a framework, which promotes bicultural pluralism in the new counsellor education programme at the Massey University. However, they omit significant details of the Treaty and therefore mislead the audience to think that the Treaty has always served its purpose to protect Māori and the colonisers all the time. They develop a new counselling framework ‘ARC?=?Attend Reflect Collaborate’ which merely describes what has happened or what should have happened in counselling. It fails to address the need to raise a counsellor's awareness of his or her own cultural identity and understanding of the worldview of a culturally different client before counselling starts.     

Relational‐Cultural Theory: Fostering the Growth of a Paradigm Through Empirical Research

This study identified empirical literature supporting relational‐cultural theory (RCT) for explaining experiences of individuals, assessing theoretical constructs, and providing an effective treatment option. A systematic review of available literature revealed that (a) RCT was a useful framework for understanding client experiences, (b) there is considerable support for the psychometric validation of RCT constructs, and (c) support for RCT interventions is currently limited. Limitations of studies reviewed, recommendations for future research, and implications for counselors are provided.     

Expressing the Nature and Meaning of DNA: Six Books for Teachers and Students

DNA is an important agent not only in chemistry and biology but also in technology and modern culture. A number of books approach the double helix from different angles. These perspectives include (1) the science of DNA and genetics; (2) genetic engineering; (3) the ethics of manipulating genetic material; and (4) DNA in culture and religion. Various views of DNAprovide insights into human nature beyond its molecular composition.     

心理学视野下的社会变迁研究：研究设计与分析方法

近年来,社会变迁导致的文化、心理与行为变化及其相互建构已经成为心理学的研究热点。社会变迁研究通常涉及和变迁相关的时间效应、时代效应以及和变迁无关的年龄效应。在考察变迁趋势及其影响因素时,常用的研究设计有跨时间比较、跨代际比较、跨地区比较(历史重构)等方法;常用的分析方法有传统的相关和回归分析和现代的时间序列分析(比如交叉滞后相关和格兰杰因果检验)等。由于每一种设计都有其优点和不足,在具体研究中,研究者要根据研究的问题和可操作性选择合适的方法;如果可能,最好同时采用多种方法,以寻求基于不同方法的聚合证据。     

Making sense of mentoring or mentoring making sense? Reflections on the mentoring process by adult mentors with young people†

This paper sets out to look at the processes of mentoring from the perspectives of adult mentors who were interviewed as part of a wider study of young people's perceptions and understandings of informal mentoring processes. It seeks to clarify the processes of mentoring within the context of the ‘risk society’ by posing the question, how do young people and mentors perceive these processes? What do mentors get out of the mentoring relationship? Findings from a qualitative study of informal mentoring relationships are drawn on to suggest that the mentors perceive the experience of being identified as a mentor and the processes of mentoring in highly positive terms. It is argued that this provides a form of ‘cultural capital for mentors’ in helping them to make sense of the challenges and dilemmas they face as adults. It is concluded that this finding has important implications for the design of mentoring interventions with young people. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.