CARGOISM AND SCIENTIFIC JUSTIFICATION IN THE SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE

This article compares justifications of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) presented by scientists with ideational constructs associated with cargo cults in Melanesia. In focusing on similarities between cargoism and SETI, I argue that, understood in terms of cultural practice, aspects of the science of SETI have significant similarities to the religious elements that characterize cargoism. Through a focus on the construction of meanings, I consider how SETI and cargoism use similar signification systems to communicate meaning related to local social contexts and I draw a parallel with the religious and meaning structure of cargoism to show that SETI and cargoism employ similar strategies to justify beliefs. As a result, in some ways SETI represents a scientific framework that inhabits cultural and epistemological space that overlaps with religious space.     

文化心理学与人类学积极融合的新趋势

当前以文化心理学为代表的研究热潮被誉为是心理学发展中的第四个解释维度。这一热潮促进了多元化研究方法的发展,不仅加强了心理学实证研究的普遍性,而且提升了理论建构解释的力度和重要性。长期以来,心理学与人类学有着紧密的联系,文化心理学与人类学有着更密切的联姻。随着文化心理学与人类学的进一步积极融合,不仅为心理学的全球化发展带来了新契机,而且对于积极探索构建人类命运共同体的社会心理机制,实现心理学研究范式多样化的统一,具有重要的学理意义及现实针对性。     

Contextual Adaptation of the Unified Protocol for the Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders in Victims of the Armed Conflict in Colombia: A Case Study

The delivery of a contextually adapted version of the Unified Protocol for transdiagnostic treatment of emotional disorders is illustrated through a case study of an internally displaced female victim of armed conflict in Colombia. A detailed account of how her history of continuous traumatic events and her forced displacement resulted in multiple emotional disorders and behaviors which hindered her ability to react to daily stressors illustrates the particular conditions of individuals exposed to extreme violence. Emphasis is placed on how her culture and context required adaptations of evidence-based interventions. The contextually adapted UP (CXA-UP) is described in “slow-motion,” through a session-by-session account of the procedure along with the specific changes in each module. Outcome measures showed four positive diagnoses at pretreatment, but none at posttreatment, 3-month, or 2-year follow-up. Implications for global applications with individuals in similar contexts and for widening access to such interventions are discussed.     

团队文化多样性对团队创新的影响及作用机制

随着经济全球化和跨国企业的迅速发展, 越来越多的企业中开始出现具有多样性文化背景的团队。企业管理者期待具有不同文化背景的员工能在团队工作中贡献新的观点和视角, 从而促进团队创新。因此, 探讨团队文化多样性与团队创新之间的影响关系已成为近年来学术界和企业界共同关注的焦点问题。所以, 采用社会分类-信息加工的理论视角, 首先厘清团队文化多样性的理论框架, 并进一步检验团队文化多样性与团队创新之间的影响关系及内在机制; 并且, 分别从团队内部和团队外部因素出发, 探讨团队文化多样性与团队创新影响关系中的边界条件。在实践上, 研究结论也将为企业有效管理跨文化团队, 推动企业创新提供一定的理论指导。     

Hiding behind a mask? Cultural intelligence,knowledge hiding,and individual and team creativity

Culturally diverse colleagues can be valuable sources for stimulating creativity at work, yet only if they decide to share their knowledge. Drawing on the social exchange theory, we propose that cross-cultural interactions among individuals from different national backgrounds can act as a salient contingency in the relationship between knowledge hiding and creativity (individual and team). We further suggest, based on the social categorization theory (e.g., the categorization process of “us” against “them” based on national differences), that cultural intelligence enhances the likelihood of high-quality social exchanges between culturally diverse individuals and, therefore, remedies the otherwise negative relationship between individual knowledge hiding and individual creativity. Two studies using field and experimental data offer consistent support for this argument. First, a field study of 621 employees nested among 70 teams revealed that individual knowledge hiding is negatively related to individual creativity and that cultural intelligence moderates the relationship between knowledge hiding and creativity at an individual level. A quasi-experimental study of 104 international students nested in 24 teams replicated and extended these findings by implying that individual knowledge hiding is also negatively related to team creativity. We discuss the implications for practice and future research.     

Modernity and Postmodernity: The Characteristics of Postmodern Cultural Media

From the academic frontier of modernity and postmodernity,the author aims at exploring the fission between modernity and postmodernity and also the characteristics of postmodern cultural media from a philosophical vantage point.This paper illustrates three aspects of Western modernity:individual modernity,social modernity,and instrumental modernity,and it also clarifies the issues in modernity,starting by explaining three forms of the cultural fission:avant-garde,modernism,and postmodernism.The paper then demonstrates that the rise of postmodernity represents a new transformation and new characteristics of contemporary Westem spirit,namely,the collision and compatibility of various concepts,in which popular culture and high culture,mass culture and elite culture,fashion and games as well as noise and silence have constituted an uncanny landscape of cultural media.This eerie landscape displays the indeterminacy of language,culture,art,consciousness,and aesthetics.From the perspective of theoretical innovation,the author proposes that the postmodem cultural media always displays its commodity and instrumentality,plays and entertainment,anti-culture and anti-art,replication and fabrication logically and practically as an outcome of post-industrial society.In conclusion,three critical issues are addressed:personal spiritual belief,the development of mass culture,and aesthetic principles.The postmodem cultural media has deeply influenced traditional culture,aesthetics,and how they are evaluated,resulting in cultural conflicts and a humanistic dilemma in the world of contemporary capitalism.     

The Question of Cultural Change in the Social Scientific Study of Religion: Notes from the Emerging Church

This article explores how anthropological models of cultural change bolster the social scientific study of the Emerging Church movement. A distinction is drawn between market‐oriented approaches to change that measure institutional growth and decline and cultural‐oriented approaches that address broader effects on sociocultural systems. Emphasis is placed on models that emphasize change occurring internal to cultural systems and that recognize the co‐occurrence of cultural durability and transformation. This theoretical exploration is grounded in more than three years of ethnographic fieldwork conducted among Emerging evangelical communities in the midwestern United States.     

A Multilevel Model of Team Cultural Diversity and Creativity: The Role of Climate for Inclusion

We developed a multi‐level model to test how team cultural diversity may relate to team‐ and individual‐level creativity, integrating team diversity research and information‐exchange perspective. We proposed that the team climate for inclusion would moderate both the relationship between cultural diversity and team information sharing and between cultural diversity and employee information elaboration. We collected time‐lagged data from 384 members and their leaders within 57 multicultural work teams. The results showed that team cultural diversity was positively related to both team creativity and individual creativity through team information sharing and employee information elaboration, respectively. We also found that the indirect positive relationship with team creativity and individual creativity was stronger for team cultural diversity when climate for inclusion of multicultural work teams was stronger.     

Burnout among Finnish and Chinese university students

In this study the levels of experienced burnout of Finnish and Chinese university students are compared using School Burnout Inventory (SBI). This study is motivated by earlier studies, which suggest that the level of student burnout is different in the culturally distinct Finnish and Chinese university systems, but which are based on different research instruments for the two groups. The sample studied consisted of 3,035 Finnish students and 2,309 Chinese students. Because of the cross‐cultural nature of this study the level of structural equivalence of SBI between the cultural groups was examined and the effect of different response styles on the results was taken into account. Both standard and robust statistical methods were used for the analyses. The results showed that SBI with two extracted components is suitable for cross‐cultural analysis between Finnish and Chinese university students. Virtually no difference was found in experienced overall burnout between the Finnish and Chinese students, which means that both university systems contain factors causing similar levels of student burnout. This study also verified that controlling for the response styles is important in cross‐cultural studies as it was found to have a distinct effect on the results obtained from mean‐level comparisons.     

Essentialism in Social Representations of Citizenship: An Analysis of Greeks' and Migrants' Discourse

Following a Social Representations approach, the article examines the representations of citizenship held by both migrants and Greek citizens in Greece after the announcement of a heavily debated citizenship legislation. Essentialism, a way of representing social categories as holding an underlying essence that determines their characteristics, was used as an analytical tool to understand the inclusive or exclusive function of representations of citizenship towards migrants. Findings showed that Greeks construct representations based on ethnic, civic, and cultural ideas, while migrants construct representation of citizenship based on civic and cultural ideas. Essentialism was a way of constructing ethnic and cultural representations of citizenship and functioned in both exclusive and inclusive ways, but assimilatory terms accordingly. Civic and cultural representations of citizenship were constructed in nonessentialist ways and functioned in inclusive ways. However, from Greeks' perspective, civic inclusion was conditioned upon an often‐questioned legality of migrants and upon cultural assimilation terms. Studying both the content and the essentialist/nonessentialist formulation of representations of citizenship is an important tool in understanding the politics of inclusion and exclusion of citizens in the social arena.