How European is the European Journal of Developmental Psychology?

This paper tries to make clear why a European journal of developmental psychology makes sense. First it is explained that so-called European culture is a complicated matter: historically and culturally many fault lines are to be detected, from the borders of the Roman empire to the iron curtain. These fault lines separate different cultural areas within Europe.

Developmental thinking came into existence within the eighteenth century (Enlightenment), especially with the work of Rousseau, which offered the theoretical building blocks for Western education and for modern Piagetian developmental psychology. Empirical developmental research found its origins in Germany, especially in Jena, with the work of William Preyer. The Jena ideas were brought to the USA by Stanley Hall. And in the twentieth century the Rousseau–Piaget tradition was brought to the USA by John Flavell.

A European Society for Developmental Psychology and its flagship the European Journal of Developmental Psychology should devote itself to the study of the European roots of developmental psychology as well as contributing to European developmental psychology, which in an open, new Europe moves across the original fault lines.     

The octopus and the child—Another perspective on American culture: A commentary on Stearns

Stearns argues that, in the twentieth century, American parents increasingly treated their children as frail and vulnerable. But the parental protectiveness that he describes is only one part of the story. Some American parents did hover over their children; others ignored, neglected, or abused them. Some did shore up their suspect self-esteem; others trusted in their strength and sturdiness and even demanded a new toughness and competitiveness. American culture is more complicated and contested than Stearns allows.     

The cultural salience of moral character and virtue declined in twentieth century America

In a large corpus of American books, we tracked how frequently words related to moral excellence and virtue appeared over the twentieth century. Considering the well-established cultural trend in the USA toward greater individualism and its implications for the moral domain, we predicted that terms related to morality and virtue would appear with diminishing frequency in American books. Two studies supported our predictions: Study 1 showed a decline in the use of general moral terms such as virtue, decency and conscience, throughout the twentieth century. In Study 2, we examined the appearance frequency of 50 virtue words (e.g. honesty, patience, compassion) and found a significant decline for 74% of them. Overall, our findings suggest that during the twentieth century, moral ideals and virtues have largely waned from the public conversation.     

In defense of a regulated market economy

The dominant understanding of political corporate social responsibility (CSR) suggests new, broader political roles for businesses in the globalized economy, challenging the classical liberal social order (where business firms’ task is to focus on economic issues and the government's role is to take care of political responsibilities). In this paper, we show how the major framing of the political CSR discussion not only challenges the classical liberal social order but also goes against the more general political economic perspective of the regulated market economy (where strict and [in most cases] strong boundaries exist between business and politics). We argue that this latter tendency of the political CSR discussion is its main weakness. We introduce a Rawlsian reframing of political CSR that is in line with the idea of a global-regulated market economy and compatible with some of the basic global ethical aims of the political CSR movement.     

Explanations for cultural differences in thinking: Easterners’ dialectical thinking and Westerners’ linear thinking

ABSTRACT

Since Easterners’ naïve dialectical thinking, which is contrasted with Westerners’ linear thinking, was introduced, many cross-cultural studies on human thinking have been conducted, and explanations for the cultural differences have been proposed. First, after examining the robustness of these cultural differences, two existing explanations are discussed in this paper. The first is based on the discinction between Westerners' analytic cognition and Easterners' holistic cogntion. This is related to the distinction between Westerners’ independent self and Easterners’ interdependent self. The second is based on the philosophical tradition of China’s Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, which is contrasted with that of Ancient Greece. Second, we propose a new explanation based on the distinction between Westerners’ low-context culture and Easterners’ high-context culture (Beyond culture. Garden City, NJ: Anchor Books/Doubleday.). Finally, we show that this distinction can be based on socioecological approaches, and it is expected to explain the cultural differences between the Chinese and Japanese.     

A Defining Presidential Moment: 9/11 and the Rally Effect

Public approval ratings of George W. Bush surged after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. This study used a quasi–experimental, within–respondents design to investigate the relative contribution of five factors to this classic rally effect: the stimulus event itself, Bush's speech that evening, media exposure, partisan support, and gender effects. Respondents were pretested on the morning of the attacks; one group was posttested immediately after the speech, another group 41 hours later. Stability of effects was examined through an additional study of Bush's 20 September 2001 speech to a joint session of Congress. The findings indicate that Bush's 11 September speech was the critical factor in this rally effect; none of the other factors contributed significantly.     

Cognitive Skills as Predictor of Attitudes Toward Political Conflict: A Study of Polish Politicians

The relationship between cognitive development and attitudes toward a current political conflict was examined in a sample of 46 Polish politicians. This relationship was examined in a control group in a neutral condition and in an experimental group after participants were presented with a hostile attack on their position on the conflict. Politicians with less advanced cognitive skills tended to use competitive attitudes in both conditions. In contrast, those who possessed more advanced skills tended to use cooperative attitudes in the neutral situation; after the emotional attack, they tended to avoid further involvement in the conflict and sought to exit it. The key difference in participants' cognitive functioning was their ability to differentiate perspectives and to transcend their own point of view in the conflict.     

Authoritarianism and Political Impoverishment: Deficits in Knowledge and Civic Disinterest

Past research shows that authoritarian individuals hold strong opinions about a variety of political and social issues, such as race relations and military conflict. What has not been established, though, is the amount of general political knowledge that authoritarians possess. In this study, three groups of college students were administered Altemeyer's Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) scale; most of them also received items assessing general political knowledge and specific knowledge about the 2000 presidential election, as well as items assessing interest in politics. Relative to students with low RWA scores, those with high scores possessed less political knowledge; moreover, they expressed less interest in learning about politics. In general, authoritarianism was unrelated to how individuals got their political information or how credible they found their sources. The implication that authoritarians hold strong attitudinal beliefs with weak political knowledge is discussed.     

On the Boundary of Two Worlds: Lithuanian Philosophy in the Twentieth Century

Modern Lithuanian philosophy originated as aresponse to the questions formulated in Russianphilosophy – religious, moral, and social.Later it turned to Continental Europeanphilosophy, preoccupying itself with German andFrench existentialism, hermeneutics, andphenomenology. Yet the loss of independentpolitical and intellectual existence Lithuaniaexperienced for five decades isolated andmarginalized the then lively and promisingintellectual culture. In the 1980s, Lithuanianphilosophy started recovering and reorientingitself, again, to Western currents of moderntheoretical thought. Drawing on the example ofmodern Lithuanian philosophy, the articlepresents a detailed historical overview of whatmight be termed the East-Central European routeto political and cultural modernity.