Causal attribution across cultures: Variation and universality.

Growing cross cultural evidence suggests that East Asians are less likely to show the correspondence bias, or a preference for explanations of behavior in terms of traits, dispositions, or other internal attributes of the target. The scope of this evidence spans several research paradigms and diverse methodologies. The cultural difference, however, appears not to be caused by an absence of dispositional thinking in East Asian cultures. Indeed, extensive ethnographic and psychological data indicate that "dispositionism" is a cross-culturally widespread mode of thinking, although East Asians believe dispositions to be more malleable and have a more holistic conception of the person as being situated in a broad social context. The East–West split in attribution thus originates primarily from a stronger "situationism" or belief in the importance of the context of behavior in East Asia. Consequently, East Asians are more likely than Westerners to avoid the correspondence bias as long as situational constraints are salient. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive arithmetic across cultures.

Canadian university students either of Chinese origin (CC) or non-Asian origin (NAC) and Chinese university students educated in Asia (AC) solved simple-arithmetic problems in the 4 basic operations (e.g., 3?+?4, 7?–?3, 3?×?4, 12?÷?3) and reported their solution strategies. They also completed a standardized test of more complex multistep arithmetic. For complex arithmetic, ACs outperformed both CCs and NACs. For simple arithmetic, however, ACs and CCs were equal and both performed better than NACs. The superior simple-arithmetic skills of CCs relative to NACs implies that extracurricular culture-specific factors rather than differences in formal education explain the simple-arithmetic advantage for Chinese relative to non-Asian North American adults. NAC's relatively poor simple-arithmetic performance resulted both from less efficient retrieval skills and greater use of procedural strategies. Nonetheless, all 3 groups reported using procedures for the larger simple subtraction and division problems, confirming the importance of procedural knowledge in skilled adults' performance of elementary mathematics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Concurrent and predictive validity of the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth version across gender and ethnicity.

The concurrent and predictive validity of the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV) were examined across gender and ethnicity using multiple outcome measures on a community-based sample of 130 adjudicated youths. The PCL:YV demonstrated concurrent validity with externalizing behavior problems but, it is important to note, was also associated with internalizing measures of negative affect. With a mean follow-up period of 3 years, the PCL:YV was found to predict general and violent recidivism in male, Native Canadian, and Caucasian youths. However, the PCL:YV demonstrated weaker concurrent and predictive validity with girls and failed to predict nonviolent recidivism in all subgroups. Implications of the findings for clinical practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Traits across cultures: A neo-Allportian perspective.

Since the inception of the psychology of personality, psychologists have been trying to account for regularities in behavior. The preferred construct has been the personality trait as an inner disposition that directs conduct and which is common to all people. Although found lacking during the 1970s, the search for sources of direction from within has been resurrected in the form of the five-factor theory. According to this approach there are five underling structural factors common to all people and independent of cultural influences—an asocial, ahistorical, biologically based conception. Examination of the theory finds it to be dealing with traits of temperament rather than personality and judges it insufficient on that basis. Rather than conceiving of personality as fixed and universal, it is argued that personality is an adaptation worked out in the cultural and historical context of the individual life. It is further contended that a reconsideration of the personality theory of Gordon Allport will provide a better basis for understanding personality and personality traits specifically. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Communicating across cultures: Social determinants and acculturative consequences.

Past research has consistently documented the relations between interethnic contact, language behavior, and identity on the one hand, and the relations between interethnic contact and psychological adjustment on the other. This study combines these 2 lines of research through a consideration of the influence of ethnolinguistic vitality on these variables' interrelations. The participants included 285 English-Canadian and 243 French-Canadian students at a bilingual university who originated from high and low ethnolinguistic vitality contexts. The results of analyses of variance showed that vitality and native language group membership influenced the extent of ethnic identification, interethnic contact, and self-confidence in the 2nd language, but did not affect the levels of psychological adjustment. Path analyses supported a model in which linguistic self-confidence mediated the relations between interethnic contact and identity and adjustment, although the patterns of relations differed depending upon the vitality of the group. It is suggested that 1 reason why ethnolinguistic vitality is an important moderator of cross-cultural adaptation is because it implies group differences in the experience of interethnic contact and linguistic self-confidence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Polling the face: Prediction and consensus across cultures.

Previous work has shown that individuals agree across cultures on the traits that they infer from faces. Previous work has also shown that inferences from faces can be predictive of important outcomes within cultures. The current research merges these two lines of work. In a series of cross-cultural studies, the authors asked American and Japanese participants to provide na?ve inferences of traits from the faces of U.S. political candidates (Studies 1 and 3) and Japanese political candidates (Studies 2 and 4). Perceivers showed high agreement in their ratings of the faces, regardless of culture, and both sets of judgments were predictive of an important ecological outcome (the percentage of votes that each candidate received in the actual election). The traits predicting electoral success differed, however, depending on the targets’ culture. Thus, when American and Japanese participants were asked to provide explicit inferences of how likely each candidate would be to win an election (Studies 3–4), judgments were predictive only for same-culture candidates. Attempts to infer the electoral success for the foreign culture showed evidence of self-projection. Therefore, perceivers can reliably infer predictive information from faces but require knowledge about the target’s culture to make these predictions accurately. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality structure across cultures: A multimethod evaluation.

Personality structure was assessed in 4 countries (Canada, Finland, Poland, and Germany) using both an established verbal personality inventory and a new nonverbal personality questionnaire. A 5-factor structure was found to be highly robust in that it was replicated across the 4 cultures and across the 2 personality assessment methods. The data are discussed in terms of (1) the failure to support a semantic similarity interpretation of personality item responses, (2) the factorial validity of the new nonverbal personality questionnaire, and (3) the viability of the popular 5-factor model of personality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychopathy and punishment.

An experiment to test the hypothesis that psychopathy is associated with deficient passive avoidance learning under punishment. 75 High Pd and 75 Low Pd female undergraduates, equated for intelligence, learned a list of 10 nonsense syllables under 1 of 3 conditions of reinforcement: verbal reward, verbal punishment, and absence of comment by E. Punishment significantly retarded the learning of Low Pd Ss, but not that of High Pd Ss. No significant differences occurred under reward or neutral conditions. The hypothesis was considered confirmed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychopathy and lateral preference.

Administered a self-report questionnaire to measure lateral preferences (hand, foot, eye, and ear) in 258 male prison inmates (mean age 29.8 yrs) divided into high, medium, and low psychopathy groups on the basis of a 22-item psychopathy checklist. As a group, Ss displayed much the same pattern of lateral preferences as did a normative group of 1,211 male noncriminals described by C. Porac and S. Coren (1981), with the exception that criminals were more likely to be right-side dominant than were noncriminals. The inmate groups did not differ from one another on any of the lateral preference measures, although there was a tendency for the incidence of consistent left-handedness to be higher in the medium than in the high or low psychopathy groups. Lateral preferences were unrelated to type or severity of criminal history or aggressive and violent behavior. Results conflict with models that attempt to use evidence of sinistrality as a basis for global inferences about cerebral dominance and dysfunction in delinquency, criminality, and psychopathy. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychopathy and autonomic conditioning.

Utilized a delayed, differential paradigm to investigate electrodermal, cardiac, and vasomotor conditioning in 18 psychopathic, 18 nonpsychopathic, and 18 "mixed" inmates. 3 tones, each 10 sec. long, were presented 16 times each in random order, alone, or followed by a shock or slide of a nude female. The psychopaths gave very little evidence of differential electrodermal conditioning. However, they acquired differential cardiac and digital vasomotor responses just as readily as did the nonpsychopaths to the CS followed by shock or by slides. Neither group gave any evidence of differential cephalic vasomotor conditioning. The psychopaths exhibited a lower level of tonic electrodermal activity and were less electrodermally responsive than were the other Ss. There were no differences between groups in tonic heart rate or in cardiac or digital vasomotor responsivity. However, the psychopaths responded to shock with cephalic vasodilation while the nonpsychopaths responded with vasoconstriction. (34 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychopathy and violent crime.

Examined the relations between psychopathy, violence, and impulsiveness of criminal behavior within a White prisoner sample of 76 Ss, using level of intelligence as a moderator variable. Prisoners were given the MMPI, the California Psychological Inventory, the Wide Range Achievement Test, and the IPAT Culture Free Intelligence Test (Scale 2). Unlike most prior research, psychopathy was found to be predictive of violence but only for less intelligent criminals; about 90% of this group had committed a violent crime compared to 58% for the remainder of the sample. Similarly, the psychopaths with limited intelligence evidenced the greatest impulsivity in the commission of their crimes relative to bright psychopaths or nonpsychopathic criminals at either level of intelligence. The implications of the findings for the importance of moderating cognitive variables in personality predictions are discussed. (45 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality traits across cultures and research on obedience.

Comments on an article by Twenge (see record 2008-19206-004) on the issue of psychological traits that may differ with culture and ethnicity in discussing the partial replication of Milgram’s obedience research (Burger, January 2009) (see record 2008-19206-001). But since a major stimulus for Milgram’s research was the destruction of European Jewry (Benjamin & Simpson, January 2009 (see record 2008-19206-002); Blass, 2009 (see record 2008-19206-006)), what about the “elephant in the room” of differences in European national groups on obedience, aggression, locus of control, and related factors? The five-factor model as applied across cultures offers a way of looking at European national differences in personality (Allik & McCrae, 2004). The results can be used to explore the possibility that personality traits that may be related to obedience might differ partly along cultural lines, with the considerable caveats that such traits probably change over time and generations, are subject to situational and historical variables, and interact with individual differences. The emphasis on situational determinants in discussions of the Milgram paradigm and its partial replication by Burger (2009) should not obscure possible cultural factors. Cultural factors in obedience to authority are worthy of further exploration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychopathy and suicide: A multisample investigation.

Evidence suggests that behavioral aspects of psychopathy are associated with suicidal behavior, whereas the affective and interpersonal aspects are not. The authors tested the robustness of this bifurcated association across 1,711 persons and 12 samples of adult and juvenile criminal offenders, forensic psychiatric patients, and civil psychiatric patients. The authors observed a small but significant partial correlation (.13) between the behavioral/impulsive lifestyle features of psychopathy and suicidality, but no effect for affective/interpersonal features. Several method and sample features (mental disorder; psychopathy and suicidality measurement format) significantly strengthened or weakened this association. The authors conclude that it is not possible to speak of "the" association between psychopathy and suicide, but that this relationship appears to be partially dependent on methodological (i.e., self-report vs. clinician-administered psychopathy measures) and sample composition (i.e., age; mental illness) factors. Recommendations for practice are provided, including that clinicians should not consider psychopathy a buffer against suicidal behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Vehicle production in North America declines.

According to Ward's Reports, vehicle production in North America — the US, Canada and Mexico — through the first week in September slipped 4.1 per cent off 2002's pace. The estimated production total is 11,107,011 vehicles. US production is off by 3.5 per cent to an estimated 8,172,266 units and Canada is down 5.1 per cent to 1,756,351 units.This is a short news story only. Visit www.metal-powder.net for the latest powder metallurgy industry news.     

Nursing across cultures: the Vietnamese client

Asian Americans are the most rapidly growing immigrant group in the United States today. Home care nurses will be caring for increasing numbers of patients originating from the Southeast Asian peninsula in the countries of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. A Vietnamese case study explores some of the beliefs, values, and practices held by this group of Asian Americans. The case study highlights the problems that can occur when a nurse is unaware of the impact that culture has on a client from a different ethnic and cultural background. Six steps to provide culturally competent care are outlined.     

Comparative analysis of goal-setting strategies across cultures.

Only a few studies that have examined the effects of participation on an individual's goal acceptance and performance have been conducted within a cross-cultural context. In the present study, we tested for the contingency between the effectiveness of goal-setting strategies and cultural values. We examined three goal-setting strategies within three different cultural groups—assigned goals, goals participatively set by a group representative and the experimenter, and goals participatively set by a group. The three cultural groups studied were U.S. students (n?=?60), individualistic and having a high power distance; Israeli students from urban areas (n?=?60), collectivistic and having a low power distance; and Israeli students from kibbutzim (n?=?60), highly collectivistic and having a low power distance. Results indicated that participative strategies led to higher levels of goal acceptance and performance than the assigned strategy. Culture did not moderate the effect of goal-setting strategies on goal acceptance, but it appeared to moderate the strategy on performance for extremely difficult goals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conversing across cultures: East-West communication styles in work and nonwork contexts.

Four experiments provided evidence that East-West differences in attention to indirect meaning are more pronounced in work settings compared with nonwork settings as suggested by prior research on Protestant relational ideology. Study 1 compared errors in interpreting indirect messages in work and nonwork contexts across three cultures. Studies 2 and 3 examined differences in self-reported indirectness with coworkers versus nonwork acquaintances across three cultures controlling for variation in individualism- collectivism. Study 4 examined self-reported indirectness in bicultural managers, and experimentally manipulated the salience of Western versus Eastern culture. The results showed that Americans, but not East Asians, were less attentive to indirect cues in work than nonwork settings and that East-West differences in indirectness were greater in work than nonwork settings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender differences in personality traits across cultures: Robust and surprising findings.

Secondary analyses of Revised NEO Personality inventory data from 26 cultures (N =23,031) suggest that gender differences are small relative to individual variation within genders; differences are replicated across cultures for both college-age and adult samples, and differences are broadly consistent with gender stereotypes: Women reported themselves to be higher in Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Warmth, and Openness to Feelings, whereas men were higher in Assertiveness and Openness to Ideas. Contrary to predictions from evolutionary theory, the magnitude of gender differences varied across cultures. Contrary to predictions from the social role model, gender differences were most pronounced in European and American cultures in which traditional sex roles are minimized. Possible explanations for this surprising finding are discussed, including the attribution of masculine and feminine behaviors to roles rather than traits in traditional cultures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Validity problems comparing values across cultures and possible solutions.

The authors argue that commonly used ranking and rating methods of value surveys may have low validity in cross-cultural value comparisons because participants' reports about values can be affected by factors such as cultural differences in the meaning of particular value terms as well as the possibility that some value judgments are based on social comparison or deprivation rather than on any "direct reading" of personal preferences. Four different value survey methods—ranking, rating, attitude scale, and behavioral scenario methods—were compared. It was found that ranking and rating methods of assessing differences between Chinese and Americans had low convergence with each other and with the criterion of cultural experts' independent judgments. Attitude questions had slight and nonsignificant convergence with the expert judgment criterion. A scenario method of value assessment, however, yielded reasonable criterion validity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)