Pancultural self-enhancement.

The culture movement challenged the universality of the self-enhancement motive by proposing that the motive is pervasive in individualistic cultures (the West) but absent in collectivistic cultures (the East). The present research posited that Westerners and Easterners use different tactics to achieve the same goal: positive self-regard. Study 1 tested participants from differing cultural backgrounds (the United States vs. Japan), and Study 2 tested participants of differing self-construals (independent vs. interdependent). Americans and independents self-enhanced on individualistic attributes, whereas Japanese and interdependents self-enhanced on collectivistic attributes. Independents regarded individualistic attributes, whereas interdependents regarded collectivistic attributes, as personally important. Attribute importance mediated self-enhancement. Regardless of cultural background or self-construal, people self-enhance on personally important dimensions. Self-enhancement is a universal human motive. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Behaviour of quantity surveyors as organizational citizens

Understanding the individual's collectivistic orientations toward group goals and task activities is critical for developing cooperative and productive teams. The complex environment of modern construction, where the emphasis shifts from individually oriented to team‐based work, has led to many challenges. There are important issues of cooperative behaviours in a world of cultural pluralism in which interpersonal cooperation is juxtaposed with organizational citizenship behaviour. Behaviours of construction project participants are important manifestations of culture that are dependent upon norms, values and beliefs. Certain organizational cultures support individualistic behaviours while others emphasize the benefits to the collective whole. Collectivistic orientation is examined as the cultural dimension of individualism‐collectivism (IC) and found to be related to organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) where the correlations of IC and most OCB variables are significant for quantity surveyors in Hong Kong. Generally, the (more) individualistic persons are less likely to exhibit organizational citizenship behaviours.     

Wearing the cloak: Antecedents and consequences of creating facades of conformity.

This study examines a select set of relationships proposed in P. F. Hewlin’s (2003) conceptual model of antecedents and consequences of creating facades of conformity. Results from a survey study of 238 employees working in multiple industries indicate that perceived nonparticipative work environments, minority status, self-monitoring, and collectivism are related to creating facades of conformity. Emotional exhaustion serves as a mediator between creating facades of conformity and members’ intention to leave the organization. Collectivism moderates the relationship between emotional exhaustion and intention to leave. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does ‘cyber-conformity’ vary cross-culturally? Exploring the effect of culture and communication medium on social conformity

Previous research has established that individuals from collectivistic cultures tend to conform more than their counterparts from individualistic cultures do [Bond, R., & Smith, P.B. (1996). Culture and conformity: A meta-analysis of studies using Asch’s (1952b, 1956) line judgment task. Psychological Bulletin 119(1) 111–137]. However, there is presently a dearth of research exploring the degree to which this kind of cross-cultural difference is also present in computer-mediated communication (CMC) contexts where group members are never met face-to-face (f-t-f). A normative social influence paradigm of line-length judgment (based on Asch [Asch, S.E., (1955). Opinions and social pressure. Scientific American 193(5) 31–35]) was employed to investigate the effects of communication medium (f-t-f against CMC) and culture (participants from individualistic cultures against those from collectivist cultures). A communication type × culture interaction was found, in which the expected cultural differences were demonstrated only in the face-to-face conditions, being absent in computer-mediated conditions.     

GENETIC ALGORITHM APPLICATION TO THE STANDARD ARABIC PHONEMES CLASSIFICATION

The goal of this article is the application of genetic algorithms (GAs) to the automatic speech recognition (ASR) domain at the acoustic sequences classification level. Speech recognition has been cast as a pattern classification problem where we would like to classify an input acoustic signal into one of all possible phonemes. Also, the supervised classification has been formulated as a function optimization problem. Thus, we have attempted to recognize Standard Arabic (SA) phonemes of continuous, naturally spoken speech by using GAs, which have several advantages in resolving complicated optimization problems. In SA, there are 40 sounds. We have analyzed a corpus that contains several sentences composed of the whole SA phoneme types in the initial, medium, and final positions, recorded by several male speakers. Furthermore, the acoustic segments classification and the GAs have been explored. Among a set of classifiers such as Bayesian, likelihood, and distance classifier, we have used the distance classifier. It is based on the classification measure criterion. Therefore, we have used the decision rule Manhattan distance as the fitness functions for our GA evaluations. The corpus phonemes were extracted and classified successfully with an overall accuracy of 90.20%.     

Cultural psychology, a new look: Reply to Bond (2002), Fiske (2002), Kitayama (2002), and Miller (2002).

M. H. Bond (2002) (see record 2002-00183-002), A. P. Fiske (2002) (see record 2002-00183-003), S. Kitayama (2002) (see record 2002-00183-004), and J. G. Miller (2002) (see record 2002-00183-005) joined D. Oyserman, H. M. Coon, and M. Kemmelmeier (2002) (see record 2002-00183-001) in highlighting limitations of the individualism-collectivism model of culture. Concern is warranted; nevertheless, individualism-collectivism helps structure discourse on the influence of culture on the mind. To avoid level-of-analysis entanglements, Oyserman et al propose an integrative model that includes distal, proximal, and situated cultural features of societies and internalized models of these features, highlights the importance of subjective construal, and uses evolutionary perspectives to clarify the basic problems cultures address. Framed this way, it is clear that, depending on situational requirements, both individualism- and collectivism-focused strategies are adaptive; thus, it is likely that human minds have adapted to think both ways. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological collectivism: A measurement validation and linkage to group member performance.

The 3 studies presented here introduce a new measure of the individual-difference form of collectivism. Psychological collectivism is conceptualized as a multidimensional construct with the following 5 facets: preference for in-groups, reliance on in-groups, concern for in-groups, acceptance of in-group norms, and prioritization of in-group goals. Study 1 developed and tested the new measure in a sample of consultants. Study 2 cross-validated the measure using an alumni sample of a Southeastern university, assessing its convergent validity with other collectivism measures. Study 3 linked scores on the measure to 4 dimensions of group member performance (task performance, citizenship behavior, counterproductive behavior, and withdrawal behavior) in a computer software firm and assessed discriminant validity using the Big Five. The results of the studies support the construct validity of the measure and illustrate the potential value of collectivism as a predictor of group member performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individualistic and collectivistic worldviews: Implications for understanding perceptions of racial discrimination in African Americans and British Caribbean Americans.

Cultural worldviews and perceived racial discrimination were examined among Americans (n = 106) and British Caribbean Americans (n = 95), both of African descent, who were recruited through university student organizations, community organizations, and snowball sampling. Consistent with public perceptions of differences in the experience of race among these 2 groups, multiple regression analyses revealed African Americans were more likely than British Caribbean Americans to perceive racial discrimination in the United States. In addition, a cultural worldview focus on individuality and equality (i.e., horizontal individualism) moderated the relationship between ethnic group and perceived racial discrimination. British Caribbean Americans who endorsed greater agreement with horizontal individualism were less likely to perceive racial discrimination. The same worldview was unrelated to African Americans' perceptions of racial discrimination. The results are discussed with respect to within-group heterogeneity among persons of African descent. Implications for counseling persons of African descent and future research directions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Family Almost Perfect Scale: Development, psychometric properties, and comparing Asian and European Americans.

This article describes two studies related to the development and psychometric evaluation of the Family Almost Perfect Scale (FAPS), which measures the perceived level of perfectionistic standards and evaluation from one's family. In Study 1 (N = 283), exploratory factor analysis was used to determine the FAPS scale items. In Study 2, the FAPS was cross-validated through confirmatory factor analyses with an Asian/Asian American sample (N = 252) and a European American sample (N = 386). These two samples were compared on study variables and Asians/Asian Americans reported modestly higher personal and family discrepancy and lower self-esteem. Participants were also grouped into different perceived perfectionistic family types. Those that perceived having maladaptively perfectionistic families reported greater depression and lower self-esteem. Implications for counseling and future directions for research are also discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)