E. Olcay Imamoğlu

Value Domains of Turkish Adults and University Students

Abstract The authors identified the basic dimensions of contemporary values among Turkish university students and adults and explored gender and group (adults vs. students) differences in the importance attributed to particular value types. The authors administered a composite value survey to 101 students from different departments of Middle East Technical University and 101 adults from different parts of Ankara. Factor analysis yielded 5 value domains: self-enhancement, tradition-religiosity, universalism, benevolence, and normative patterning, supporting S. H. Schwartzs (1992) motivational value dimensions. Compared with the students, the adults attributed more importance to the tradition-religiosity, normative patterning, and benevolence domains. Gender similarities were more important than gender differences. The results are discussed with reference to the studies of values in the literature and prevalent social change in the social structure of Turkish society.

Individualism and Collectivism in a Model and Scale of Balanced Differentiation and Integration

Abstract To discern some key features of individualistic and collectivistic human model conceptualizations within a parsimonious framework, the author proposed a model based on the notion that balancing the basic orientations for self-developmental differentiation (individuation) and interrelational integration (interrelatedness) promotes optimal development. The Balanced Differentiation and Integration Scale (BDIS) and the Balanced Orientation Scale (BOS), which was developed as a validity check for the BDIS, were used to empirically justify the proposed model. The BDIS and BOS were administered to 117 Turkish university students. For the BDIS, the results of 1st-order factor analysis yielded 6 factors that were then reduced to two 2nd-order factors: (a) Self-Developmental Orientation, with differentiative and integrative poles of individuation and normative patterning, respectively; and (b) Interrelational Orientation, with differentiative and integrative poles of separatedness and interrelatedness, res...

The Social Psychological Worlds of Swedes and Turks in and Around Retirement

Five hundred and two Swedish (60 to 71 years of age) and 448 Turkish (55 to 71 years of age) respondents of both genders were interviewed in depth concerning the characteristics of their social networks and evaluations of their current life situations in relation to self-images, life satisfaction, attitudes toward aging, and feelings of loneliness. Results indicated that (a) the Turks, especially men, had both larger social networks and interacted more frequently than the Swedes; (b) compared to Swedes, Turks had less positive attitudes toward getting older, higher feelings of personal loneliness, and lower life satisfaction; (c) within each culture, women had less positive attitudes toward aging and higher feelings of personal loneliness; Turkish women had lower and men had higher self-images than the Swedish men and women who did not differ from each other; (d) in both countries, a positive attitude toward aging was correlated with low personal loneliness and positive self-image; (e) gender differences were more pronounced for Turkey compared to Sweden.

Marital satisfaction in four cultures as a function of homogamy, male dominance and female attractiveness

Mate choice and mate retention may both depend in part on the principle of homogamy, or positive assortative mating. In humans, the more similar couples are, the happier and more stable their relationships are. However, the practice of homogamy in mate selection must be balanced against the need to select qualities in a mate that are slightly different from ones own, and evolutionary theory has suggested that male dominance and female attractiveness are two particularly adaptive qualities that are sought in a mate. The present study investigated the relationship between marital satisfaction and homogamy in American, British, Chinese and Turkish couples. In addition, the present research assessed the evolutionary hypothesis that spousal ascendancies on dominance and attractiveness would relate to marital satisfaction. Cross-culturally, romantic love for ones spouse increased as a function of both homogamy and some evolutionarily predicted divergences on both dominance and attractiveness. However, marital ...

Marital Satisfaction Across Three Cultures: Does the Number of Children Have an Impact After Accounting for Other Marital Demographics?:

U.S. studies indicate that children tend to stabilize marriage but, paradoxically, to reduce marital satisfaction. To explore whether this finding exists in a similar fashion in other cultures, the authors studied the impact of number of children on spousal love in the United States, United Kingdom, and Turkey, while accounting for other marital demographics (such as duration of marriage and the ages of wives and husbands). The number of children predicted diminished marital satisfaction in couples from all three cultures, although this effect arguably was not present in Turkish wives. In addition, marital satisfaction in couples from all three cultures was generally negatively predicted by the duration of marriage. Marital satisfaction was generally unrelated to wife’s age. The effect of husband’s age was important to marital satisfaction in couples from all cultures, although the nature of this effect diverged in relating positively to marital satisfaction for British and American couples but negatively for Turkish couples and especially Turkish wives. The authors identify several potentially important implications of these results.

Do women seek humorousness in men because it signals intelligence? A cross-cultural test

Abstract Miller has suggested that people seek humorousness in a mate because humor connotes intelligence, which would be valuable in a spouse. Since males tend to be the competing sex, men have been more strongly selected to be humorous. To test this notion, we explored the role of humor in marriage cross-culturally, in the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Turkey, and Russia. In the first four societies, husbands were perceived to make wives laugh more than the reverse, but wives were funnier in Russia. Spousal humorousness was associated with marital satisfaction in all cultures, especially the wifes satisfaction. Spousal humorousness was less consistently related to spousal intelligence than to some alternative possibilities: spousal kindness, dependability, and understanding. Furthermore, the relationship between these four variables and marital satisfaction was mediated by spousal humorousness. Humor is gratifying in other social contexts as well. Humorists may gain social credit by providing amusement, and may also use humor to gauge anothers mood and to engender liking, perhaps especially in courtship and marriage. Spouses may also take humorousness as a sign of motivation to be amusing, kind, understanding, dependable — as a sign of commitment.

Relationships Between Attachment Security and Self-Construal Orientations

The authors report the results of two studies in which they explored the relationship of related and individuated self-construals, as suggested by the balanced integration—differentiation (BID) model (E. O. Imamoğlu, 2003), with (a) general attachment security in the first study (N = 168 Turkish university students) and (b) relationshipspecific attachment security with the family, peers, and romantic partners in the second study (N = 110 Turkish university students). Results indicated that attachment security tended to be associated with the relational self-orientation; however, when relatedness was complemented with individuation, there was a trend toward enhanced attachment security that reached significance when multiple measures of attachment across relationship contexts were considered. The authors discuss results with reference to their implications for attachment theory and the BID model.

Interpersonal Consequences of Expressing Personal or Team Affect for Team Success or Failure Among Turkish Students

ABSTRACT Two experiments were conducted among Turkish students to explore the effects of team or personally oriented expressions of pride or shame for joint success or failure on evaluations of the outcome, team, and partner; causal attributions were also explored. In the second experiment, complying with a partners choice of task and influencing the preference for future partners under high or low pressure were examined. Results indicated that for success outcomes, team expressions (relative to personal ones) caused more favorable evaluations of the outcome, team harmony, and the partner, and more causal attributions to the team as a unit. Nonsignificant but consistent opposite tendencies were observed for failure outcomes. The results of the second experiment further indicated that low pressure was more effective than high in increasing preference for personally oriented partners and was marginally effective in increasing agreement for future tasks under the personal expression condition.

Impact of Self-Orientations and Work-Context–Related Variables on the Well-Being of Public- and Private-Sector Turkish Employees

ABSTRACT The authors (a) explored the impact of individual differences in self-orientations (i.e., relatedness and individuation) of 383 Turkish public- and private-sector employees on their basic need satisfaction at work and their well-being (i.e., life satisfaction and psychological well-being); (b) considered differences in perceived autonomy- and relatedness-supportiveness of the work contexts; and (c) tested a model in which the relationship between self-orientations and well-being is partially mediated by the perceived supportiveness of the work context and the need satisfaction of employees at work, using structural equation modeling. Results suggest that self-orientations of employees predict their well-being both directly and indirectly through the mediation of perceived supportiveness and need satisfaction provided by the work context, which seem to vary according to sector type.

Children’s Plan-Drawings of their Houses

The study reported in this paper is part of a project the aim of which was to explore various aspects of the social-cognitive development of the same group of children at the primary school level in relation to the social and physical characteristics of their home environments. In order to cover a wider spectrum in assessing the interrelationships between the developmental variables and those pertaining to the social and physical environments, the project included samples from three socio-economic-status (SES) groups in Ankara, namely, the upper, middle and lower. The aspect of the project reported in this paper involves a detailed analysis of hew children draw a floor plan of their homes. Although the sample of the project included first, third and fifth graders, only the latter two age groups participated in the present study because the task was not regarded to be suitable particularly for the youngest lower SES group; coming from families of rural origin, they appeared to lag behind developmentally. In addition to the cross- sectional study, a group of the third-graders was followed up and studied again at the end of two years.