Garriy Shteynberg

Intersubjective Culture The Role of Intersubjective Perceptions in Cross-Cultural Research

Intersubjective perceptions refer to shared perceptions of the psychological characteristics that are widespread within a culture. In this article, we propose the intersubjective approach as a new approach to understanding the role that culture plays in human behavior. In this approach, intersubjective perceptions, which are distinct from personal values and beliefs, mediate the effect of the ecology on individuals’ responses and adaptations. We review evidence that attests to the validity and utility of the intersubjective approach in explicating culture’s influence on human behaviors and discuss the implications of this approach for understanding the interaction between the individual, ecology, and culture; the nature of cultural competence; management of multicultural identities; cultural change; and measurement of culture.

Peering into the “Magnum Mysterium” of Culture: The Explanatory Power of Descriptive Norms

The purpose of this research is to test whether descriptive norms, or cognitions about typical beliefs, values, and behaviors of ones group, can explain cultural influence in the domains of blame attribution and harm perception. In Study 1, using participants from the United States and South Korea, the authors find that individuals with lower (vs. higher) collectivistic descriptive norms ascribed more blame after more intentional acts and less blame after less intentional acts. In the second study, using American and South Korean participants, the authors find that individuals with lower (vs. higher) collectivistic descriptive norms perceived more harm after right violations and less harm after duty violations. Collectivistic personal attitudes did not predict the expected differences in attribution of blame or perception of harm. The descriptive norm account of cultural influence provides an alternative to the currently dominant personal attitude paradigm.

A silent emergence of culture: the social tuning effect.

Scholars have long been concerned with understanding the psychological mechanisms by which cultural (i.e., shared) knowledge emerges. This article proposes a novel psychological mechanism that allows for the formation of cultural memories, even when intragroup communication is absent. Specifically, the research examines whether a stimulus is more psychologically and behaviorally prominent when it is assumed to be experienced by more similar versus less similar others. Findings across 3 studies suggest that stimuli such as time pressure (Study 1), words (Study 2), and paintings (Study 3) are more psychologically and behaviorally prominent when they are thought to be experienced by more (vs. less) similar others. Critically, the effect is absent when similar others are thought to be experiencing distinct stimuli from the participant (Study 3). Taken as a whole, these results are consistent with the hypothesis that stimuli which are assumed to be experienced by ones social group are more prominent in both cognition and behavior. Theoretical implications for the emergence of culture are discussed.

The cultural contagion of conflict

Anecdotal evidence abounds that conflicts between two individuals can spread across networks to involve a multitude of others. We advance a cultural transmission model of intergroup conflict where conflict contagion is seen as a consequence of universal human traits (ingroup preference, outgroup hostility; i.e. parochial altruism) which give their strongest expression in particular cultural contexts. Qualitative interviews conducted in the Middle East, USA and Canada suggest that parochial altruism processes vary across cultural groups and are most likely to occur in collectivistic cultural contexts that have high ingroup loyalty. Implications for future neuroscience and computational research needed to understand the emergence of intergroup conflict are discussed.

Feeling more together: group attention intensifies emotion

The idea that group contexts can intensify emotions is centuries old. Yet, evidence that speaks to how, or if, emotions become more intense in groups remains elusive. Here we examine the novel possibility that group attention--the experience of simultaneous coattention with ones group members--increases emotional intensity relative to attending alone, coattending with strangers, or attending nonsimultaneously with ones group members. In Study 1, scary advertisements felt scarier under group attention. In Study 2, group attention intensified feelings of sadness to negative images, and feelings of happiness to positive images. In Study 3, group attention during a video depicting homelessness led to greater sadness that prompted larger donations to charities benefiting the homeless. In Studies 4 and 5, group attention increased the amount of cognitive resources allocated toward sad and amusing videos (as indexed by the percentage of thoughts referencing video content), leading to more sadness and happiness, respectively. In all, these effects could not be explained by differences in physiological arousal, emotional contagion, or vicarious emotional experience. Greater fear, gloom, and glee can thus result from group attention to scary, sad, and happy events, respectively.

Shared Attention Increases Mood Infusion

The current research explores how awareness of shared attention influences attitude formation. We theorized that sharing the experience of an object with fellow group members would increase elaborative processing, which in turn would intensify the effects of participant mood on attitude formation. Four experiments found that observing the same object as similar others produced more positive ratings among those in a positive mood, but more negative ratings among those in a negative mood. Participant mood had a stronger influence on evaluations when an object had purportedly been viewed by similar others than when (a) that same object was being viewed by dissimilar others, (b) similar others were viewing a different object, (c) different others were viewing a different object, or (d) the object was viewed alone with no others present. Study 4 demonstrated that these effects were driven by heightened cognitive elaboration of the attended object in the shared attention condition. These findings support the theoretical conjecture that an object attended with ones ingroup is subject to broader encoding in relation to existing knowledge structures.

The Power of Shared Experience: Simultaneous Observation With Similar Others Facilitates Social Learning

Across disciplines, social learning research has been unified by the principle that people learn new behaviors to the extent that they identify with the actor modeling them. We propose that this conceptualization may overlook the power of the interpersonal situation in which the modeled behavior is observed. Specifically, we predict that contexts characterized by shared in-group attention are particularly conducive to social learning. In two studies, participants were shown the same written exchange in either paragraph or chat form across multiple interpersonal contexts. We gauged social learning based on participants’ tendency to imitate the form of the written exchange to which they were exposed. Across both studies, results reveal that imitation is especially likely among individuals placed in the specific context of simultaneous observation with a similar other. These findings suggest that shared in-group attention is uniquely adaptive for social learning.

Descriptive Norms as Carriers of Culture in Negotiation1

Research on culture and negotiation is critical for expanding theories of negotiation beyond Western cultures and for helping people to manage their interdependence in a world of increasing global threats and opportunities. Despite progress of understanding cultural influences on negotiation, research is limited in that it portrays a static and decontextualized view of culture and ignores cultural dynamics. The almost exclusive focus on main effects of culture in negotiation has its roots in a subjectivist approach to culture which has prioritized the study of values, or trans-situational goals. In this article, we discuss the descriptive norms approach to culture and its promise for the study of culture and negotiation. A descriptive norms approach highlights the dynamics of culture in negotiation (i.e., the conditions under which culture effects become amplified, reduced, or even reversed), it identifies new empirical mediating mechanisms for cultural effects, and it sheds new light into understanding cultural competence in intercultural negotiations.

Shared Attention at the Origin On the Psychological Power of Descriptive Norms

What is at the origin of a descriptive norm’s power to influence people? The standard explanation posits that a perceived widespread frequency of a given behavior signals a groupwide attitudinal agreement with that behavior, which in turn further encourages that behavior. Alternatively, I argue that the psychological power behind descriptive norms lies in the social nature of the attentional mode in which typical behavior is encountered. I introduce the reader to recent research on shared attention and its cognitive, attitudinal, affective, and behavioral consequences. Then, I use the shared attention perspective to further understand the psychological power of descriptive norms.

A Conclusion, Yet an Opening to Enriching the Normative Approach of Culture:

We compile in this article the target article authors’ thoughtful responses to the commentaries. Their responses identify some common threads across the rich contents of the commentary pieces, interlink the observation and theoretical propositions in the commentaries with broader streams of research, present new perspectives inspired by the commentary contributors, and pose provocative questions to further ignite research efforts on the normative analysis of culture.