Joanna Różycka-Tran

Belief in a Zero-Sum Game as a Social Axiom A 37-Nation Study

This article introduces a novel concept, Belief in a Zero-Sum Game (BZSG), proposed as another belief dimension in the family of social axioms. We conceptualize BZSG as a belief system about the antagonistic nature of social relations—that one person’s gain is possible only at the expense of other persons. It appears on a level of personal convictions and as a cultural worldview ideology. We found that persons or nations who believe in a zero-sum game engage in win-lose social exchanges over limited resources. Psychometric evidence for the universality of the BZSG scale in a large pancultural project of 37 nations is presented, where individual and cultural-level predictors of BZSG were tested, followed by their multilevel analyses. BZSG, which shows a conceptual and empirical affinity with societal cynicism, is moderated by previously described cultural dimensions and by objective socio-economic indices.

CROSS-CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN METACOGNITIVE SELF

Th e main aim of this study is to investigate the diff erences between levels of metacognitive self among cul- tural groups. Metacognitive self is a new concept meaning the level of insight into own biases. We focus on individual versus collective societies as well as the core characteristics of the metacognitive self. Our results indicate better self - insight among collectivistic nations such as Vietnam, Japan, China and India in comparison to individualistic countries (USA, England, Spain). We also studied the level of meta- cognitive self among participants from Poland, the country undergoing socio - economic transition from collectivistic to individualistic society. Future studies should expand the investigation to include more collectivistic and individualis- tic nations, and countries undergoing transitions.

Individual-Level and Culture-Level Self-Esteem: A Test of Construct Isomorphism

Several empirical studies have used the Rosenberg General Self-Esteem Scale (RGSE) to address issues of cross-cultural differences in mean level of self-esteem. The majority of these studies have mostly focused on the comparison of individual-level factor structures, leaving unanswered the issue regarding the equivalence of the factor structure of the RGSE across the individual and the culture-level, a condition called factor isomorphism. This is a particularly worrisome issue, given the large interest in cross-cultural variations of self-esteem levels. The present study was designed to address this concern by administering the RGSE across 37 different countries. The study used multilevel confirmatory factor analysis to investigate the equivalence of the individual- and culture-level factor structure of self-esteem. We found evidence for the cross-cultural stability of a bifactor structure of the RGSE, which emerged both at individual and culture-levels. However, only the general self-esteem factor showed a substantial degree of isomorphism. The specific factors capturing positive and negative self-evaluations resulted instead non-isomorphic. We discuss the implications of these results for the assessment of self-esteem in cross-cultural studies.

A test of construct isomorphism of the Belief in a Zero-Sum Game scale: A multilevel 43-nation study

Background We examined the equivalence of the individual and the country-level factor structure of the Belief in a Zero-Sum Game (BZSG) scale, a tool designed to measure antagonistic beliefs about social relations (i.e., perceived social antagonism) in the struggle for limited resources. Aims In this article we focused on a test of construct isomorphism in a multilevel modeling approach. It was hypothesized that the BZSG measure satisfies all requirements for a strong level of configural isomorphism, and thus that it is useful to investigate BZSG at both the individual and the country levels. The relationships between the BZSG at a country level with other macro-socio-economic indicators were also investigated. Method Multilevel confirmatory factor analysis (MCFA) was carried out on a cross-country sample composed of 11,368 participants from 43 different countries. We also used the country-level latent BZSG factor in each country as an indicator of a property that we attributed to a particular culture: cultural dimension (collectivism-individualism), macroeconomic indicators (GDP per capita and GNI per capita) and macrosocial indicators (Human Development Index and Democracy Index) describing societies. Results The results revealed an isomorphic factor structure of perceived social antagonism (measured by BZSG scale), defined in terms of the equivalence factor structure at the both individual and country levels. Furthermore, the relationship between the perceived social antagonism, gross national income per capita, and collectivism were confirmed. Conclusions Our study supports the usefulness of the BZSG scale for cross-cultural comparison, in the case of its isomorphic structure. At the country level, antagonistic beliefs emerge in hierarchical collectivist societies with lower income. The main contribution of this article is the presentation of the test of construct isomorphism. We made an effort to present a full perspective on construct isomorphism putting together two different but very recent approaches.

Measurement invariance of the Belief in a Zero-Sum Game scale across 36 countries: BZSG across 36 countries

In this paper, we examined the psychometric properties of cross-cultural validation and replicability (i.e. measurement invariance) of the Belief in a Zero-Sum Game (BZSG) scale, measuring antagonistic belief about interpersonal relations over scarce resources. The factorial structure of the BZSG scale was investigated in student samples from 36 countries (N = 9907), using separate confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) for each country. The cross-cultural validation of the scale was based on multigroup confirmatory factor analyses (MGCFA). The results confirmed that the scale had a one-factor structure in all countries, in which configural and metric invariance between countries was confirmed. As a zero-sum belief about social relations perceived as antagonistic, BZSG is an important factor related to, for example, social and international relations, attitudes toward immigrants, or well-being. The paper proposes different uses of the BZSG scale for cross-cultural studies in different fields of psychology: social, political, or economic.