Kwok Leung

Social Axioms: The Search for Universal Dimensions of General Beliefs about How the World Functions

To broaden our conceptual framework for understanding cultural differences, the present article reports two studies that examined whether pancultural dimensions based on general beliefs, or social axioms, can be identified in persons from five cultures. A Social Axioms Survey was constructed, based on both previous psychological research primarily in Europe and North America on beliefs and qualitative research conducted in Hong Kong and Venezuela. Factor analyses of these beliefs from student as well as adult samples revealed a pancultural, five-factor structure, with dimensions labeled as: cynicism, social complexity, reward for application, spirituality, and fate control. In the second study, this five-factor structure, with the possible exception of fate control, was replicated with college students from Japan, the United States, and Germany. The potential implications of a universal, five-factor structure of individual social beliefs were discussed, along with the relation of this structure to indigenous belief systems and to culture-level analyses.

Social Axioms: A Model for Social Beliefs in Multicultural Perspective

Publisher Summary This chapter describes a global research program designed to evaluate the universality and meaning of a five-factor structure of general beliefs or social axioms. Student data from 40 cultures and adult data from 13 cultures are collected, with both types of data providing strong support for the generality of this five-factor structure. The validity and usefulness of this structure are established by correlating citizen profiles across five dimensions—including social cynicism, social complexity, reward for application, religiosity, and fate control for each cultural group with societal characteristics. Within-culture and cross-cultural studies are reviewed to support the meanings of these axioms. A five-dimensional structure of social axioms was identified in Hong Kong and Venezuela, and subsequently replicated in the United States, Germany, and Japan. The universality of this structure of social axioms was evaluated by a round-the-world study, the results of which are presented. The chapter describes a research program designed to identify psychological construct, general beliefs or social axioms. It presents a historical review of the study of shared beliefs in social psychology.

Culture-Level Dimensions of Social Axioms and Their Correlates across 41 Cultures

Leung and colleagues have revealed a five-dimensional structure of social axioms across individuals from five cultural groups. The present research was designed to reveal the culture level factor structure of social axioms and its correlates across 41 nations. An ecological factor analysis on the 60 items of the Social Axioms Survey extracted two factors: Dynamic Externality correlates with value measures tapping collectivism, hierarchy, and conservatism and with national indices indicative of lower social development. Societal Cynicism is less strongly and broadly correlated with previous values measures or other national indices and seems to define a novel cultural syndrome. Its national correlates suggest that it taps the cognitive component of a cultural constellation labeled maleficence, a cultural syndrome associated with a general mistrust of social systems and other people. Discussion focused on the meaning of these national level factors of beliefs and on their relationships with individual level factors of belief derived from the same data set.

Indigenous Chinese Personality Constructs: Is the Five-Factor Model Complete?

The universality and sufficiency of the five-factor model in the Chinese context were investigated. In Study 1, analysis of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and the Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory (CPAI) taken by Chinese students showed four joint factors similar to the domains of the NEO-PI-R. Two unique factors were obtained. The Interpersonal Relatedness factor was defined only by CPAI scales. The Openness domain, however, was not represented in the CPAI scales. In Study 2, involving Chinese managers, the robustness of the Interpersonal Relatedness factor was demonstrated. In Study 3, the six-factor model was confirmed with Hawaiian students. Further analyses showed that the six-factor models were superior to the five-factor models and that the Interpersonal Relatedness scales could not be consistently explained by a combination of the Big Five factors. Implications for the universality of the five-factor model and the cross-cultural relevance of the CPAI Interpersonal Relatedness factor are discussed.

Methodological Issues in Psychological Research on Culture

The extent to which methodological tools can help correct the overemphasis on fact finding and speed up the slow theoretical progress in cross-cultural psychology is analyzed. Two types of contributions to the current predicament are delineated. First, cross-cultural psychologists have created their own partis pris. Second, partis pris have been inherited from mainstream psychology. In the future, most cross-cultural studies will be carried out by researchers who have an interest in cultural variations on specific variables or instruments, whereas the group of researchers who spend their professional lives in cross-cultural psychology will remain small but influential. Methodological issues arising in studies by both groups are described. Important trends are (a) the change from exploration to explanation of cross-cultural differences, which has implications for the design of cross-cultural studies; and (b) the so-far-hesitant usage of recently developed statistical techniques, such as item response theory, structural equation modeling, and multilevel modeling.

A Dualistic Model of Harmony and its Implications for Conflict Management in Asia

Conflict avoidance is common in East Asia, and the Confucian notion of harmony is often invoked to explain this tendency. We review the classical Confucian doctrines and found no encouragement of conflict avoidance in Confucian teachings. Quite the contrary, the Confucian notion of harmony embodies disagreement and open debates. Thus, we argue that harmony as conflict avoidance is not a main feature of classical Confucianism, but a characteristic of the secular version that is associated with cultural collectivism. We then review several theories that are based on the notion of harmony, and show that they are compatible with a dualistic model of harmony, which posits an instrumental as well as a value motive in harmony-seeking behavior. In the instrumental perspective, harmony is viewed as a means to a typically materialistic end, whereas in the value perspective, harmony is deemed an end in its own right. Conflict avoidance is primarily driven by the instrumental motive. These two motives are then crossed to form four types of harmony-seeking behaviors. This typology is discussed in terms of its implications for future research and its applications in conflict management.

Web strategies to promote internet shopping: is cultural-customization needed?

Building consumer trust is important for new or unknown Internet businesses seeking to extend their customer reach globally. This study explores the question: Should website designers take into account the cultural characteristics of prospective customers to increase trust, given that different trust-building web strategies have different cost implications? In this study, we focused on two theoretically grounded practical web strategies of customer endorsement, which evokes unit grouping, and portal affiliation, which evokes reputation categorization, and compared them across two research sites: Australia (individualistic culture) and Hong Kong (collectivistic culture). The results of the laboratory experiment we conducted, on the website of an online bookstore, revealed that the impact of peer customer endorsements on trust perceptions was stronger for subjects in Hong Kong than Australia and that portal (Yahoo) affiliation was effective only in the Australian site. A follow-up study was conducted as a conceptual replication, and provided additional insights on the effects of customer endorsement versus firm affiliation on trust-building. Together, these findings highlight the need to consider cultural differences when identifying the mix of web strategies to employ in Internet store websites.

Justice for all? Progress in Research on Cultural Variation in the Psychology of Distributive and Procedural Justice

Nous passons en revue les apports des recherches concernant l’impact de la culture sur la perception de la justice. Nous pre´sentons les mode`les qui rendent compte de la faµon dont les gens appre´cient l’e´quite´ de l’attribution des allocations d’une part, l’e´quite´ des processus de de´cision d’autre part. Suite a` l’examen de recherches interculturelles, nous prenons en conside´ration des diffe´rences entre pays pour mettre a` l’e´preuve des hypothe`ses sur les liens entre des valeurs culturelles ge´ne´rales (ex.: individualisme-collectivisme) et des crite`res particuliers (ex. les re`gles d’e´quite´). Nous ne manquons pas toutefois de souligner les e´cueils que rencontre cette strate´gie de recherche qui a entraine´ une meilleure pre´cision des conceptions de l’influence culturelle (pre´cision dans les valeurs, les contextes sociaux qui renvoient a` des crite`res d’e´quite´ particuliers et les structures de savoirs qui pre´sident a` l’interpre´tation des conduites) We review progress in research attempting to model the influence of culture on judgments of justice. We review research on people’s reactions to resource allocation outcomes (the psychology of distributive justice), as well as on people’s reactions to the processes through which authorities make decisions (the psychology of procedural justice). We describe the progress from early work in which culture was equated with country differences to later work which focused on dimensions of values (e.g. individualism–collectivism) that mediate country differences and important contextual factors (e.g. in-group versus out-group) that moderate them. Yet we also describe pitfalls of this research strategy. Finally, we describe a recent trend toward greater specificity in conceptions of cultural influence—more specific value-dimensions, more specific contextual factors, and the inclusion of specific knowledge structures.

When is Criticism Not Constructive? The Roles of Fairness Perceptions and Dispositional Attributions in Employee Acceptance of Critical Supervisory Feedback

The effects of justice and dispositional attribution on reactions to negative supervisory feedback were examined in two studies. Study 1 showed that criticism delivered with greater interpersonal fairness resulted in more favourable dispositional attributions about the supervisor, more acceptance of the feedback, and more favourable reactions towards the superior and the organization. The beneficial influence of just interpersonal treatment was general across various feedback contexts, although the magnitude varied. Study 2 clarified the causal ordering: just interpersonal treatment reduced negative dispositional attribution, which in turn increased feedback acceptance and improved attitudes towards the supervisor. Study 2 also distinguished the consequences of perceived fairness in the formal procedures applied to forming the feedback, as opposed to interpersonal treatment during its delivery.

Personality in Cultural Context: Methodological Issues

Methodological issues in cultural and cross-cultural personality research are described. A taxonomy of these studies is presented, based on whether a study is exploratory or tests hypotheses, and whether or not contextual information is measured. Core methodological issues are bias and equivalence: a taxonomy and a brief overview of statistical procedures to examine equivalence are presented, with a focus on procedures for assessing structural equivalence (i.e., similarity of meaning of an instrument across cultures). Examples are given of studies in which cultural and cross-cultural approaches, often seen as antithetical, have been fruitfully integrated. Finally, multilevel models are described in which personality characteristics are examined at individual and cultural level.