Robin Goodwin

The Dual Route to Value Change: Individual Processes and Cultural Moderators

Understanding value stability and change is essential for understanding values of both individuals and cultures.Yet theoretical thinking and empirical evidence on this topic have been scarce. In this article, the authors suggest a model outlining processes of individual value change. This model proposes that value change can occur through automatic and effortful routes. They identify five facilitators of value change (priming, adaptation, identification, consistency maintenance, and direct persuasion) and consider the moderating role of culture in each. In addition, the authors discuss the roles of culture, personal values, and traits as general moderators of value change. Evidence on the structure of value change and the effects of age on value change are also reviewed.

Personal Relationships across Cultures

Introduction: Studying Personal Relationships. The Development of Research into Personal Relationships Across Cultures. Relationships in a Cultural Setting. Relationship Formation. The Developing Relationships. Sexual Attitudes and Behaviour. Family Relations Across Cultures. Relationships at Work. Friendship and the Broader Social Network. Taking it Further: Implications and and Future Developments. Bibliography. Index.

Functional relationships in the nuclear and extended family: A 16-culture study

This study investigated the relationship between culture, structural aspects of the nuclear and extended family, and functional aspects of the family, that is, emotional distance, social interaction, and communication, as well as geographical proximity. The focus was on the functional aspects of family, defined as members of the nuclear family (mother, father, and their children) and the extended family (grandmother/grandfather, aunt/uncle, cousins). Sixteen cultures participated in this study, with a total number of 2587 participants. The first hypothesis, that the pattern of scores on the psychological measures and the behavioral outcomes are similar across cultures, an indication of cultural universality, was supported. The second hypothesis, that functional relations between members of the nuclear family and their kin are maintained in high-affluent and low-affluent cultures, and that differences in functional relationships in high- and low-affluent cultures are a matter of degree, was also supported ...

Terror threat perception and its consequences in contemporary Britain

The terrorist attacks of 9/11, and subsequent terrorist acts around the world, have alerted social psychologists to the need to examine the antecedents and consequences of terrorist threat perception. In these two studies, we examined the predictive power of demographic factors (age, gender, location), individual values and normative influences on threat perception and the consequences of this perception for behavioural change and close relationships. In Study 1 (N = 100), gender, benevolence values and normative influences were all correlates of threat perception, whilst sense of personal threat was correlated with increased contact with friends and family. In Study 2 (N = 240) age, gender, location, and the values of openness to change and hedonism, all predicted threat perception, which, in turn, predicted behavioural change and relationship contact. Such findings point to the important role social psychologists should play in understanding responses to these new terrorist threats.

Perceived and Received Social Support in Two Cultures: Collectivism and Support among British and Spanish Students:

Previous cross-cultural research into social support has attributed national variations in observed support to assumed cultural variables, but has rarely measured these variables directly. Furthermore, this cross-cultural work has failed to differentiate between support from friends and from families, and between global perceptions of available support and the support received after an event. In this study, 140 respondents from UK (N = 72) and Spain (N = 68) completed scales assessing cultural collectivism (Bierbrauer, Meyer, & Wolfradt, 1994), measures of perceived global support (Cohen & Hoberman, 1983), and received social support, as well as additional indices of self-esteem (Rosenberg, 1965) and life satisfaction (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985). Path analytic analyses found that Spanish respondents were, as expected, more collectivist than their British counterparts, and that collectivism predicted reported family support after an event and global perceptions of available support. Global perceived support and support from friends after an event were significant correlates of self- esteem, which, along with global support and support from family members, was a significant correlate of life satisfaction. These findings underline the importance of analysing cultural values and the multiple components of social support when assessing the impact of culture on support.

Value stability and change during self-chosen life transitions: Self-selection versus socialization effects

Three longitudinal studies examine a fundamental question regarding adjustment of personal values to self-chosen life transitions: Do values fit the new life setting already at its onset, implying value-based self-selection? Or do values change to better fit the appropriate and desirable values in the setting, implying value socialization? As people are likely to choose a life transition partly based on their values, their values may fit the new life situation already at its onset, leaving little need for value socialization. However, we propose that this may vary as a function of the extent of change the life transition entails, with greater change requiring more value socialization. To enable generalization, we used 3 longitudinal studies spanning 3 different life transitions and different extents of life changes: vocational training (of new police recruits), education (psychology vs. business students), and migration (from Poland to Britain). Although each life transition involved different key values and different populations, across all 3 studies we found value fit to the life situation already early in the transition. Value socialization became more evident the more aspects of life changed as part of the transition, that is, in the migration transition. The discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for research on values and personality change, as well as limitations and future directions for research.

Social support and its consequences: ‘Positive’ and ‘deficiency’ values and their implications for support and self‐esteem

Recent research on social support has suggested that there may be only a weak correlation between perceived and received (enacted) support, with the former best seen as a stable, personality-like trait. This study investigates the relationship between individual values, self-esteem and perceived and received support, with samples taken from four nations (the UK, Portugal, Ghana and Mozambique). Respondents completed Schwartzs Portrait Values Questionnaire (Schwartz, Melech, Lehmann, Burgess, & Harris, 2001) and measures of self-esteem and perceived and received support. The values explained more than twice the variance for perceived compared with received support, with those scoring high on stimulation, hedonism and benevolence, and low on tradition, conformity and security, reporting greater perceived support. In path analyses, values significantly predicted perceived support and perceived support predicted self-esteem, but there was no direct relationship between values and self-esteem. These findings are discussed in the light of current debates on the role of values in the promotion of prosocial behaviour.

Values and sexual behaviour in central and eastern europe.

Despite the profusion of social cognitive models for the prediction of sexual behaviour, we have only limited knowledge as to the role of individual values in predicting risky sexual activity. This study assessed the relationship between a recently developed value structure and sexual behaviour in the context of rising HIV infection in central and eastern Europe. Five hundred and three respondents (business people, doctors and nurses) from Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Poland and Russia completed Schwartz’s Portrait Values Questionnaire and reported their condom use, partnership history and record of sexual disease. Results indicated that values had a moderate but consistent relationship with sexual behaviour, with riskier sexual activity reported by those high on Openness to Change, Hedonism and Self-Enhancement. These findings are discussed in the context of the need for culturally sensitive interventions in order to tackle the growing HIV epidemic in this region.

HIV/AIDS among adolescents in Eastern Europe: knowledge of HIV/AIDS, social representations of risk and sexual activity among school children and homeless adolescents in Russia, Georgia and the Ukraine.

The two studies reported here focus on knowledge and representations of HIV/AIDS (study 1) plus sexual behaviour and hedonistic values (study 2) among 14–17-year-old school children and similar aged shelter children. Results indicate that shelter children are more sexually active, less knowledgeable about means of HIV transmission and are more likely to hold stereotyped representations of those most at risk of infection. Russian respondents were the most sexually active, a finding which could at least be partly explained by their higher levels of hedonistic values. These findings are discussed in the context of a climate of continuing social change in this region.

Social Support Provision And Cultural Values In Indonesia And Britain

Previous cross-cultural research into social support has attributed national variations in social support to assumed cultural values but has rarely measured these values at an individual level. This study investigates the relationship between support offered and individualism among 186 government workers in Indonesia and the United Kingdom. Indonesian respondents were more willing to offer support to strangers than their British counterparts, but individualism was a significant predictor of (lesser) support provision only in Britain. In addition, female respondents in Britain, and older respondents in Indonesia, offered higher levels of support. These findings underline the difficulties for individual-level measures of culture in accounting for cultural-level differences and are discussed in the light of further emic and etic factors likely to be significant for an understanding of support provision in these two cultures.