Sheyla Blumen

Preferred Interpersonal Distances: A Global Comparison

Human spatial behavior has been the focus of hundreds of previous research studies. However, the conclusions and generalizability of previous studies on interpersonal distance preferences were limited by some important methodological and sampling issues. The objective of the present study was to compare preferred interpersonal distances across the world and to overcome the problems observed in previous studies. We present an extensive analysis of interpersonal distances over a large data set (N = 8,943 participants from 42 countries). We attempted to relate the preferred social, personal, and intimate distances observed in each country to a set of individual characteristics of the participants, and some attributes of their cultures. Our study indicates that individual characteristics (age and gender) influence interpersonal space preferences and that some variation in results can be explained by temperature in a given region. We also present objective values of preferred interpersonal distances in different regions, which might be used as a reference data point in future studies.

A cross-cultural study of possible iatrogenic effects of gifted education programs: tenth graders' perceptions of academically high performing classmates

Previous empirical studies have yielded inconclusive results about peer perceptions of academically high performing students. The purpose of this study was to investigate students’ perceptions of the intellectual ability, positive social qualities, and popularity of a hypothetical new high performing classmate. Participants were 1060 Vietnamese, South Korean, British, Australian, Peruvian, and Spanish boys and girls in 10th grade. The results revealed that the perceptions of academically high performing classmates differed by country group. Positive perceptions of intellectual ability and social qualities were commonly found in all countries except the two Asian countries (Vietnam and South Korea), where the students reported more neutral views of high performers. In conclusion, it is argued that there is no evidence for possible iatrogenic effects of gifted education programs aiming at high achievements

New Trends on Intellectual Assessment in Peru.

The history of intellectual assessment with children and youth in Peru is presented from the foundation of scientific psychology in Peru until now. Current practices are affected by the multicultural ethnolinguistic diversity of the country, the quality of the different training programs, as well as by Peruvian regulations for becoming an academic or a practitioner in Peru. Fitness of intelligence models and intellectual assessment of the Peruvian population are discussed. Credentials for administering intelligence tests and current practices that provoke controversy are also discussed. Future directions involve discussions on changing attitudes toward education accountability and social awareness in relation to intellectual assessment, legislation to foster better training for psychologists, and the need to consolidate theoretical models that include the context from a systemic perspective, as well as models that consider intelligence as a developmental variable. Moreover, revisions on the perspective of the nature of ability and the application of computerized technology to intelligence testing are both suggested, as is the need to focus on the relationship between ability testing and employability.

Conservatives Are More Reluctant to Give and Receive Apologies Than Liberals

This article examines the proposition that conservatives will be less willing than liberals to apologize and less likely to forgive after receiving an apology. In Study 1, we found evidence for both relationships in a nine-nation survey. In Study 2, participants wrote an open-ended response to a victim of a hypothetical transgression they had committed. More conservative participants were less likely to include apologetic elements in their response. We also tested two underlying mechanisms for the associations: social dominance orientation (SDO) and entity beliefs about human nature. SDO emerged as a stronger and more consistent mediator than entity beliefs. Apologies are theorized to be a rhetorical vehicle for removing power inequities in relationships posttransgression. Consistent with this theorizing, it was those who are relatively high in commitment to equality (i.e., those high in liberal ideology and low in SDO) who are most likely to provide and reward apologies.

How Much Is Enough in a Perfect World? Cultural Variation in Ideal Levels of Happiness, Pleasure, Freedom, Health, Self-Esteem, Longevity, and Intelligence:

The maximization principle—that people aspire to the highest possible level of something good if all practical constraints are removed—is a common yet untested assumption about human nature. We predict that in holistic cultures—where contradiction, change, and context are emphasized—ideal states of being for the self will be more moderate than in other cultures. In two studies (Ns = 2,392 and 6,239), we asked this question: If participants could choose their ideal level of happiness, pleasure, freedom, health, self-esteem, longevity, and intelligence, what level would they choose? Consistent with predictions, results showed that maximization was less pronounced in holistic cultures; members of holistic cultures aspired to less happiness, pleasure, freedom, health, self-esteem, longevity, and IQ than did members of other cultures. In contrast, no differences emerged on ideals for society. The studies show that the maximization principle is not a universal aspect of human nature and that there are predictable cultural differences in people’s notions of perfection.

Global Study of Social Odor Awareness

Olfaction plays an important role in human social communication, including multiple domains in which people often rely on their sense of smell in the social context. The importance of the sense of smell and its role can however vary inter-individually and culturally. Despite the growing body of literature on differences in olfactory performance or hedonic preferences across the globe, the aspects of a given culture as well as culturally universal individual differences affecting odor awareness in human social life remain unknown. Here, we conducted a large-scale analysis of data collected from 10 794 participants from 52 study sites from 44 countries all over the world. The aim of our research was to explore the potential individual and country-level correlates of odor awareness in the social context. The results show that the individual characteristics were more strongly related than country-level factors to self-reported odor awareness in different social contexts. A model including individual-level predictors (gender, age, material situation, education, and preferred social distance) provided a relatively good fit to the data, but adding country-level predictors (Human Development Index, population density, and average temperature) did not improve model parameters. Although there were some cross-cultural differences in social odor awareness, the main differentiating role was played by the individual differences. This suggests that people living in different cultures and different climate conditions may still share some similar patterns of odor awareness if they share other individual-level characteristics.