While a major aim of cognitive science is to understand human cognition, our conclusions are based on unrepresentative samples of the world’s population. A new wave of cross-cultural cognitive ...science has sought to remedy this with studies that are increasing in scope, scale, and visibility. Here, I review the state of this new wave of research. The portrait of human cognition that emerges is one of variations on a theme, with species-typical capacities shaped by culture and individual experience. The new wave has expanded our understanding of processes underlying human variation and cumulative cultural change, including mechanisms of social learning and cultural transmission. Less consensus has been reached, however, on the cognitive foundations of human nature. The promise of cross-cultural cognitive science will not be fully realized unless we continue to be more inclusive of the world’s populations and strive for a more complete cognitive portrait of our species.
Cognitive science faces a representativeness problem, with most research occurring in educated, industrialized populations.A review of 10 years of cross-cultural research shows progress in remedying this, but research is still bimodally distributed between educated city dwellers and small rural populations.The decade has seen progress in understanding individual cognition (e.g., perception, reasoning), interpersonal cognition (theory of mind, personality), and societal cognition (social learning, norms, cooperation, morality).Formal models of social learning and cultural evolution are improving our understanding of the mechanisms underlying human variation and similarity, but we remain far from a satisfying account of human nature and human cognitive universals.Without a more inclusive cognitive science, our portrait of human cognition will remain incomplete.
The Impact of Culture on Loss Aversion Wang, Mei; Rieger, Marc Oliver; Hens, Thorsten
Journal of behavioral decision making,
April 2017, Letnik:
30, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Aims
To estimate the pooled prevalence of compulsive buying behaviour (CBB) in different populations and to determine the effect of age, gender, location and screening instrument on the reported ...heterogeneity in estimates of CBB and whether publication bias could be identified.
Methods
Three databases were searched (Medline, PsychInfo, Web of Science) using the terms ‘compulsive buying’, ‘pathological buying’ and ‘compulsive shopping’ to estimate the pooled prevalence of CBB in different populations. Forty studies reporting 49 prevalence estimates from 16 countries were located (n = 32 000). To conduct the meta‐analysis, data from non‐clinical studies regarding mean age and gender proportion, geographical study location and screening instrument used to assess CBB were extracted by multiple independent observers and evaluated using a random‐effects model. Four a priori subgroups were analysed using pooled estimation (Cohen's Q) and covariate testing (moderator and meta‐regression analysis).
Results
The CBB pooled prevalence of adult representative studies was 4.9% (3.4–6.9%, eight estimates, 10 102 participants), although estimates were higher among university students: 8.3% (5.9–11.5%, 19 estimates, 14 947 participants) in adult non‐representative samples: 12.3% (7.6–19.1%, 11 estimates, 3929 participants) and in shopping‐specific samples: 16.2% (8.8–27.8%, 11 estimates, 4686 participants). Being young and female were associated with increased tendency, but not location (United States versus non‐United States). Meta‐regression revealed large heterogeneity within subgroups, due mainly to diverse measures and time‐frames (current versus life‐time) used to assess CBB.
Conclusions
A pooled estimate of compulsive buying behaviour in the populations studied is approximately 5%, but there is large variation between samples accounted for largely by use of different time‐frames and measures.
Infectious Ideas is a comparative analysis of how Muslim and Christian scholars explained the transmission of disease in the premodern Mediterranean world.
How did religious communities respond to ...and make sense of epidemic disease? To answer this, historian Justin K. Stearns looks at how Muslim and Christian communities conceived of contagion, focusing especially on the Iberian Peninsula in the aftermath of the Black Death. What Stearns discovers calls into question recent scholarship on Muslim and Christian reactions to the plague and leprosy.
Stearns shows that rather than universally reject the concept of contagion, as most scholars have affirmed, Muslim scholars engaged in creative and rational attempts to understand it. He explores how Christian scholars used the metaphor of contagion to define proper and safe interactions with heretics, Jews, and Muslims, and how contagion itself denoted phenomena as distinct as the evil eye and the effects of corrupted air. Stearns argues that at the heart of the work of both Muslims and Christians, although their approaches differed, was a desire to protect the physical and spiritual health of their respective communities.
Based on Stearns's analysis of Muslim and Christian legal, theological, historical, and medical texts in Arabic, Medieval Castilian, and Latin, Infectious Ideas is the first book to offer a comparative discussion of concepts of contagion in the premodern Mediterranean world.
Cross‐culturally measurement invariant instruments are useful for the assessment of mental symptoms across cultures. The current study aimed to investigate the psychometric properties and measurement ...invariance of the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scales (DASS‐21) (DASS) across Pakistan and Germany. German participants were recruited through an online survey (N = 1323), while Pakistani participants were recruited through online survey or paper‐and‐pencil survey (N = 1841). The DASS‐21 showed good reliability, construct and structure validity in both countries. The DASS‐21 indicated partial weak (stress subscale) and partial strong measurement invariance (depression and anxiety subscales) between both countries. Latent mean comparison of depression and anxiety symptoms between Pakistani and German students indicated that Pakistani university students experience more symptoms of depression and anxiety. Results suggest that the DASS‐21 could be used in Pakistan and Germany, but caution should be taken when making direct comparisons between the two countries.
Many human languages have words for emotions such as "anger" and "fear," yet it is not clear whether these emotions have similar meanings across languages, or why their meanings might vary. We ...estimate emotion semantics across a sample of 2474 spoken languages using "colexification"-a phenomenon in which languages name semantically related concepts with the same word. Analyses show significant variation in networks of emotion concept colexification, which is predicted by the geographic proximity of language families. We also find evidence of universal structure in emotion colexification networks, with all families differentiating emotions primarily on the basis of hedonic valence and physiological activation. Our findings contribute to debates about universality and diversity in how humans understand and experience emotion.
Recent decades have seen a rapid acceleration in global participation in formal education, due to worldwide initiatives aimed to provide school access to all children. Research in high income ...countries has shown that school quality indicators have a significant, positive impact on numeracy and literacy—skills required to participate in the increasingly globalized economy. Schools vary enormously in kind, resources, and teacher training around the world, however, and the validity of using diverse school quality measures in populations with diverse educational profiles remains unclear. First, we assessed whether children's numeracy and literacy performance across populations improves with age, as evidence of general school‐related learning effects. Next, we examined whether several school quality measures related to classroom experience and composition, and to educational resources, were correlated with one another. Finally, we examined whether they were associated with children's (4–12‐year‐olds, N = 889) numeracy and literacy performance in 10 culturally and geographically diverse populations which vary in historical engagement with formal schooling. Across populations, age was a strong positive predictor of academic achievement. Measures related to classroom experience and composition were correlated with one another, as were measures of access to educational resources and classroom experience and composition. The number of teachers per class and access to writing materials were key predictors of numeracy and literacy, while the number of students per classroom, often linked to academic achievement, was not. We discuss these results in the context of maximising children's learning environments and highlight study limitations to motivate future research.
Research Highlights
We examined the extent to which four measures of school quality were associated with one another, and whether they predicted children's academic achievement in 10 culturally and geographically diverse societies.
Across populations, measures related to classroom experience and composition were correlated with one another as were measures of access to educational resources to classroom experience and composition.
Age, the number of teachers per class, and access to writing materials were key predictors of academic achievement across populations.
Our data have implications for designing efficacious educational initiatives to improve school quality globally.
•Prevalence of social media addiction varies by classification schemes and culture.•Monothetic or strict monothetic classifications yielded a 5% prevalence.•Cutoff for severe level or strict ...polythetic classifications yielded a 13% prevalence.•Cutoff for moderate level or polythetic classifications yielded a 25% prevalence.•Prevalence was 31% for collectivist countries but 14% for individualist countries.
In the cyber era, people interact with others not only face-to-face but also through social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Social media addiction has emerged as a problem of global concern, with researchers all over the world conducting studies to evaluate how pervasive the problem is. However, the prevalence rates of social media addiction reported in the literature vary dramatically. The present meta-analysis aimed to systematically synthesize the extant research on social media addiction prevalence. Subgroup analysis and meta-regression were conducted to investigate whether the prevalence rates would differ by classification schemes, cultural values, and demographic factors. The meta-analysis involved 63 independent samples with 34,798 respondents from 32 nations spanning seven world regions. The random-effects meta-analytic findings revealed variations in prevalence among studies adopting distinct classification schemes. The pooled prevalence estimate was 5% (95% CI: 3%–7%) for studies adopting monothetic or strict monothetic classifications. A higher pooled prevalence estimate (13%; 95% CI: 8%–19%) was found for studies adopting a cutoff for severe level or strict polythetic classifications, and that estimate was even higher (25%; 95% CI: 21%–29%) for studies adopting a cutoff for moderate level or polythetic classifications. Moreover, cross-cultural comparisons revealed the pooled prevalence estimate obtained in collectivist nations (31%; 95% CI: 26%–36%) to be twofold higher than that obtained in individualist nations (14%; 95% CI: 9%–19%). This meta-analysis indicates that both the classification scheme used and cultural factors should be considered when interpreting the prevalence findings on social media addiction.
Aim
The Self‐Care Self‐Efficacy Scale (SCSES) was newly developed as a self‐report measure for self‐care self‐efficacy for chronic illness. This study investigated its measurement equivalence (ME) in ...different cultural groups, including United States, China (Hong Kong), Italy, and Brazil.
Design
A multi‐national study for cross‐cultural validation of the Scale.
Methods
From January 2015 ‐ December 2018, investigators recruited 957 patients (United State: 200; Hong Kong: 300; Italy: 285; and Brazil: 142) with chronic illness from inpatient and outpatient settings. The SCSES was administered and clinical and demographic data were collected from participants. Based on the Meredith framework, multi‐group confirmatory factor analysis evaluated the configural, metric, scalar, and strict invariance of the scale across the four populations through a series of nested models, with evaluation of reliability and coherence of the factor solution.
Results
The mean ages of the groups ranged from 65–77 years, 56.4% was male. The Cronbach's alpha coefficients of the single‐factor SCSES were 0.93, 0.89, 0.92, and 0.90 for the United States, China (Hong Kong), Italy, and Brazil, respectively. Three of the four levels of ME were partially or totally supported. The highest level achieved was partial scalar invariance level (χ2 52 = 313.4, p < 0.001; RMSEA = 0.067; 95% CI = 0.056–0.077; CFI = 0.966; TLI = 0.960, SRMR = 0.080).
Conclusion
Patients from the four countries shared the same philosophical orientation towards scale items, although some of the items contributed differently to represent the concept and participants shared the same schemata for score interpretation.
Impact
Self‐efficacy is important in producing effective and sustainable self‐care behavioural changes. Cultural ideation shapes the ways individuals interpret and report their self‐care self‐efficacy. The study findings support cross‐cultural and cross‐national utility of the SCSES for research on self‐care across United States, China (Hong Kong), Italy, and Brazil.
目的
自我护理自我效能量表(SCSES)是一种最新制定的对慢性病自我护理自我效能的自我报告测量方法。本研究调查了其在美国、中国(香港)、意大利、巴西等不同文化群体的测量等效性(ME)。
设计
量表跨文化验证的跨国研究。
方法
自2015年1月至2018年12月,研究员招募了957位患有慢性病的住院患者和门诊患者(美国:200;香港:300;意大利:285;以及巴西:142)进行了自我护理自我效能量表测量,并收集了参与者的门诊和人口数据。基于Meredith框架,多组验证性因素分析通过一系列嵌套模型评估了这四类人群的量表构型、度量、标量以及严格等值,并评估了因素解决方案的可靠性和一致性。
结果
各组的平均年龄为65岁至77岁,其中男性占总参与者人数的56.4%。美国的单因素自我护理自我效能量表的克隆巴赫系数为0.93、中国(香港)为0.89、意大利为0.92、巴西为0.90。测量等效性的四个等级中的三个得到了部分或全部支持。达到的最高等级为部分标量不变性等级。(χ2 52 = 313.4、 p < 0.001、 RMSEA = 0.067、95% CI = 0.056–0.077、CFI = 0.966、TLI = 0.960、SRMR = 0.080)
结论
尽管部分项目不同(观念不同),但是来自四个国家的患者在思想上对量表项目有着相同的选择,并且参与者有着相同的评分解读图解。
影响
在有效并持续改变自我护理行为时,自我效能非常重要。文化观念的形成塑造了个人解释和报告其自我护理自我效能的方式。研究调查结果支持在美国、中国(香港)、意大利和巴西的自我护理研究中采用跨文化跨国的自我护理自我效能量表。
PDF
