Are Collectivistic Cultures More Prone to Rapid Transformation? Computational Models of Cross-Cultural Differences, Social Network Structure, Dynamic Social Influence, and Cultural Change

Interdependency or submission to authority? The impacts of horizontal and vertical collectivist orientation on vaccine attitudes in mainland China

Culture has a profound impact on preventive measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous research has revealed that collectivism is associated with more effective responses to COVID-19 on the national or regional level. However, the impact of different components of collectivist orientation on vaccine attitudes remains insufficiently explored on the individual level. Two survey studies conducted in August 2021 in mainland China consistently found that individual-level horizontal collectivist orientation, rather than vertical collectivist orientation, was linked with more favourable vaccine attitudes. Specifically, Study 1 (N = 731) indicated that horizontal collectivist orientation was positive associated with vaccination intention indirectly via risk perception, and horizontal collectivist orientation was also positively associated with vaccination persuasion both directly and indirectly via risk perception. Study 2 (N = 1481), employing multilevel modelling, demonstrated that the link between horizontal collectivist orientation and confidence in vaccines remained robust regardless of provincial-level variations in socioeconomic development and cultural tightness. These findings convergently suggest that the positive vaccine attitudes among mainland Chinese are primarily driven by an amplified risk perception due to concern for others, rather than submission to authority.

Mechanisms upholding the persistence of stigma across 100 years of historical text

Today, many social groups face negative stereotypes. Is such negativity a stable feature of society and, if so, what mechanisms maintain stability both within and across group targets? Answering these theoretically and practically important questions requires data on dozens of group stereotypes examined simultaneously over historical and societal scales, which is only possible through recent advances in Natural Language Processing. Across two studies, we use word embeddings from millions of English-language books over 100 years (1900-2000) and extract stereotypes for 58 stigmatized groups. Study 1 examines aggregate, societal-level trends in stereotype negativity by averaging across these groups. Results reveal striking persistence in aggregate negativity (no meaningful slope), suggesting that society maintains a stable level of negative stereotypes. Study 2 introduces and tests a new framework identifying potential mechanisms upholding stereotype negativity over time. We find evidence of two key sources of this aggregate persistence: within-group "reproducibility" (e.g., stereotype negativity can be maintained by using different traits with the same underlying meaning) and across-group "replacement" (e.g., negativity from one group is transferred to other related groups). These findings provide novel historical evidence of mechanisms upholding stigmatization in society and raise new questions regarding the possibility of future stigma change.

Norm Dynamics: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Social Norm Emergence, Persistence, and Change

Social norms are the glue that holds society together, yet our knowledge of them remains heavily intellectually siloed. This article provides an interdisciplinary review of the emerging field of norm dynamics by integrating research across the social sciences through a cultural-evolutionary lens. After reviewing key distinctions in theory and method, we discuss research on norm psychology-the neural and cognitive underpinnings of social norm learning and acquisition. We then overview how norms emerge and spread through intergenerational transmission, social networks, and group-level ecological and historical factors. Next, we discuss multilevel factors that lead norms to persist, change, or erode over time. We also consider cultural mismatches that can arise when a changing environment leads once-beneficial norms to become maladaptive. Finally, we discuss potential future research directions and the implications of norm dynamics for theory and policy.

How effective are group-based psychoeducation programs for parents of children with ASD in Turkey? A systematic review and meta-analysis

Recent research shows that group-based psychoeducation programs designed for parents of children with ASD have grown in popularity over time. The international evidence for the effectiveness of psychoeducation programs designed for parents of children with ASD in developed societies emphasizes the importance of providing a synthesis of the effectiveness of programs in developing societies. This study's primary aim is to assess the efficacy of group-based psychoeducation programs in Turkey for parents of children with ASD. The second aim is to investigate how the programs are influenced by the potential moderators (type of involvement, research design, number of sessions, duration of sessions, and number of participants). For these purposes, a database search was conducted that included group-based psychoeducation programs for parents of children with ASD implemented in Turkey. Twelve group-based psychoeducation programs that met the inclusion criteria were included in the study. The results showed that group-based psychoeducation programs for parents of children with ASD had "medium" effects on psychological symptoms [ES(SE) = 0.65 (.08), 95%CI (0.48-0.81)], "low" effects on social skills [ES(SE) = 0.32 (.16), 95%CI (0.02-0.62)], and "high" effects on well-being [ES(SE) = 1.05 (.19), 95%CI (0.66-1.43)]. According to moderator analyses, the type of involvement and the number of sessions were statistically significant moderators of psychological symptoms, but not the research design, duration of sessions, or number of participants.

A 3D framework of implicit attitude change

According to early theories, implicit (automatic) social attitudes are difficult if not impossible to change. Although this view has recently been challenged by research relying on experimental, developmental, and cultural approaches, relevant work remains siloed across research communities. As such, the time is ripe to systematize and integrate disparate (and seemingly contradictory) findings and to identify gaps in existing knowledge. To this end, we introduce a 3D framework classifying research on implicit attitude change by levels of analysis (individual vs. collective), sources of change (experimental, ontogenetic, and cultural), and timescales (short term vs. long term). This 3D framework highlights where evidence for implicit attitude change is more versus less well established and pinpoints directions for future research, including at the intersection of fields.

Does social influence affect COVID-19 vaccination intention among the unvaccinated?

Conformist social influence is a double-edged sword when it comes to vaccine promotion. On the one hand, social influence may increase vaccine uptake by reassuring the hesitant about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine; on the other hand, people may forgo the cost of vaccination when the majority is already vaccinated - giving rise to a public goods dilemma. Here, we examine whether available information on the percentage of double-vaccinated people affects COVID-19 vaccination intention among unvaccinated people in Turkey. In an online experiment, we divided participants (n = 1013) into low, intermediate and high social influence conditions, reflecting the government's vaccine promotion messages. We found that social influence did not predict COVID-19 vaccination intention, but psychological reactance and collectivism did. People with higher reactance (intolerance of others telling one what to do and being sceptical of consensus views) had lower vaccination intention, whilst people with higher collectivism (how much a person considers group benefits over individual success) had higher vaccination intention. Our findings suggest that advertising the percentage of double-vaccinated people is not sufficient to trigger a cascade of others getting themselves vaccinated. Diverse promotion strategies reflecting the heterogeneity of individual attitudes could be more effective.

The casual effect of relational mobility on integration of social networks: An agent-based modeling approach

Despite converging evidence for the importance of relational mobility on shaping people's social experiences, previous work suggested mixed findings for its influence on the structure of sociocentric networks, which lays the basis for the development of all types of social relationships. Additionally, as it is timely and economically intractable to administer such longitudinal experiments in real-life settings, most previous work mainly relied on cross-sectional correlation analyses and provided limited causal evidence. The current research used an agent-based modeling approach to examine whether higher relational mobility (i.e., the number of opportunities to meet new people) would promote integration among social networks over time. Using parameters derived from survey data, we simulated how the integration of sociocentric social networks evolves under different levels of relational mobility. Based on the data of three network structural indicators, including modularity, global efficiency, and standard deviation of nodal betweenness, we obtained causal evidence supporting that higher relational mobility promotes greater network integration. These findings highlight the power of socioecological demands on our social experiences.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-022-03130-x.

Computational ethics

Technological advances are enabling roles for machines that present novel ethical challenges. The study of 'AI ethics' has emerged to confront these challenges, and connects perspectives from philosophy, computer science, law, and economics. Less represented in these interdisciplinary efforts is the perspective of cognitive science. We propose a framework - computational ethics - that specifies how the ethical challenges of AI can be partially addressed by incorporating the study of human moral decision-making. The driver of this framework is a computational version of reflective equilibrium (RE), an approach that seeks coherence between considered judgments and governing principles. The framework has two goals: (i) to inform the engineering of ethical AI systems, and (ii) to characterize human moral judgment and decision-making in computational terms. Working jointly towards these two goals will create the opportunity to integrate diverse research questions, bring together multiple academic communities, uncover new interdisciplinary research topics, and shed light on centuries-old philosophical questions.

Psychological Science in the Wake of COVID-19: Social, Methodological, and Metascientific Considerations

The COVID-19 pandemic has extensively changed the state of psychological science from what research questions psychologists can ask to which methodologies psychologists can use to investigate them. In this article, we offer a perspective on how to optimize new research in the pandemic's wake. Because this pandemic is inherently a social phenomenon-an event that hinges on human-to-human contact-we focus on socially relevant subfields of psychology. We highlight specific psychological phenomena that have likely shifted as a result of the pandemic and discuss theoretical, methodological, and practical considerations of conducting research on these phenomena. After this discussion, we evaluate metascientific issues that have been amplified by the pandemic. We aim to demonstrate how theoretically grounded views on the COVID-19 pandemic can help make psychological science stronger-not weaker-in its wake.

Why tightness alone is not enough: The varying anti-pathogenic effects of rational values and cultural tightness at different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic

Gelfand et al. demonstrated that tight cultural norms lowered COVID-19 transmissions and deaths, but can’t account for the lag between the beginning of the pandemic and the significance of tightness. Rational values help citizens adopt novel behavioral norms necessary to inhibit viral transmission. Multiple regression analysis on COVID-19 cases and deaths within twelve 25-day stages of the pandemic revealed that rational values were particularly significant in subduing COVID-19 cases and deaths by facilitating citizen adoption of novel behavioral norms during the acceleration phase of two pandemic waves. Rationality’s significance was highly correlated with the period to period increase in cases r(7) = −0.9, p < 0.001 and deaths, r(7) = −0.72, p < 0.05. Tightness became significant several months into the pandemic only after novel norms had become widely accepted. While rational values facilitate speedy adoption of effective anti-viral behavioral norms, tightness exerts pressure on citizens to comply with the new norms.

Collective patterns of social diffusion are shaped by individual inertia and trend-seeking

Social conventions change when individuals collectively adopt an alternative over the status quo, in a process known as social diffusion. Our repeated trials of a multi-round experiment provided data that helped motivate the proposal of an agent-based model of social diffusion that incorporates inertia and trend-seeking, two behavioural mechanisms that are well documented in the social psychology literature. The former causes people to stick with their current decision, the latter creates sensitivity to population-level changes. We show that such inclusion resolves the contradictions of existing models, allowing to reproduce patterns of social diffusion which are consistent with our data and existing empirical observations at both the individual and population level. The model reveals how the emergent population-level diffusion pattern is critically shaped by the two individual-level mechanisms; trend-seeking guarantees the diffusion is explosive after the diffusion process takes off, but inertia can greatly delay the time to take-off.

The psychological and socio-political consequences of infectious diseases: Authoritarianism, governance, and nonzoonotic (human-to-human) infection transmission

What are the socio-political consequences of infectious diseases? Humans have evolved to avoid disease and infection, resulting in a set of psychological mechanisms that promote disease-avoidance, referred to as the behavioral immune system (BIS). One manifestation of the BIS is the cautious avoidance of unfamiliar, foreign, or potentially contaminating stimuli. Specifically, when disease infection risk is salient or prevalent, authoritarian attitudes can emerge that seek to avoid and reject foreign outgroups while favoring homogenous, familiar ingroups. In the largest study conducted on the topic to date (N > 240,000), elevated regional levels of infectious pathogens were related to more authoritarian attitudes on three geographical levels: across U.S. metropolitan regions, U.S. states, and cross-culturally across 47 countries. The link between pathogen prevalence and authoritarian psychological dispositions predicted conservative voting behavior in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election and more authoritarian governance and state laws, in which one group of people imposes asymmetrical laws on others in a hierarchical structure. Furthermore, cross-cultural analysis illustrated that the relationship between infectious diseases and authoritarianism was pronounced for infectious diseases that can be acquired from other humans (nonzoonotic), and does not generalize to other infectious diseases that can only be acquired from non-human species (zoonotic diseases). At a time of heightened awareness of infectious diseases, the current findings are important reminders that public health and ecology can have ramifications for socio-political attitudes by shaping how citizens vote and are governed.

Network Connectivity Dynamics, Cognitive Biases, and the Evolution of Cultural Diversity in Round-Robin Interactive Micro-Societies

The distribution of cultural variants in a population is shaped by both neutral evolutionary dynamics and by selection pressures. The temporal dynamics of social network connectivity, that is, the order in which individuals in a population interact with each other, has been largely unexplored. In this paper, we investigate how, in a fully connected social network, connectivity dynamics, alone and in interaction with different cognitive biases, affect the evolution of cultural variants. Using agent-based computer simulations, we manipulate population connectivity dynamics (early, mid, and late full-population connectivity); content bias, or a preference for high-quality variants; coordination bias, or whether agents tend to use self-produced variants (egocentric bias), or to switch to variants observed in others (allocentric bias); and memory size, or the number of items that agents can store in their memory. We show that connectivity dynamics affect the time-course of variant spread, with lower connectivity slowing down convergence of the population onto a single cultural variant. We also show that, compared to a neutral evolutionary model, content bias accelerates convergence and amplifies the effects of connectivity dynamics, while larger memory size and coordination bias, especially egocentric bias, slow down convergence. Furthermore, connectivity dynamics affect the frequency of high-quality variants (adaptiveness), with late connectivity populations showing bursts of rapid change in adaptiveness followed by periods of relatively slower change, and early connectivity populations following a single-peak evolutionary dynamic. We evaluate our simulations against existing data collected from previous experiments and show how our model reproduces the empirical patterns of convergence.

The golden age of social science

Social science is entering a golden age, marked by the confluence of explosive growth in new data and analytic methods, interdisciplinary approaches, and a recognition that these ingredients are necessary to solve the more challenging problems facing our world. We discuss how developing a "lingua franca" can encourage more interdisciplinary research, providing two case studies (social networks and behavioral economics) to illustrate this theme. Several exemplar studies from the past 12 y are also provided. We conclude by addressing the challenges that accompany these positive trends, such as career incentives and the search for unifying frameworks, and associated best practices that can be employed in response.

Influence of Altruistic Motives on Organic Food Purchase: Theory of Planned Behavior

Marketing campaigns of organic food emphasize utilitarian benefits and psychological benefits as well as consumer culture to enhance environmental sustainability. In order to study the purchase intention of organic food, the authors developed a model using antecedents like warm glow, subjective norm, attitude and perceived behavioral control. This study examines the model for the Indian and the USA samples and thus integrated using three theories: Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), Pro-Social Behavior (PSB) Theory with the interaction of Consumer Culture Theory. The model is estimated using the multi-group Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) technique using R software with samples from India (n = 692) and the USA (n = 640). Results differ for Indian and USA samples. The expectation of the “warm glow” resulted from an environmentally friendly purchase as having a higher influence on Indian samples than that of the USA. Further, the attitude towards organic food purchase intention is stronger for US samples than the Indian, and the group difference is significant, while all the relationships that take warm glow as an antecedent have higher β for Indian samples. Moreover, the study found that attitude towards organic food is a major element for US subsamples, whereas subjective norm plays a major role in Indian samples to adopt organic food. Managerially, the present study suggests that a firm marketing its organic food must concentrate more on “warm glow” for Indian consumers in order to improve their market share.

Cultural Evolution of Genetic Heritability

Behavioral genetics and cultural evolution have both revolutionized our understanding of human behavior-largely independent of each other. Here we reconcile these two fields under a dual inheritance framework, offering a more nuanced understanding of the interaction between genes and culture. Going beyond typical analyses of gene-environment interactions, we describe the cultural dynamics that shape these interactions by shaping the environment and population structure. A cultural evolutionary approach can explain, for example, how factors such as rates of innovation and diffusion, density of cultural sub-groups, and tolerance for behavioral diversity impact heritability estimates, thus yielding predictions for different social contexts. Moreover, when cumulative culture functionally overlaps with genes, genetic effects become masked, unmasked, or even reversed, and the causal effects of an identified gene become confounded with features of the cultural environment. The manner of confounding is specific to a particular society at a particular time, but a WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) sampling problem obscures this boundedness. Cultural evolutionary dynamics are typically missing from models of gene-to-phenotype causality, hindering generalizability of genetic effects across societies and across time. We lay out a reconciled framework and use it to predict the ways in which heritability should differ between societies, between socioeconomic levels and other groupings within some societies but not others, and over the life course. An integrated cultural evolutionary behavioral genetic approach cuts through the nature-nurture debate and helps resolve controversies in topics such as IQ.

Perceived Suicide Stigma and Associated Factors in Chinese College Students: Translation and Validation of the Stigma of Suicide Attempt Scale and the Stigma of Suicide and Suicide Survivors Scale

This study aims to translate and validate two perceived suicide stigma scales, including the Stigma of Suicide Attempt Scale (STOSA) and the Stigma of Suicide and Suicide Survivor Scale (STOSASS) into Chinese language, examining the factor structure, and assessing the correlation between suicide stigma and a series of variables. After translating and back translating the STOSA and STOSASS, an online survey was administrated to 412 college students in China. These two scales were tested for their dimensionality in a series of confirmatory factor analyses. A series of regression analyses were conducted to examine the factors that are associated with perceived and public suicide stigma, including demographics, psychological distress, suicidality, suicide exposure, and perceived entitativity of suicide ideators, decedents, and survivors. The results showed that the two translated scales, STOSA and STOSASS, were reliable (Cronbach’s α = 0.79~0.83) and valid in Chinese contexts and it can be treated as unidimensional scales. Suicidality, exposure to suicide, and perceived entitativity of suicide-related persons were significantly associated with higher endorsement of public suicide stigma (SOSS Stigma, p < 0.03), but not perceived stigma (STOSA, STOSASS). Higher levels of psychological distress were associated with both higher perceived and public suicide stigma (p < 0.05).

Minority influence in climate change mitigation

While the majority of people care about environmental quality, they keep engaging in carbon-intensive practices that exacerbate climate change. Can we expect humans to collectively change by themselves, from the bottom up? Social change is often initiated by minorities - individuals who challenge the status quo. The dominant literature paints a rather pessimistic picture about the ability of minorities to instigate change in the environmental domain: environmental activists, vegans, and other minority members often elicit social sanctions, thereby ironically reinforcing the majority's commitment to current, environmentally harmful norms. Recent findings, however, point towards more optimism: pro-environmental minorities can pave the way towards 'tipping points' and spontaneous social change. Policymakers can speed up this process by offering top-down support for minorities - by giving them 'voice'.

Anatomy of a Psychological Theory: Integrating Construct-Validation and Computational-Modeling Methods to Advance Theorizing

Discussions about the replicability of psychological studies have primarily focused on improving research methods and practices, with less attention paid to the role of well-specified theories in facilitating the production of reliable empirical results. The field is currently in need of clearly articulated steps to theory specification and development, particularly regarding frameworks that may generalize across different fields of psychology. Here we focus on two approaches to theory specification and development that are typically associated with distinct research traditions: computational modeling and construct validation. We outline the points of convergence and divergence between them to illuminate the anatomy of a scientific theory in psychology-what a well-specified theory should contain and how it should be interrogated and revised through iterative theory-development processes. We propose how these two approaches can be used in complementary ways to increase the quality of explanations and the precision of predictions offered by psychological theories.

Psychology as a Historical Science

Psychology has traditionally seen itself as the science of universal human cognition, but it has only recently begun seriously grappling with cross-cultural variation. Here we argue that the roots of cross-cultural variation often lie in the past. Therefore, to understand not only how but also why psychology varies, we need to grapple with cross-temporal variation. The traces of past human cognition accessible through historical texts and artifacts can serve as a valuable, and almost completely unutilized, source of psychological data. These data from dead minds open up an untapped and highly diverse subject pool. We review examples of research that may be classified as historical psychology, introduce sources of historical data and methods for analyzing them, explain the critical role of theory, and discuss how psychologists can add historical depth and nuance to their work. Psychology needs to become a historical science if it wants to be a genuinely universal science of human cognition and behavior.

Pre- and Post-Adoption Beliefs about the Diffusion and Continuation of Biogas-Based Cooking Fuel Technology in Pakistan

A high level of acceptance and adoption is necessary to facilitate the widespread utilization of renewable energy technologies for cooking, as such utilization is essential for displacing the population’s massive dependence on fossil fuels and solid biomass. Economic and demographic aspects have been the focus of recent literature in exploring the adoption phenomenon of biogas technology. However, literature to date has given little attention to the behavioral factors and the perceptions of the end-users. Our study does not only include behavioral factors, but it employs a hybrid model to explore the continued attentions of users based on their post-adoption beliefs and performance expectations. Using a survey conducted in Pakistan in 2017, the study conducts a multivariate analysis through structural equation modeling to measure the effect of pre- and post-adoption beliefs and expectation on adoption and the continuing intention of households towards biogas technology. Results show that the acceptance of the households towards biogas technology is highly influenced by their perceptions on the benefits, as well as their trust in the technology. The perceived cost and risk attached to the technology are found to be negatively correlated with the acceptance. Households’ intentions to continue the use of biogas technology is highly influenced by the satisfaction level of the users of biogas technology. With the integrated model of adoption and continuation, the study illustrates the dynamic process in obtaining a deeper understanding of a user’s behavior to better formulate the policies for increasing the rate of technology adoption.

A Modeling Approach that Integrates Individual Behavior, Social Networks, and Cross-Cultural Variation

How do psychological traits shape social networks? How does this relationship influence the spread of behavior? In a recent paper, Muthukrishna and Schaller (Pers. Soc. Psychol. Rev., 2019) use a modeling approach to explore these questions. In doing so, they illustrate the value of using a multilevel approach to study human behavior.