Dilemma Tales as African Knowledge Practice: An Example From Research on Obligations of Support

Aging and Caring: Exploring Older Adults' Motivation for Informal Caregiving to Other Aging Individuals in Nigeria

Background and Objectives

Because of the global population aging, more informal carers become older adults. In Nigeria, the African country with the largest population of adults aged 60 years and older, self-construal rooted in the African collectivist philosophy generally shapes informal caregiving for older adults. However, there is a general paucity of studies on older adults' informal caregiving roles, particularly about their motivations for caregiving. This study explored older adults' motives for informal caregiving to their care recipients in urban Southeast Nigeria.

Research Design and Methods

This study adopted a hermeneutic phenomenological research design. In-depth interviews were conducted with 30 purposively selected older adults aged 54-88 who were the primary carers of other older adults in the family and community. The collected data were analyzed using van Manen's thematic analysis method, using QSR NVivo 12 software.

Results

A total of 4 main themes emerged from the participants' responses: reciprocity of kindness, altruism, a sense of moral responsibility, and eagerness for peaceful longevity. The findings generally showed that religion and culture were the latent factors ingrained in these motivations for informal caregiving.

Discussion and Implications

Although the African philosophy emphasizes altruism, reciprocity seems more prominent in specific traditional African communities, as observed in Southeast Nigeria. It serves as a means to prioritize family members' needs. The findings indicate the need for the government to establish sustainable programs and policies that support older people in their caregiving role. Doing so will enable carers to derive psychosocial gains from informal caregiving and sustain the caregiving culture of Nigeria.

Reverence and Reciprocity in Prioritization of Care to a Parent: The Role of Cultural Ecologies and Implications for Decolonizing Relationality

Relationship research in the dominant psychological science portrays the prioritization of conjugal over consanguine relationships as a healthy standard. We argue that this "standard" pattern is only evident in cultural ecologies of independence. Drawing on the Confucian concept of filial piety, we conducted five studies and two mini meta-analyses to normalize the prioritization of mother over spouse. Cultural ecologies were operationalized by a variety of indexes, including histories of residential mobility, country, manipulated relational/residential mobility, and race. While participants situated in cultural ecologies of independence prioritized care to spouse over mother, participants inhabited in interdependence prioritized care to mother over spouse. Both American and Chinese participants showed greater prioritization of care for mother over spouse when they imagined a relational ecology of interdependence versus independence. Authoritarian filial piety mediated cultural-ecological variation on relational prioritization. Results illuminate cultural-ecological foundations of care and naturalize love as dutiful fulfillment of obligation.

Different Interpretations of "Honor Your Parents": Implications for Obligation of Parental Caregiving

OBJECTIVES

Many religious and cultural settings embrace the principle to "honor your parents." However, how individuals understand and enact this mandate varies by cultural context and community. The different understanding of "honor your parents" draws attention to motivations for parental caregiving across cultural contexts. This study investigates how individuals in 3 different cultural settings conceptualize "honoring your parents" and how these conceptualizations affect their perceptions of obligations to care for an older parent.

METHODS

Semistructured interviews with 153 individuals in the United States, Ghana, and Nigeria explored the concept of "honor your parents," how it is understood, and its relationship to the perceived obligation to care for one's parents. A content analysis was applied to all transcripts and analyzed for discussion.

RESULTS

Among individuals in the United States, "honor your parents" is less likely to be conceived as providing material and instrumental care to a parent, and more in terms of emotional care. In contrast, individuals in Nigeria and Ghana closely associated "honor your parents" with providing material and instrumental care to a parent.

DISCUSSION

Understanding how different conceptions of "honor your parents" translate to expectations for and modes of parental caregiving can illuminate how caregiving needs can be met for the aging populations of the United States, Ghana, and Nigeria.

Responsiveness in cultural-ecological context

Theoretical and empirical research on responsiveness focused mostly on cultural ecologies of independence. Emerging studies suggest that the responsiveness process may unfold differently in cultural ecologies of interdependence. We organize these studies into a working conceptual model. The model argues that two mechanisms-expectations of culturally normative relationship behaviors and relative centrality of relationships-carry the influence of cultural ecology on responsiveness. Together, these mechanisms explain variation in (a) self-expressive behaviors thought to elicit responsiveness, (b) associations between partner behaviors and perceived responsiveness, and (c) associations between perceived responsiveness and well-being.

Implications of COVID-19 Innovations for Social Interaction: Provisional Insights From a Qualitative Study of Ghanaian Christian Leaders

Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic prompted people and institutions to turn to online virtual environments for a wide variety of social gatherings. In this perspectives article, we draw upon our previous work and interviews with Ghanaian Christian leaders to consider implications of this shift. Specifically, we propose that the shift from physical to virtual interactions mimics and amplifies the neoliberal individualist experience of abstraction from place associated with Eurocentric modernity. On the positive side, the shift from physical to virtual environments liberates people to selectively pursue the most fulfilling interactions, free from constraints of physical distance. On the negative side, the move from physical to virtual space necessitates a shift from material care and tangible engagement with the local community to the psychologization of care and pursuit of emotional intimacy in relations of one's choosing-a dynamic that further marginalizes people who are already on the margins. The disruptions of the pandemic provide an opportunity to re-set social relations, to design ways of being that better promote sustainable collective well-being rather than fleeting personal fulfillment.

Obligation or Desire: Variation in Motivation for Compliance With COVID-19 Public Health Guidance

Why do people comply with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) public health guidance? This study considers cultural-psychological foundations of variation in beliefs about motivations for such compliance. Specifically, we focused on beliefs about two sources of prosocial motivation: desire to protect others and obligation to society. Across two studies, we observed that the relative emphasis on the desire to protect others (vs. the obligation to the community) as an explanation for compliance was greater in the United States settings associated with cultural ecologies of abstracted independence than in Chinese settings associated with cultural ecologies of embedded interdependence. We observed these patterns for explanations of psychological experience of both others (Study 1) and self (Study 2), and for compliance with mandates for both social distancing and face masks (Study 2). Discussion of results considers both practical implications for motivating compliance with public health guidance and theoretical implications for denaturalizing prevailing accounts of prosocial motivation.