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Calls for papers for a special issue of the 'Asian Journal of Social Psychology,' devoted to recent conceptual advances and empirical research on psychological aspects of traditionality and modernity in Asia.

Calls for papers on the psychological analysis of the self, to be published in the December 1998 issue of the 'Asian Journal of Social Psychology.'

Working in a field that underrepresents populations outside Western societies, social psychologists in the Asia‐Pacific region encounter challenges in conducting research and imparting knowledge about social behaviour that resonates with local contexts. This paper argues that teaching can be a pathway for social psychology to rectify this representation problem. In this study, we report the results of our survey designed to contribute to an initial understanding of how and what social psychology is currently taught. Collectively, our survey respondents teach social psychology to over 12,000 students each year across 11 societies in the region. Results indicate that social psychology is seen as a crucial part of psychology education. About 80% of the respondents agreed that students should be taught that what is known in the international literature may not apply to a local context. At the same time, about 70% of the content taught was estimated to come from Western countries. Our findings highlight an opportunity for social psychology to evolve through teaching that embraces a more inclusive approach to meet societal demands for sound psychological knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accents are an important differentiator between groups which influence social perception and interaction, especially in a diverse country like Singapore. Social identity theory suggests that individuals would exhibit favoritism towards their own accents. However, the accent prestige theory demonstrates instances whereby foreign accents are perceived as more prestigious than one's own accent and are associated with more positive characteristics. This paper sought to explore which of these two theories is more prevalent in Singapore by comparing the perceptions of American English accents and local Singaporean English accents along the competence‐warmth paradigm of the Stereotype Content Model. Further, the current research also sought to examine the mediating effect of competence/warmth on the relationship between accents and social influence. Study 1 showed that Singaporeans perceived American‐accented speakers as significantly more competent (but not warmer) than local accented speakers. Furthermore, increased perceived competence significantly mediated the relationship between American accents and social influence. Study 2 further investigated perceived threat as a potential moderator in this mediating relationship. The findings replicated the accent‐competence‐social influence relations in Study 1 but found no effect of perceived threat. Taken together, the findings supported accent prestige towards American accents within Singapore. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we argue that one of the variables that may influence perceived inequality in everyday life is cultural differences in relational mobility. We examined this research question across two cross‐cultural studies in Japan (Study 1, N = 196; Study 2, N = 214) and Spain (Study 1, N = 199; Study 2, 199), two countries that differ in their relational mobility levels. In Study 1, we contrasted two competing hypotheses: On the one hand, it could be predicted that individuals in countries with high relational mobility perceive greater inequality due to increased exposure to diverse social networks. On the other hand, it is also plausible that in contexts of high relational mobility, people perceive less inequality as they selectively choose to interact with individuals who share similar social backgrounds. Results supported the former hypotheses and showed that people in a country high in relational mobility (i.e. Spain) tend to perceive more economic inequality (vs. Japan, a country low in relational mobility). Moreover, we found an indirect effect of this cross‐cultural difference through the cultural affordances for meeting new people (i.e. one of the dimensions of relational mobility). In Study 2, we preregistered and replicated these results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Calls for manuscripts for a special issue of the 'Asian Journal of Social Psychology,' dedicated to the topic of emotion.

Since 1965, Japan has issued numerous apologies to Korea, which however failed to resonate with the Korean public. To investigate this puzzle, this paper analyses the structure of these apologies and empirically examines their reception in Korea. Blatz et al.'s (Political Psychology, 2009, 30, 219) classification of components of political apologies was applied to conduct a qualitative analysis of 63 official apology statements by Japan to Korea and identify the most frequently used components (Study 1). Korean participants (N = 210) were randomly presented with an experimental vignette consisting of a major apology component to examine their psychological responses, and they also ranked the importance of each major apology component (Study 2). Results showed that while Koreans viewed admission of wrongdoing as an essential and the most demanded component of apology, it was paradoxically the least frequent component offered by Japan in reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is an exponential rise in the literature on gratitude research, there is no attempt to systematically identify the historical development and recent trends in gratitude research. Gratitude has been defined diversely as an emotion, an attitude, a moral virtue, a habit, a personality trait or a coping response. As an emotion, people experience gratitude when they receive something valuable from someone else. As a trait, it is defined as a tendency to recognise and respond to goodness in others. The present study uses bibliometric analysis to review gratitude publications from the last 20 years, that is from 2001 to September 2023. WoS (Web of Science) identified 2982 publications referring to gratitude in title, abstract or keywords. It comprised 2860 articles and 122 review papers. The extracted data were analysed and visualised with the help of two analytical tools, that is the WoS analysis and VOSviewer (version 1.6.16). This study elicits the number of publications and citations from 2001 to September 2023, and most cited publications, and the most influential authors, articles, publishers, universities and countries as performance analysis. Furthermore, collaboration among countries, keyword co‐occurrence and recent trend analysis are employed through science mapping. The results reveal that the major research areas of gratitude research are psychology, social sciences, business economics, psychiatry and public environmental and occupational health. The keywords co‐occurrence suggest five major research clusters: evolutionary studies of gratitude, gratitude and health, gratitude and positive psychology, gratitude among children and adolescent and mediating and moderating studies of gratitude. Also, the analysis of recent 5‐year studies highlights a clear trend of scientific explorations of gratitude against earlier trends of articles on philosophical and religious connotations of gratitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the social network perspective to the context of electric‐bike driving and empirically tests various hypotheses on the relationship between social network density and electric‐bike driving hazards. The results of a three‐wave time‐lagged field study of 1575 electric‐bike drivers showed that social network density had a negative indirect effect on driving hazards, mediated by perceived obligation, and a positive indirect effect on driving hazards, mediated by overconfidence. Furthermore, a strong perceived ethical climate strengthened the negative indirect effect of social network density on driving hazards via perceived obligation and mitigated the positive indirect effect of social network density on driving hazards via overconfidence. This study makes theoretical contributions and provides empirical evidence to support the further exploration of electric‐bike driving safety hazards. It also contributes to the literature on social network density by revealing how it is akin to a double‐edged sword in the context of safety incidents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An editorial is presented on contribution made by the publication Asian Journal of Social Psychology (AJSP) in the field of social psychology which is circulated in Asia. It talks about the submission of the manuscripts by the editorial team of the publication consisting of associate editors. It tells about the periodical AJSP aiming towards understanding Asian cultures.

The study of authoritarianism has a long history in the field of psychology; however, much of this research focuses on Western countries, especially the United States. In effort to better understand authoritarianism cross‐culturally, we explore the current state of authoritarianism in an important cultural context: Russia. Thus, the current paper reports on large‐scale research of right‐wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation in the modern Russian context. Six studies (total N = 1,358) included personality traits, basic human values, social beliefs, and intergroup attitudes that allowed us to comprehensively consider authoritarian attitudes in Russia. The results showed that personological profile and pattern of reaction to threat among Russian authoritarians is similar to Western authoritarians. However, economic views inherited from Soviet ideology make Russians differ in their view of economic conservatism from that supported by Western authoritarians. These data provide insight into the psychology of authoritarianism as well as explore novel aspects of Russian culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a Journal of Personality and Social Psychology article, Sedikides, Gaertner and Vevea (2005) presented two meta-analyses that included eight papers to investigate the question of whether people from Eastern cultures self-enhance more for traits that they view to be important compared to those that they view as unimportant. The results supported their hypothesis: Self-enhancement appears to be pancultural. However, this conclusion is severely compromised by six relevant papers that are not included in their meta-analyses. Importantly, all of these six studies contradicted their hypothesis. When complete meta-analyses are conducted which include all of the relevant papers, a very different pattern of results emerges. Eastern and Western cultures do not differ from each other in the pattern of their self-enhancement of independent and interdependent traits. Furthermore, whereas Westerners self-enhanced significantly more for traits that they viewed to be especially important, East Asians did not. Contrary to the Sedikides et al. (2005) suggestion, the existing evidence suggests substantial cross-cultural variation in self-enhancement, with Westerners being far more self-enhancing than Easterners. Reasons for the conflicting pattern of findings across methods and meta-analyses are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross‐cultural research into body image often takes for granted the cultural differences in body ideals that may account for variations in body image experience. Male body image across cultures is also poorly understood. Applying methods of cognitive anthropology to cross‐cultural male body ideals, this paper tests whether universalist or particularist approaches to body image better account for cultural variation. Results suggest that Americans and South Koreans draw from different cultural models in determining which features of male bodies warrant attention, as predicted by a particularist approach. Moreover, elements important for Korean male body image were found to lack emic validity among Americans, and vice‐versa. Considering significant variations in the elements of male bodies attended to, cross‐cultural body image research should more closely examine the cultural assumptions about bodies implicit in measurements to ensure that measurements are not just translated correctly, but also emically meaningful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a call for papers for the special issue of the "Asian Journal of Social Psychology" on social network processes. Potential topics include theoretical, empirical, and methodological issues surrounding social network research and data analysis, and varieties of applications of social network perspectives on such topics as physical and mental health, organizational behavior, community psychology, information technology, and social capital. The submission due date is June 30, 2006.

The integration of institutionalist and communitarian views of social capital accumulation is increasingly advocated in order to analyse civil society dynamics, in particular in transitional countries such as former socialist states. The present paper is an attempt at reconciling the two views through a micro level‐focused approach. Such a perspective allows investigating linkages between institutional perception, civic engagement, and trust in society, with the support of social cognition frameworks (social categorization and shared agency). The approach emphasizes the linkages existing between trust toward institutions and perceptions of civic empowerment on the one hand, and civic engagement and trust in society on the other, while also taking into account the role of interpersonal (informal) networking. The analysis, carried out through structural equation modelling, is based on more than 2,000 observations from two federal districts of the Russian Federation. The results show a relevant positive correlation between institutional perception and social capital, and a moderate correlation between bonding (personal networking) and trust in society; on the other hand, civic engagement and trust in society appear to be uncorrelated with each other and with different forms of institutional perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the cross‐cultural validity of the Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale. Two samples of university students were recruited: 504 from a Nepali university and 260 from a UK university. In relation to culture, structural equation modelling analyses provided support for the scale's configural invariance and the configural, metric, and scalar invariance of two if its subscales. Evidence for measurement invariance was also found in relation to gender in both samples. Tentative analyses suggested that the correlation between self and other emotion appraisal was stronger among UK participants and that UK participants scored higher on the Other Emotion Appraisal subscale. No gender differences on emotional intelligence were found in the Nepali sample, while among UK students, males scored higher on Regulation of Emotion and lower on Other Emotion Appraisal than females. In the Nepali sample, science students scored lower on various aspects of emotional intelligence than humanities students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To assess an overall correlation between emotional intelligence (EI) and subjective well‐being (SWB) within Chinese culture, accounting for possible moderating factors, we conducted a meta‐analysis of 119 correlations obtained from 62 studies with a total sample size of 29,922. The results uncovered a moderately positive correlation, r =.32, 95% CI [0.29, 0.36], p <.001, between EI and SWB. The strength of the correlation was moderated by EI stream, SWB component, participant's age, and participant's employment status. Specifically, this association was stronger when EI was measured as self‐report mixed EI, r =.49, and self‐report ability EI, r =.32, than when it was measured as performance‐based ability EI, r =.08. In addition, EI was more strongly associated with the cognitive components of SWB, r =.32, than with the affective component of SWB, r =.29, and the EI–SWB association was stronger in adults, r =.33, than in adolescents, r =.25. Furthermore, EI was more closely related to SWB in working adults, r =.43, compared to students, r =.29, and EI was almost equally associated with SWB across males and females, β = −.08, p =.55. The results, as well as their theoretical and practical implications, are discussed in detail with reference to relevant cross‐cultural theories and comparative empirical findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concerned about a lack of legitimacy, European Union (EU) institutions have increasingly engaged in memory politics to enhance European identity. Yet, memory of the EU is still closely connected to the collective identity formation of nation‐states, especially in the field of education, the focus of this study. Inspired by this dilemma, the present paper examines the representations of European unification in textbooks of six countries: Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Finland, Hungary, and Estonia. By focusing on countries on the margins of Europe, the present study explores shared and diverse narratives of the European unification process and asks whether or not a shared historical charter of European unification exists. All together 86 history textbooks used in upper secondary school were analysed by adopting a three‐step multi‐method approach. The results suggest that the representation of European unification is more diverse than it is homogenous. It can be narrated as a political value community or as a community based on utilitarian interests, or it can be represented from a unified European or from a more national perspective. Exploring representations of European unification is crucial to understanding how they can be used as legitimizing charters to navigate through the European challenges of the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of collective memory (CM) forms a platform for dialogue between top‐down (CM as publicly available symbols) and bottom‐up approaches (CM as aggregated across individuals), and between the idiographic (case specific) and nomothetic (universal) approaches across the social sciences and humanities. The availability of symbolic resources from history to serve as foundations for systems of belief is critical for defining human science as an open system involving synchronic and diachronic analyses that theorize about the making and breaking of political culture: including concepts, processes, and organizations coming into being, or disappearing, and as they do so, changing what phenomena can be observed and why. This Special Issue contains ten articles, one cluster of which centering around Europe, and the collective remembering of World War II. This contributed to the making of the European Union, but national structures also limit popular identification with this supranational structure. Despite the best efforts of states, the bottom‐up surveys reported here demonstrate the heterogeneity of CM, as mediated by mass communications, and age cohorts. In contexts ranging from memory of the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines, to protest movements in Hong Kong, Japanese occupation of Korea, and social representations of the histories of Singapore, Morocco, and Egypt, the papers collected here show consistently that CM is heterogeneous, and different CMs are associated with different political attitudes and behavior. History as a symbolic resource is best conceptualized as something that can be mobilized by an identity entrepreneur, not as something fixed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We critically examine the three papers on terrorism and jihad in Indonesia contained in this issue. First, we argue that thorough discussion and definition of key terms (including religious violence and jihad) would have led to a much stronger framework for understanding the voices of the activists and their supporters. Second, the authors could have engaged more systematically with the international literature on intergroup relations and conflict to discuss how psychological and social processes of radicalization are similar or different in the Indonesian context. Third, we highlight methodological and ethical shortcomings in the three papers that call into question a number of the conclusions drawn by the authors. We outline future research questions and provide suggestions to strengthen this important line of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heine, Kitayama and Hamamura (2007) attributed the Sedikides, Gaertner and Vevea (2005) findings to the exclusion of six papers. We report a meta-analysis that includes those six papers. The Heine et al. conclusions are faulty, because of a misspecified meta-analysis that failed to consider two moderators central to the theory. First, some of their effect sizes originated from studies that did not empirically validate comparison dimensions. Inclusion of this moderator evidences pancultural self-enhancement: Westerners enhance more strongly on individualistic dimensions, Easterners on collectivistic dimensions. Second, some of their effect sizes were irrelevant to whether enhancement is correlated with dimension importance. Inclusion of this moderator evidences pancultural self-enhancement: Both Westerners and Easterners enhance on personally important dimensions. The Sedikides et al. conclusions are valid: Tactical self-enhancement is pancultural. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A scan of citation impact suggests that Asian social psychologists have made significant contributions in three areas: indigenous research, culture and social behaviour, and in several topics in social psychology. An analysis of the most cited articles published in Asian Journal of Social Psychology ( AJSP) in 1998–2002 in March 2005 reveals that most papers are concerned with culture, with a focus on either popular topics in the West or indigenous concepts. Asian social psychology seems to be closely associated with cultural issues, but it still lacks unique theoretical contributions, and the number of internationally visible scholars is limited and is mostly confined to East Asia. However, Asian cultures provide a fertile ground for identifying new constructs. Many Asian universities are now under pressure to internationalize, which will motivate more academics to participate in Asian conferences and publish in AJSP. To develop Asian social psychology, effort should be focused on nurturing the next generation of Asian social psychologists, who not only need an international perspective, but also ambition and creativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to present a critical analysis of the development of indigenous psychologies within the western and non–western contexts. The rhetoric of indigenous psychologies is cross–examined to include historical perspectives, cultural interdependence and institutional regulations. The paper also examines the processes of psychologizing indigenous views that are largely regulated by the powerful social agencies. The paper endeavors to draw a link between historical perspectives and post–historical cultural interdependence in order to explicate the contentious issues of ‘micro and macro indigenous psychologies’, both within and beyond western indigenous psychologies. The importance of the cross–fertilization of knowledge from diverse indigenous psychologies for the development of a global indigenous psychology is reaffirmed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article calls for the submission of papers that can stimulate debate regarding how the relationships between brain and the culture may offer challenges to Asian social psychology. The bicultural and crosscultural empirical studies that contain Asian element are likewise recognized. It suggests that papers should be prepared according to the Author Guidelines and should be submitted.

The present study describes the development and validation of a new instrument to measure the well‐being of Indonesian people. Items were generated by taking into account the recent cross‐cultural developments in the literature. Participants (N = 1,028) from a number of provinces in Indonesia completed an online or a paper questionnaire containing a battery of measures, including the new well‐being instrument. The total sample was randomly split into two equal groups. An exploratory factor analysis (n = 516) was conducted on one half to explore the factor structure of the new scale, which resulted in a 24‐item scale with a four‐factor solution. The four factors were (a) Basic Needs, (b) Social Relation, (c) Acceptance, and (d) Spirituality. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted on the second half (n = 516), which confirmed the four‐factor structure with 20 items emerging as the best and most parsimonious fit of the data. The psychometric properties of the final scale were tested on the whole sample. The new scale displayed sound internal consistency, test‐retest reliability, and divergent, convergent, and discriminant validity. The scale has the potential to be used in future research which examines well‐being in the Indonesia context. Future directions and limitations of the study are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Essentialist theories are the beliefs that there are immutable essences underlying observed differences between social groups (e.g. racial group, cultural group). This paper reviews the intergroup dynamics and intrapersonal processes associated with essentialism. It also explores the interplay between the two. By explicating the intricate relationship between these psychological processes, the current paper aims to advance our understanding of intergroup relations and identify their implications for the study of multiculturalism. We posit that although the commonly observed negative intergroup outcomes, such as prejudices and biases, can be the byproducts of basic cognitive processes associated with essentialist theories, the social power dynamics in a given society also play important roles in shaping the relationships between essentialism and intergroup outcomes. We then discuss the implications of this understanding to our increasingly multicultural world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malaysia is a multi-ethnic country with Malay, Chinese and Indian being the dominant ethnic groups. This paper investigates the three ethnic cultures in Malaysia by examining the individual-level values of managers and professionals. Based on 528 responses to a Schwartz Value Survey ( SVS) questionnaire, the paper identifies partial convergence of the value systems of Malay, Chinese and Indian people. It was found that the three ethnic groups do not differ significantly in the individualistic value dimensions of Self-enhancement and Openness-to-change. However, Malays are found to be more conservative and less self-transcendent than Chinese or Indians, while Chinese and Indians attribute the same importance to these two sets of values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Life experience appears to be transforming in contemporary societies, with changes taking place in Asia being particularly substantial. There is strong public interest in understanding how these changes affect individual psyches. Scientific understanding of this issue, however, has not kept pace with change. Research findings from Western societies, the USA in particular, provide a model for understanding and predicting patterns of cultural change in Asia. However, the applicability of the model in this region requires critical examination. This article presents an overview of the available evidence in this research field, reviewing available psychological research that examines cultural change in the USA, China, Japan, and Australia. This paper's aim is to stimulate interest in this research area within the community of Asian social psychologists as our Asia-based insights have much to contribute to the fundamental research question at stake, and the nature of the interplay between a changing social ecology, cultural environment, and participating psyches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to develop a model for individual social behavior, B, that incorporates the contributions of both the personality of the actor, P, and the relevant features of the situation, S, in which he or she is performing. In analyzing the original formula by Lewin, viz., B = f( P. S), the paper first considers the importance accorded the situation in previous theorizing about ' Asianness'. It then analyzes the contributions of the actor's personality, noting in particular that actors come to develop broad expectancies for situational outcomes, P( S), associated with situations they encounter. Those situations are glossed for social psychological purposes in terms of their affordances for potential yields relative to the actor's motivations for sociality and status. These situational affordances are defined by the normative prescriptions believed to be operative in that situation for acceptable enactments of behaviors aimed at attaining the actor's goals for sociality and status. That normative pressure is objective, though it may be judged by the actor, and is termed the O( S) component of the situation. It is held with some degree of consensus, CO( S), by others in, or observers of, the situation. These two components specify the 'strength' of the situation for social psychological purposes, yielding an elaborated Lewinian formula B = f( P. P[ S]. O[ S]. CO[ S]). The culture of the participants, national, organizational, familial or dyadic, will determine the beta weights linking the components of the formula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the present paper is to provide an integrated analysis of indigenous psychologies and to outline the epistemological foundation of indigenous psychologies. In the first part of this paper, the authors provide commentary of the four articles in this Special Issue. In the second section, the epistemological foundation of general psychology is reviewed. General psychology has adopted positivism in search of abstract and universal laws of human behavior and eliminated the subjective aspects of human functioning (i.e. agency, meaning, intention and goals) and the influence of context and culture. In the third section, the authors introduce the transactional model of science. In this approach, human beings are viewed as agents of their own action and are motivated to control and manage their environment. In the fourth section, indigenous psychologies and culture are defined. Cultural differences exist due to the diverse goals that cultures pursue, the methods people use to attain the goals, and the differential use of natural and human resources. In the fifth section, a review of empirical studies focusing on academic achievement is provided to highlight the scientific merits of indigenous psychologies. In the final section, the authors distinguish between the speculative analyses of indigenous concepts from systematic indigenous analyses. Indigenous psychologies represent a scientific paradigm in which the goal is to create a more rigorous, systematic and universal science that can be theoretically and empirically verified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper endeavours to discuss some of the potential issues inherent in the developmental work for indigenous psychologies, especially in the Western context. The discussion is made around two topical issues, sustainability and local knowledge. The developmental processes in indigenous psychologies are influenced by the inter- and intracommunity environment. It is important to trace the development of local knowledge in a sustained community environment. The cross-fertilization of ecological perspectives with indigenous psychological knowledge can enlighten our understandings of global issues in psychology as well as the applications of psychological knowledge to a local context. A theoretical model is proposed to highlight major social psychological processes in a participatory community environment − the model is expected to address essential contentious issues to the future of a globalized psychology, especially the way integrated local knowledge can lay the foundations of a globalized indigenous psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) was first reported in China, and spread to 29 regions, affecting over 8000 people worldwide. For the general public, the psychological impact of SARS may have been greater than the physical health danger of the disease. The present paper proposes the influence of psychological factors on people's cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses during the SARS outbreak. The various papers in this special issue of the Journal reveal how people have reacted during the SARS outbreak: People's general coping styles may be related to their health behavior during the outbreak. Cultural differences were evident in the perception of SARS, and individuals’ perceptual styles may have influenced their ability to cope with the outbreak. The way in which individuals coped with SARS-related stressful events was different from their usual practices of managing daily stress. Individual differences in the adoption of preventive measures were related to the distinct susceptibility to several social-cognitive biases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brown and Kobayashi provide some evidence that Japanese enhance themselves and group members in the self–other paradigm, especially for important traits. However, their conclusions are drawn from a highly selective review of the literature. In their paper they raise four distinct hypotheses: Japanese self–enhance, Japanese self–enhance as much as North Americans, Japanese self–enhance more for important traits, and Japanese enhance their groups. An evaluation of each of these four hypotheses with respect to all of the relevant empirical evidence reveals that they are all poorly supported and, in some cases, are directly contradicted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rumor research, in general, and its delayed incorporation of the work of rumor researcher Jamuna Prasad, in particular, exemplify how the intellectual climate of American social psychology discouraged the development of social approaches. In the present paper, we explain his conceptualization of how rumors start and spread, and explore findings from subsequent research supporting or negating his propositions. It is our contention that, although Prasad had identified the basic variables involved in rumor generation and transmission correctly, mainstream social psychological research in the 1940s did not incorporate his contributions. Instead, mirroring the Zeitgeist of American social psychology, rumor research was approached from a predominantly individual level of analysis. In the present paper, the authors have tried to resurrect some of the group-level variables from Prasad's treatment of rumor and to suggest that social psychology adopt a more 'social' approach to rumor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the cultural revolution in psychology, focusing on the articles of Kim (2000) and Yang (2000) in the context of Asian social psychology. Indigenous approach to psychology; Comparison of the culture-related psychologies contributing to cultural revolution in psychology; Incorporation of cultural context into the explanation of human behavior.

The world is growing more interconnected, and Asian societies are increasingly able to play leading roles in global society. However, Asian psychologists and social scientists have yet to draw from their cultural roots to create social sciences able to make a difference in their home societies. This paper articulates an epistemology for the aspirational practice of Height Psychology as a human science informed by Kantian epistemology in dialogue with other philosophies, especially Confucianism and Taoism. The possibility of 'intellectual intuition' (direct knowledge of thing-in-itself, or noumenon) is allowed in Eastern philosophical traditions that open a more agentic and human-centred philosophy of science for action that goes beyond natural science epistemologies originating in Cartesian dualism. Kant's practical postulates are invoked to develop a moral and ethical philosophy that through civilizational dialogue can lead to a philosophy of science robustly incorporating culture and human agency. A thought experiment is offered where practical postulates of Chinese culture are held to be yin-yang cosmology, human-heartedness, and relationalism. It is argued that these facilitate an holistic science of practice that complements the sophistication of Western methods. Principles and an approach to theory-building for human science are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article is inspired by Liu's () idea on how Asian philosophy can, in general, and Confucianism, in particular, contribute to psychological science and practice. We first clarify potential misunderstandings of Liu's () paper as a theoretical argument for indigenous psychology or as a debate on philosophy or the philosophy of science. To interpret and develop Liu's idea, we then conceptualize the concept of culture as canonic (abstract, philosophical and as it appears in classical books or articles) vs. popular (concrete, experiential and as it appears in people's daily lives). Further, since Liu's main point is about canonic rather than popular culture, we focus on canonic culture and propose three principles of it, namely the principle of diversity, the principle of hermeneutics and the principle of inspiration. These principles respectively reveal the characteristics, the interpretation process and the beneficial function of a canonic culture like Confucianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tests whether individuals' reliance on ease-of-retrieval processes when forming procedural justice judgements are moderated by informational and personal uncertainty. In Studies 1 and 2 we examined the predicted effects of informational uncertainty. Results indicated that participants in information-uncertain conditions relied on ease-of-retrieval, whereas those in information-certain conditions relied on content information to make procedural justice judgements. In Study 3 we examined the combined effects of informational uncertainty and personal uncertainty on reliance on ease-of-retrieval when forming procedural justice judgements. The findings of Study 3 indicated that personal uncertain participants who were in informational certain conditions based their procedural justice judgements on content information, whereas all other participants based their procedural justice judgements on ease-of-retrieval. This is the first paper to demonstrate that the joint effect of informational uncertainty and personal uncertainty on reliance on ease-of-retrieval is different from the two uncertainties acting alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we report a study conducted in Mongolia on the scope of morality, that is, the extent to which people moralize different social domains. Following Turiel's moral-conventional task, we characterized moral transgressions (in contrast to conventional transgressions) in terms of two dimensions: authority independence and generality of scope. Different moral domains are then defined by grouping such moral transgressions in terms of their content (following Haidt's classification of morally relevant domains). There are four main results of the study. First, since all five Haidtian domains were moralized by the Mongolian participants, the study provides evidence in favour of pluralism about moral domains. However, the study also suggests that the domain of harm can be reduced to the fairness domain. Furthermore, although the strong claim about reduction of all moral domains to the domain of fairness does not seem to hold a significant number of participants did indicate considerations of fairness across domains. Finally, a significant amount of participants moralized conventional transgressions a la Turiel, but it did not reach a statistical significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined the processes by which children acquire pro-environmental behaviours in different cultures. Our focus was on parental influence. Several studies have been conducted on adults' environmental behaviours; however, we know little about how children's environmental attitudes and behaviours are formed. We conducted a questionnaire survey with elementary school children and one of their parents in Germany and Japan. Two hundred and twenty-one pairs participated in Germany and 365 in Japan. The results of structural equation modelling showed that parents' behaviours affected children's environmental behaviours directly and also via the subjective norm (the children's experienced expectations of their parents). A comparison of the two countries revealed that hypothesized cultural differences between the impact of personal norms and subjective norms were clearer for adults. The results also showed that the effects of subjective norms were stronger for children, indicating that children are more likely to be influenced by expectations of others. The results of the study suggest that for promoting children's environmental behaviours, showing the behaviours in daily life would be most effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intricate interactions between language and culture shape bilingual and bicultural individuals' psychological responses to social contexts. Language carries cultural scripts, ideals, and practices, which can be activated by situational cues. In the process of managing two acquired languages, bilinguals shift their self-perception and self-presentation to accommodate the prototypical norms characteristic of the culture being primed by language use. Cultural mindset can explain such language priming effects. In the process of negotiating two intersecting cultures, integrating bicultural identities is central to psychological adjustment among individuals experiencing immigration-based and globalization-based acculturation, whereas bilingual or trilingual competence is important to sojourners' adjustment. The present paper reviews empirical work along these lines of research and suggests that it is possible for alternation and integration to coexist within the same individuals who integrate their bicultural identities and alternate their behavioural responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the spillover and crossover effects of emotional exhaustion on marital satisfaction for both employees and partners as well as on employee work-family conflict and partner family-work conflict. It investigates how the transmission of psychological strain from the workplace to the family domain mediates these relationships. In a sample of 226 employee-partner dyads from manufacturing, electronics, banking, service industries and public organizations, the results support the notion that employees' emotional exhaustion spawns negative strain in the home. More specifically, the results of spillover mediation analyses show the relationships between emotional exhaustion and employee marital satisfaction/work-family conflict in the home. In a crossover model, the results indicate that employee psychological strain mediates the relationships between emotional exhaustion and the marital satisfaction of partners/family-work conflict in partners. These findings provide supports for spillover and crossover models to investigate a direction for the effectiveness of emotional exhaustion on family issues. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed, and directions for future research are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The efforts of Asian social psychology and the Asian Association of Social Psychology (AASP) over the past decade and longer have clearly drawn attention to Asian cultures and their potential influence on psychological processes, and have highlighted the need to incorporate Asian social psychology into a global understanding of social psychology. Despite these advancements, however, all four authors, in their own way, suggest that these efforts are only the tip of the iceberg, and describe how Asian social psychology can shift their contributions to a higher gear. In this brief commentary, I discuss three points raised in the papers by Atsumi, Hofstede, Leung, and Ward: identity, the gold standard of comparison, and the contribution of Asian social psychology to a global social psychology, all in relation to visions of the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of the Big Five personality traits on cognitions regarding problematic Internet use ( PIU) have not been studied. The present paper aims to evaluate the effects of personality traits on cognitions regarding PIU that are classified as loneliness/depression, diminished impulse control, distraction and social control. Additionally, the mediator effect of the Big Five personality traits on the relationship between time spent online and cognitions regarding PIU was tested in a sample of 494 Turkish university students. Hierarchical regression analysis results reveal that controlling the effects of socio-demographic variables and time spent online, higher neuroticism and lower conscientiousness were related to cognitions regarding PIU. Moreover, results of structural equation modelling indicate that the relationship between time spent online and cognitions regarding PIU was independently mediated by extraversion, openness and agreeableness. Examining the role of all of the Big Five personality traits (especially neuroticism and conscientiousness) on PIU will increase understanding in further studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study in this article is part of a more in-depth research investigating the architectural and physical design influences on sense of place dimensions in the context of contemporary mosques in Malaysia. The focus of this paper is human-place bonding in sacred and religious settings, based on a framework including aspects of sociality, physicality and spirituality, in addition to demographic variables such as ranges of length of experience with, and frequency of presence in, the environment of the studied mosques. The effects of the perceptions of architecture and physical design, social environment, and spiritual atmosphere on dimensions of sense of place were studied using a structural equation modelling analysis based on 302 questionnaires completed in seven state mosques across the Southeast Asian country of Malaysia. Meanwhile the socio-demographic effects on sense of place dimensions were also tested based on several analyses of variances ( ANOVA) in various demographic groups through sense of place dimensions. In doing so, we adopted the multi-dimensional approach towards sense of place consisting of cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions. As major findings, this research provided empirical evidence for the existence of direct relationships between perceptions of the key environmental factors studied and the sense of place dimensions in contexts with extensive religious and sacred attributes; on the other hand, no interactive relationship was found between most of the socio-demographic variables and those dimensions. This article discusses in detail each of those approved and rejected relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese society is characterized by emerging fragmentation and by the coexistence of traditional and Western values, goals and norms. In this multifaceted environment bi-cultural selves, which encompass social and individual orientations, may emerge. The aim of this paper is to explore if features of bi-cultural selves concerning interactions, emotions, and values are reflected in online public discussions in China. In order to address this question, we explored two of the most popular bulletin board systems (BBSs): Tian Ya and Feng Huang Forums. BBSs attract almost one third of Internet users in China and provide these users with a forum to carry out public dialogue; BBSs are thus an ideal place to study how the self is socially shaped in public communication. A sample of 6109 messages was subjected to quantitative content analysis. Results show that twofold self-construal, corresponding to the individual- and social-oriented self, are (also) detected in BBSs forum content: direct and polemic content coexist with conciliatory content; ego-focused and other-focused emotions are almost equally as frequent as one another; and traditional values are evoked together with the quest for truth and individual rights. Moreover, three typologies of Internet users (proactive, ambivalent, and follower), which were identified on the basis of the quality of their online interactions, show different patterns of emotions and values. We may thus conclude that alternative ways of constructing self-other and self-society relationships currently coexist in China and that these alternative views confront each other on BBS forums. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]