Cross-cultural Psychology (Culture)

Punishment promotes contributions to public goods, but recent evidence suggests that its effectiveness varies across societies. Prior theorizing suggests that cross-societal differences in trust play a key role in determining the effectiveness of punishment, as a form of social norm enforcement, to promote cooperation. One line of reasoning is that punishment promotes cooperation in low-trust societies, primarily because people in such societies expect their fellow members to contribute only if there are strong incentives to do so. Yet another line of reasoning is that high trust makes punishment work, presumably because in high-trust societies people may count on each other to make contributions to public goods and also enforce norm violations by punishing free riders. This poses a puzzle of punishment: Is punishment more effective in promoting cooperation in high- or low-trust societies? In the present article, we examine this puzzle of punishment in a quantitative review of 83 studies involving 7,361 participants across 18 societies that examine the impact of punishment on cooperation in a public goods dilemma. The findings provide a clear answer: Punishment more strongly promotes cooperation in societies with high trust rather than low trust.

""You have been telling people that this is the eleventh hour.
Now you must go back and tell people that this is the hour!
And there are things to be considered:
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your Garden.
It is time to speak your truth.
Create your community.
Be good to yourself.
And not look outside of yourself for a leader.
This could be a good time!
There is a river flowing very fast.
It is so great and fast that there are those who will be afraid.
They will hold on to the shore.
They will feel that they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly.
Know that the river has its destination.
The elders say that we must let go of the shore,
push off into the middle of the river,
keep our eyes open,
and our heads above the water.
See who is in there with you and celebrate.
At this time we are to take nothing personally,
least of all, ourselves.
For the moment that we do,
our spiritual growth comes to a halt.
The time of the lone wolf is over.
Gather yourselves!
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones that we have been waiting for.""

Although recent findings indicate that people can reflect either adaptively or maladaptively over negative experiences, extant research has not examined how culture influences this process. We compared the self-reflective practices of Russians (members of an interdependent culture characterized by a tendency to brood) and Americans (members of an independent culture in which self-reflection has been studied extensively). We predicted that self-reflection would be associated with less-detrimental outcomes among Russians because they self-distance more when analyzing their feelings than Americans do. Findings from two studies supported these predictions. In Study 1, self-reflection was associated with fewer depressive symptoms among Russians than among Americans. In Study 2, Russians displayed less distress and a more adaptive pattern of construals than Americans after reflecting over a recent negative event. In addition, they self-distanced more than Americans while analyzing their feelings, and self-distancing mediated the cultural differences in self-reflection. These findings demonstrate how culture shapes the way people reflect over negative experiences.

"The incidence of schizophrenia, as well as the
symptoms, course, and outcomes for people so diagnosed
seem to vary across some cultural contexts. The mechanisms
by which cultural variations may protect one from or
increase one’s risk of developing schizophrenia remain
unclear. Recent findings from transdisciplinary crosscultural
research, indicate ways that we may better understand how socioenvironmental and cultural variables interact with physiologic pathways relating psychosocial stress and psychotic symptoms, epigenetic changes, and people’s use of culturally available tools to mitigate stress, in ways that may inform relevant, effective interventions for people diagnosed with psychotic disorders worldwide."

"Zuckermann, Ghil'ad 2006. ‘"Etymythological Othering" and the Power of "Lexical Engineering" in Judaism, Islam and Christianity. A Socio-Philo(sopho)logical Perspective’ pp. 237-58 (Chapter 16) of Tope Omoniyi and Joshua A. Fishman (eds), Explorations in the Sociology of Language and Religion (Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture series). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
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The authors argue that perceptions of service quality vary across cultural groups, as defined by each culture’s position on Hofstede’s dimensions. They explicitly map the relationship between service quality perceptions and cultural dimension positions and draw the implications for international service market segmentation. They also test the hypotheses constituting their theoretical analysis. They show that the importance of SERVQUAL dimensions is correlated with Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. They also used the correlation coefficients to compute a Cultural Service Quality Index that could be used to segment international service markets and allocate resources across segments.

Based on his own Tibetan medicine practice, the author analyzes the rapprochement between Tibetan medicine and the industry of complementary and alternative medicine/integrative medicine. Discussed in depth are the social, ethical and medical significance of the transformation of traditional Tibetan medicine in the context of Western (esp. American) normative public health policies. The author shows how in that context, a neo-traditional medical practice can be constructed, that advances the translation of traditional Asian medical concepts and terminology in a way that is intended to be both faithful to traditional theory, and that makes it accessible and useful to the wide spectrum of patients of diverse cultural, language and economic backgrounds found in New York City.