Local Speakers

Individualism-Collectivism (I-C), a key concept in cross-cultural research and one of the most researched context variables in personality, social and developmental psychology, is often treated as synonymous with Hofstede’s pioneering nation scores. These scores face growing concerns about their validity, but subsequent research has not produced a widely accepted alternative. In Study 1, we systematically evaluated Hofstede’s I-C index, revealing inferior convergent and nomological validity compared to subsequent measures. Specific biases in Hofstede’s scores overestimate the individualism of English-speaking countries and collectivism of East Asian societies, which may perpetuate cultural stereotypes and underpin flawed theorizing. We illustrate how relying on Hofstede’s scores can bias research findings. In Study 2, we aimed to develop an authoritative, theory-driven I-C index, using nationally representative data from the World Values Survey and European Values Study, covering 102 countries/territories inhabited by 88% of the world’s population. Our index shows excellent internal coherence and temporal stability and outperforms Hofstede’s I-C in associations with a nomological network of 28 societal indicators theoretically linked to I-C. We argue for an overdue paradigm shift in cross-cultural research: scholars should rely on theoretically appropriate and up-to-date measures of societal culture when seeking to understand global variation in human psychological functioning.  

As I survey my intellectual journey post-PhD, I detect four, overlapping stages in my development as a cross-cultural psychologist. My first stage, that of innocence, involved examining human responses using the social-personality constructs and measures extracted from my training in North America up to that date. My second stage, that of discovery, involved applying those constructs and measures in the different cultural settings of Japan and Hong Kong, only to discover that the constructs worked differently to produce different responses. My third stage, that of understanding, involved using Mainstream and indigenously developed constructs and measures to begin understanding how cultural differences might be producing these differences in the responses of a culture’s individual members. Moving into the 21st Century, we cross-cultural psychologists either collected or were gifted with access to multi-cultural data sets tapping multiple constructs whose role in shaping psychological responses could be analyzed with increasingly sophisticated statistical packages. These resources now increasingly enable us to explore the moderating impact on individual responses of a growing set of cultural measures provided by culturologists studying various types of culture in addition to the national. My current and fourth stage, that of enlightenment, involves halting attempts to integrate this complexity of constructs and their measures into a coherent model of how an individual’s many cultural socializations across the lifespan affects his or her psychological responses. My journey continues…

Two dimensions have been found in a multitude of interpersonal judgement constructs, often termed in psychology as the Big Two of Agency and Communion. Their ubiquity is hypothesized to be rooted in common evolutionary challenges of social connection and problem solving. Osgood and colleagues’ (1957/1964) first used them to compare word meaning across cultures, consistently finding an Evaluative dimension (Communion), and two less stable dimensions of Potency or Activity (Agency). These dimensions are generally seen as emerging from the construct itself, e.g. personality traits are truly agentic or communal. But explicitly conceptualizing the 2Ds as structuring how humans rate all constructs, as if we are perceiving the world through “relationship-tinted” glasses, may allow for bigger-picture utilizations. I will illustrate how a Common Framework analysis allows for more insightful cross-language comparisons of the lay prototypes of Moral Character and Gratitude, in Chinese and English. A common 2D framework could be the source of, but also conceptually different from, similar-sounding concepts in personality, emotions, and the Inglehart-Welzel World Cultural Map. I look forward to discussing statistical puzzles (circumplex vs. factors), whether and how to differentiate a common 2D framework from similar-sounding theories, and forms of evidence still needed.

Culture is elusive—pervasive yet often unnoticed. As Clyde Kluckhohn famously noted, "Culture is like the air we breathe." Its complexity is reflected in the existence of over 160 definitions (Steinmetz, 1999), prompting scholars to develop numerous approaches to study it. While these approaches have provided valuable insights into the development of diverse cultural traditions, they remain primarily descriptive and correlational. This limitation parallels the early phases of many scientific disciplines, which initially identified their subject matter as substances or structures—fire with phlogiston, heat with caloric, and life with vital fluid. Over time, these sciences evolved to understand their subjects as dynamic processes: combustion for fire, random thermal motion for heat, and complex systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium for life. Similarly, understanding culture demands a shift from static description to dynamic explanation. In response to this challenge, my collaborators and I proposed the dynamic constructivist approach, which examines the causal influence of culture on cognition, affect, and behavior. This framework enables new research directions for understanding how individuals navigate multiple cultural systems and their psychological effects. To illustrate these possibilities, I will present research from my lab on racial essentialism, cultural mixing, and cultural attachment. Taken together, these findings offer deeper insights into the complex processes underlying cultural conflicts worldwide.

This presentation introduces the concept of structural fit—the alignment between individuals’ personal cultural orientations and the broader societal context—and examines its implications for subjective well-being (SWB) across two domains: gender norms and perceptions of democracy. Drawing on data from the joint EVS/WVS 2017–2022 across more than 85 countries, we explore how SWB is influenced by the fit between (1) personal gender norms and public gender norms, (2) personal gender norms and societal gender equality, (3) personal perceptions of democracy and collective societal representations, and (4) personal perceptions and expert evaluations of democratic quality. Across both studies, findings consistently show that cultural congruence between the individual and society is associated with higher SWB, particularly when individuals hold progressive gender views or positive perceptions of democracy in societies that share or support these views. Importantly, this cultural fit effect is stronger than the objective fit with institutional indicators like gender equality or expert democracy scores. However, we also find asymmetries: while alignment with positive collective perceptions enhances well-being, alignment with negative public views does not offer similar benefits. Together, these studies highlight the importance of integrating sociological and psychological perspectives on person–environment fit and provide new insights into how the congruence between personal and public culture contributes to well-being in a global context.