tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1298769255279734097.post7777281918159572488..comments2023-09-17T08:52:37.461-07:00Comments on Adventures In Culture, Mind & Space: Applied Cross-Cultural Psychology: Some ideas for a meaningful scienceRonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16204324324254552609noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1298769255279734097.post-90696714660438274102012-05-28T04:59:01.775-07:002012-05-28T04:59:01.775-07:00Hiya, the question about what culture is a terribl...Hiya, the question about what culture is a terribly important one. This has been one of my biggest challenges and I am still not an inch closer to really understanding what it migt be. <br /><br />At one level you could argue that the specific practices that are called corruption can be seen as the very essence of culture. If that is so, then there is no IV = culture, because the practice itself is culture. In cross-cultural and cultural psychology, we often assume that there is culture that then affects all sorts of psychological and social processes. This is an interesting assumption and certainly debatable. <br /><br />A different option is to look at culture as a shared meaning system or shared practice. In that case, norms become important - especially if shared by a sizable part of the population. Yet, support for such norms at an explicit level is often low - so does this disqualify it as a norm? <br />In our research in Brazil on jeitinho (a cultural influence strategy, the second article with a focus on intersubjective norms coming out in PSPB shortly), we relatively consistently find that corruption is not personally endorsed, but it is acknowledged by participants that many other Brazilians do it. So there is a dissociation between personal strategies and perceived norms, which were also differently related to morality and SDO. <br /><br />The word 'implicit' is probably key and I would love to hear more about how you actually gauge the implicit support. <br />: )Ronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16204324324254552609noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1298769255279734097.post-13492964230714062782012-04-18T02:39:38.942-07:002012-04-18T02:39:38.942-07:00Thank you Ron for sharing your extremely important...Thank you Ron for sharing your extremely important thoughts and interesting articles! To answer your billion dollar questions, I think one important step back is to think about how to define and operationalize culture; and to identify what are the proxies of culture influence daily practices.For your question on "what variables might be implicated in changes of corruption levels over time", this is exactly what I also asked and have been trying to answer since two years ago!!! Is it about implicit norm? explicit regulation? perceived norm held by others (intersubjectivity)? What are the forces or motives of changes? I am working on this issue at the normative level and trying to identify the key parameters to model the change pattern. Hopefully, the answers are not too far ahead. Just some random thoughts, hope to discuss more given a chance :) Enjoy your trip~~~Xiao Xiaohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03894064972321377733noreply@blogger.com