Peter B Smith

University of Sussex · School of Psychology

Cultural logic is a set of cultural scripts and patterns organized around a central theme. The cultural logics of dignity, honor, and face describe different ways of evaluating a person’s worth and maintaining cooperation. These cultural logics vary in prevalence across cultures. In this study, we collaboratively develop and validate a measure capt...

We investigate whether the social cure properties of groups vary across cultures, testing hypotheses that the associations between multiple group memberships (MGM) and depressive symptoms will (a) be mediated by social support and uncomfortable normative pressures, and (b) vary systematically with sample-level relational mobility. Analyses of data...

Cross-cultural research in social and behavioral sciences has expanded hugely over the past 50 years, but progress is currently hampered by a lack of appreciation of the profoundly differing principles and goals of two distinct traditions. The first is the main variant of cross-cultural psychology (CCP), focusing on how culture shapes individual ps...

The extent to which culture moderates the effects of need for approval from others on a person's handling of interpersonal conflict was investigated. Students from 24 nations rated how they handled a recent interpersonal conflict, using measures derived from face‐negotiation theory. Samples varied in the extent to which they were perceived as chara...

Over 5 days at the Nag’s Head Conference Center, USA in 1987, social and cross-cultural psychologists discussed what would be required if research relating to culture were to gain greater attention from psychology in general, and in particular from what was perceived at the time as its mainstream. The criteria for gaining greater credibility laid d...

Significant advancements in methodologies and statistical techniques in cross-cultural psychological research abound, but general practice, education, and most researchers in psychology rarely use them. This leads to misinterpretations, misrepresentations, and prejudice. The authors expertly demonstrate the importance of methodological rigor to saf...

This study compares the individual-level and sample-level predictive utility of a measure of the cultural logics of dignity, honor, and face. University students in 29 samples from 24 nations used a simple measure to rate their perceptions of the interpersonal cultural logic characterizing their local culture. The nomological net of these measures...

This study compares the individual-level and sample-level predictive utility of a measure of the cultural logics of dignity, honor, and face. University students in 29 samples from 24 nations used a simple measure to rate their perceptions of the interpersonal cultural logic characterizing their local culture. The nomological net of these measures...

Sex differences in aspects of independent versus interdependent self-construal and depressive symptoms were surveyed among 5,320 students from 24 nations. Men were found to perceive themselves as more self-contained whereas women perceived themselves as more connected to others. No significant sex differences were found on two further dimensions of...

Measures of personality have been shown to predict employee satisfaction at work and in life, but these findings arise mostly from research conducted in national cultures of Anglo heritage. To broaden the generality of such findings, we explore the relationships between Big Five dimensions of personality and satisfaction with life across representa...

Valid understanding of the relationship between cultures and persons requires an adequate conceptualization of the many contexts within which individuals work and live. These contexts include the more distal features of the individual’s birth ecology and ethno-national group history. These features converge more proximally upon individual experienc...

This research is designed to test alternative explanations for changes in national frequencies in reported pro-social behaviors. Representative samples drawn from 136 nations reported whether in the past month they had helped a stranger who needed help, donated money to a charity, and worked as a volunteer for an organization. Change in frequencies...

The relationship between dimensions of self-construal and reported mood states is examined among two samples of Mexican students. Scales focused on seven different aspects of self-construal were employed. Respondents favored predominantly individualistic ways of describing themselves, but also scored high on connection to others. These effects were...

Culture is well recognized as an important basis for understanding psychological processes and behavior. Culturally informed research in psychology continues to supplement and challenge traditional knowledge in mainstream psychology in many ways, making culture a major topic of relevance for students and professionals in all areas of psychology. Th...

Purpose The present study consists of managers and professionals in 26 countries including seven from Central and Eastern Europe. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether culture dimensions predict country differences in the relationship between gender and organizational commitment. The study integrated theories of social learning, role...

Arieli et al. (2018) have done an excellent job of summarising the associations between measures of values and a broad variety of organizationally relevant variables. There are two issues that I should like to explore in relation to this work. First, I note that there is a very large difference in the variance accounted for in the range of studies...

To broaden our understanding of culture-as-operative in organizational settings and make these cultural influences tractable to empirical analysis, we focus upon individual behavior as the outcome of interest and acknowledge the embeddedness of an organizational member in a nested and multiple array of cultures be they national, regional, organizat...

What, if any, are the common cultural characteristics that distinguish European societies and groups when viewed against a backdrop of global cultural variation? We sought to identify any shared features of European cultures through secondary multilevel analyses of two large datasets that together provided measures of cultural values, beliefs, and...

Comparisons of values have provided one of the most useful ways of understanding cultural differences. This is because there is less variation between different cultures in the meaning of particular values than there is in the meaning of specific behaviors. When we study individuals, there is evidence of universal linkages between particular values...

Leung and Morris (2015) propose conditions under which values, norms, and schemata drive cultural differences in behavior. They build on past theories about dimensions of situational strength to propose that personal values drive behavior more in weak situations and perceived norms drive behavior more in strong situations. Drawing on this analysis...

Most people would agree that leadership, particularly at upper echelons, is a crucial element in the success of international businesses and other types of multinational organizations. The topic has been much studied and extensive reviews can be found of the existing research literature, including several that cover research about leadership across...

Self-continuity – the sense that one’s past, present, and future are meaningfully connected – is considered a defining feature of personal identity. However, bases of self-continuity may depend on cultural beliefs about personhood. In multilevel analyses of data from 7287 adults from 55 cultural groups in 33 nations, we tested a new tripartite theo...

Researchers are making increasing use of the distinction between cultural logics emphasizing dignity, face, and honor. Students from eight nations including two from Latin America rated items tapping the extent to which they believed that most persons in their nation endorsed these types of mindset. Their ratings did not accord with prior beliefs a...

Variations in acquiescence and extremity pose substantial threats to the validity of cross-cultural research that relies on survey methods. Individual and cultural correlates of response styles when using 2 contrasting types of response mode were investigated, drawing on data from 55 cultural groups across 33 nations. Using 7 dimensions of self-oth...

Markus and Kitayama's (1991) theory of independent and interdependent self-construals had a major influence on social, personality, and developmental psychology by highlighting the role of culture in psychological processes. However, research has relied excessively on contrasts between North American and East Asian samples, and commonly used self-r...

Previous two-nation comparisons have provided evidence that self-efficacy may be a protective factor against depression in individualist cultures, whereas relationship harmony may be a stronger protective factor in collectivist cultures. However, wider sampling and more specific measures of cultural difference are required to test these conclusions...

Hypotheses are tested that ways of handling anger and their consequences will differ in student samples drawn from dignity cultures (United Kingdom and Finland), honor cultures (Turkey and Pakistan), and face cultures (Hong Kong and China). In line with our hypotheses, holding anger in and controlling anger correlate positively in face cultures but...

Markus and Kitayama's (1991) theory of independent and interdependent self-construals had a major influence on social, personality, and developmental psychology by highlighting the role of culture in psychological processes. However, research has relied excessively on contrasts between North American and East Asian samples, and commonly used self-r...

In this paper, we update the country-level scores of sources of guidance reported in Peterson and Smith (2008) across 61 countries and based on 7,982 respondents. These scores represent aggregate tendencies of the use of specific sources of guidance in a country and provide an alternative to value-based cultural measures. Based on role and cognitio...

The concept of culture has been used within a wide variety of social sciences and in the humanities. Two types of definition predominate in the social sciences. In the first of these culture is considered as encompassing all humanly constructed aspects of the environment. This conception includes physical structures and implements, as well as the s...

Beliefs about the shared qualities of members of particular nations are known as national stereotypes. Substantial consensus exists as to the personal qualities of members of different nations, even though these beliefs do not accord with actual data about the distribution of personalities between nations. Stereotypes rest on more readily available...

The choice of language to be spoken in cross-cultural communication gives first-language speakers greater power and can impede effectiveness if first-language speakers do not adjust and simplify their speech. Speakers accustomed to direct styles of communication need to learn to understand the more implicit styles of communication that prevail amon...

The Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness project (Project GLOBE) was initiated in the early 1990s with the goal of constructing a culturally universal model of implicit leadership—the ideas held by individuals about the characteristics of effective leaders—in the form of “culturally endorsed implicit leadership dimensions” (C...

The study of social norms has great potential to broaden our understanding of the ways in which cultures are created and maintained. To maximise the benefit of this perspective, it is important to sample cultures widely and to include contexts in which norms are injunctive

The concept of culture was first found useful by social anthropologists in studies of tribal societies. More recently, it has also been used to analyze differences between industrialized societies. A culture can be said to exist when a number of persons interpret the events around them in relatively similar ways. These shared interpretations typica...

Nation-level differences in individuals’ reports of helping strangers, donating money to charity, and volunteering time were analyzed, drawing on nationally representative survey data from 135 nations. Frequency of these three behaviors yielded a reliable index of pro-social behavior. All three behaviors were found to be more frequent in nations th...

Emic studies are those that are based upon locally salient aspects of management, rather than concepts that are derived from studies conducted in other parts of the world.

Cultural distance is a measure of the similarity or difference between two cultural groups or nations. It has usually been measured by computing the overall difference between the scores obtained for nations by Hofstede G. (1980) Culture's Consequences: International Differences in Work-related Values, Sage, Beverly Hills, CA. Recent researchers co...

Wenn die gleiche sozialpsychologische Studie in unterschiedlichen Teilen der Welt wiederholt wird, kommen oft recht unterschiedliche Ergebnisse heraus. Dieses Kapitel stellt ein Modell für kulturelle Unterschiede vor, mit dem man erklären kann, dass dies nicht einfach nur am fehlenden Expertenwissen der Versuchsleiter liegt. Anhand von Studien, die...

Several theories propose that self-esteem, or positive self-regard, results from fulfilling the value priorities of one’s surrounding culture. Yet, surprisingly little evidence exists for this assertion, and theories differ about whether individuals must personally endorse the value priorities involved. We compared the influence of four bases for s...

Three dimensions of subordinate-supervisor relations (affective attachment, deference to supervisor, and personal-life inclusion) that had been found by Y. Chen, Friedman, Yu, Fang, and Lu to be characteristic of a guanxi relationship between subordinates and their supervisors in China were surveyed in Taiwan, Singapore, and six non-Chinese cultura...

Numerous studies have documented subtle but consistent sex differences in self-reports and observer-ratings of five-factor personality traits, and such effects were found to show well-defined developmental trajectories and remarkable similarity across nations. In contrast, very little is known about perceived gender differences in five-factor trait...

Several theories propose that self-esteem, or positive self-regard, results from fulfilling the value priorities of one's surrounding culture. Yet, surprisingly little evidence exists for this assertion, and theories differ about whether individuals must personally endorse the value priorities involved. We compared the influence of four bases for s...

Consensual stereotypes of some groups are relatively accurate, whereas others are not. Previous work suggesting that national character stereotypes are inaccurate has been criticized on several grounds. In this article we (a) provide arguments for the validity of assessed national mean trait levels as criteria for evaluating stereotype accuracy; an...

Indigenous forms of social influence are those that are claimed to occur distinctively within one or more specific cultural contexts. They have typically been described by researchers who prefer to construct an indigenous psychology of their cultural group, rather than describing it in terms derived from Western psychology. Although most forms of s...

Michael Harris Bond (b. 1944) has made a distinguished contribution to the field of cross-cultural psychology over the past four decades. After completing his first degree at the University of Toronto in his native Canada, he achieved his doctorate at Stanford University and undertook a post-doctoral fellowship at Michigan State University. After a...

An unpackaging study is one that attempts to identify the causes of differences across cultures. Many studies in cross-cultural psychology have compared responses to some type of measure by respondents in two or more cultural groups. When differing responses are found in studies of this type, there are many possible explanations, because cultural g...

Data provided by 7380 middle managers from 60 nations are used to determine whether demographic variables are correlated with managers’ reliance on vertical sources of guidance in different nations and whether these correlations differ depending on national culture characteristics. Significant effects of Hofstede’s national culture scores, age, gen...

Beliefs about personhood are understood to be a defining feature of individualism-collectivism (I-C), but they have been insufficiently explored, given the emphasis of research on values and self-construals. We propose the construct of contextualism, referring to beliefs about the importance of context in understanding people, as a facet of cultura...

Beliefs about personhood are understood to be a defining feature of individualism-collectivism (I-C), but they have been insufficiently explored, given the emphasis of research on values and self-construals. We propose the construct of contextualism, referring to beliefs about the importance of context in understanding people, as a facet of cultura...

Beliefs about personhood are understood to be a defining feature of individualism-collectivism (I-C), but they have been insufficiently explored, given the emphasis of research on values and self-construals. We propose the construct of contextualism, referring to beliefs about the importance of context in understanding people, as a facet of cultura...

Age trajectories for personality traits are known to be similar across cultures. To address whether stereotypes of age groups reflect these age-related changes in personality, we asked participants in 26 countries (N = 3,323) to rate typical adolescents, adults, and old persons in their own country. Raters across nations tended to share similar bel...

The basic framework for research in many areas of psychology has derived principally from the extensive range of studies conducted over the past hundred years on and by that small proportion of the world's population that resides in North America. This article briefly identifies some of the key areas in which it has thus far been argued that there...

The motive to attain a distinctive identity is sometimes thought to be stronger in, or even specific to, those socialized into individualistic cultures. Using data from 4,751 participants in 21 cultural groups (18 nations and 3 regions), we tested this prediction against our alternative view that culture would moderate the ways in which people achi...

The purpose of the study was to investigate the cultural specificity of guanxi, wasta, and jeitinho, each of which has been identified as an indigenous process of informal influence. Students in Brazil, China, Lebanon, and the United Kingdom were presented with three scenarios derived from each of the nations sampled. They rated the extent to which...

Managers in five nations rated scenarios exemplifying indigenous forms of informal influence whose cultural origins were concealed. Locally generated scenarios illustrated episodes of guanxi, wasta, jeitinho, svyazi and pulling strings. Local scenarios were judged representative of local influence processes but so too were some scenarios derived fr...

Rated effectiveness of work teams in four closely similar electronics assembly plants is compared with which of five sources of guidance were used in managing both routine and non-routine events. No support was found for uniform ‘culture-free’ effects. However, eight significant interaction effects were detected, indicating that country or organiza...

A detailed review is presented of studies bearing on the performance and effectiveness of Japanese managers, with particular attention to comparative data. Japanese managers within Japan are found to show continuing marked differences from those within other countries. These differences are not easily conceptualized within established Western model...

Managerial leadership within 56 nations is examined in terms of the sources of guidance that managers use to handle work events. Correlations between the sources of guidance that managers use and the perceived effectiveness of how well these events are handled are employed to represent their schemas and attributional propensities for effectiveness....

Members of training groups in human relations change their attitudes toward social behavior in a way that members of other groups do not. Those trained showed a convergence toward median scores on scales measuring their attitudes toward power and close personal relationships. These attitudes were found to be related to perceptions of their actual b...

With data from 33 nations, we illustrate the differences between cultures that are tight (have many strong norms and a low tolerance of deviant behavior) versus loose (have weak social norms and a high tolerance of deviant behavior). Tightness-looseness is part of a complex, loosely integrated multilevel system that comprises distal ecological and...

Cross-cultural psychology has come of age as a scientific discipline, but how has it developed? The field has moved from exploratory studies, in which researchers were mainly interested in finding differences in psychological functioning without any clear expectation, to detailed hypothesis tests of theories of cross-cultural differences. This book...

Evidence is presented that national cultures may be distinguished in terms of prevalent styles of communication, as exemplified by survey response styles. A distinction is made between the average communication style within a given nation and the nation-level dispersion of communication styles. Secondary analyses of published values, beliefs, and p...

Substantial variations have been found in the ways in which individuals within different cultural groups identify themselves. Typically, members of individualistic national cultures perceive themselves as more independent of others, while members of collectivistic national cultures perceive themselves as more interdependent with others. In early st...

Managerial leadership within 56 nations is examined in terms of the sources of guidance that managers use to handle work events. Correlations between the sources of guidance that managers use and the perceived effectiveness of how well these events are handled are employed to represent their schemas and attributional propensities for effectiveness....

The development of cross-cultural psychology over the past 40 years is briefly reviewed. Cross-cultural psychologists have focused on differences between populations, explanations based on individualism-collectivism and reduction of explanations to the individual-level of analysis. Cultural variations have been incompletely sampled, with an excessi...

The role of the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology (JCCP) over the past 40 years in enhancing attention to cultural issues within psychology is discussed. Analyses are presented showing frequencies over the past decade with which JCCP authors cite other journals and frequencies with which authors in other journals cite JCCP authors. JCCP’s impact...