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An editorial is presented which discusses the collaborative writing with multiple authors which has additional challenges including varied levels of engagement of coauthors, provision of fair credit through authorship or acknowledgements and acceptance of diversity of work styles. Also discussed are the 10 simple rules for collaboratively writing a multi-authored paper which include to build a writing team wisely; to create a data management plan and to jointly decide on authorship guidelines.

The sociology of culture is an important field that examines how societies create, maintain, and transform their cultural practices and beliefs. In the context of Bangladesh and India, this field is particularly relevant due to their rich and diverse cultural heritage. This paper explores the sociology of culture in these countries, focusing on cultural similarities and differences. Through a literature review of research from anthropology, sociology, history, and related fields, we will examine the historical background of cultural development in both countries, considering the impact of colonialism, nationalism, globalization, language, ethnicity, and religion. We will then present a comparative analysis of cultural practices, beliefs, and values, drawing on empirical data and case studies. This paper aims to contribute to our understanding of the sociology of culture in Bangladesh and India by shedding light on their diverse cultural heritage and exploring the ways in which cultural practices and values are shaped by historical, social, and political factors. By comparing the cultural similarities and differences between these nations, we hope to deepen our understanding of how culture is influenced by the broader social and political context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Papeles del CEIC is the property of Centro de Estudios sobra la Identidad Colectiva, Facultas de Ciencias Sociales and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Socioloski Pregled is the property of Srpsko Sociolosko Drustvo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Ratings are present in many areas of assessment including peer review of research proposals and journal articles, teacher observations, university admissions and selection of new hires. One feature present in any rating process with multiple raters is that different raters often assign different scores to the same assessee, with the potential for bias and inconsistencies related to rater or assessee covariates. This paper analyzes disparities in ratings of internal and external applicants to teaching positions using applicant data from Spokane Public Schools. We first test for biases in rating while accounting for measures of teacher applicant qualifications and quality. Then, we develop model-based inter-rater reliability (IRR) estimates that allow us to account for various sources of measurement error, the hierarchical structure of the data, and to test whether covariates, such as applicant status, moderate IRR. We find that applicants external to the district receive lower ratings for job applications compared to internal applicants. This gap in ratings remains significant even after including measures of qualifications and quality such as experience, state licensure scores, or estimated teacher value added. With model-based IRR, we further show that consistency between raters is significantly lower when rating external applicants. We conclude the paper by discussing policy implications and possible applications of our model-based IRR estimate for hiring and selection practices in and out of the teacher labor market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Based on single cross-sectional data, prior research finds evidence of “transportation assimilation” among U.S. immigrants: the length of stay in the U.S. is negatively correlated with public transit use. This paper revisits this question by using repeated cross-sectional data, and examines the trend of transportation assimilation over time. Methods and results: Using 1980, 1990, 2000 1% census and 2010 (1%) American Community Survey, I examine the relationship between the length of stay in the U.S. and public transit ridership among immigrants. I first run regressions separately in four data sets: I regress public transit ridership on the length of stay, controlling for other individual and geographic variables. I then compare the magnitudes of the relationship in four regressions. To study how the rate of transportation assimilation changes over time, I pool the data set and regress public transit ridership on the length of stay and its interactions with year dummies to compare the coefficients across surveys. Results confirm the conclusion of transportation assimilation: as the length of stay in the U.S. increases, an immigrant’s public transit use decreases. However, the repeated cross-section analysis suggests the assimilation rate has been decreasing in the past few decades. Conclusions: This paper finds evidence of transportation assimilation: immigrants become less likely to ride public transit as the length of stay in the U.S. increases. The assimilation rate, however, has been decreasing over time. This paper finds that the rate of public transit ridership among new immigrants upon arrival, the geographic distribution of immigrants, and the changing demographics of the U.S. immigrants play roles in affecting the trend of transportation assimilation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the hypothesis of the historical evolution of Semitic morphology from biconsonantal (2C) etymons, to triconsonantal (3C) roots, which make up the majority of words in Biblical Hebrew as well as in other Semitic languages such as modern Hebrew, Arabic, etc. The rules for reducing the 3C roots to their 2C etymons are provided in detail.We use BHSA, a manually annotated corpus of the Hebrew Bible, and Word2Vec, a method for converting words to a vector representing their semantic meaning, to study the hypothesis of evolution from 2C etymons to 3C roots in biblical Hebrew.Namely, we show that words in Hebrew with different roots, that might have originated from the same 2C etymons form a denser cluster than random sets of words of the same size. These differences are statistically significant and strongly support the hypothesis of evolution from 2C etymons to 3C roots.

Aim: To conduct a meta-ethnographic study of the experiences, meanings and ways of ‘dealing with’ symptoms or a diagnosis of postnatal depression amongst migrant women living in high income countries. Background: Prevalence of postnatal depression is highest amongst women who are migrants. Yet many women do not seek help for their symptoms and health services do not always respond appropriately to migrant women’s needs. Studies have reported migrant women’s experiences of postnatal depression and it is timely to synthesise findings from these studies to understand how services can be improved. Design: A meta-ethnographic synthesis of 12 studies reported in 15 papers Data sources: Five databases were searched for papers published between January 1999 and February 2016 Review methods: The quality of included studies was assessed using the Critical Appraisal Skills Program tool. The synthesis process was guided by the seven steps of meta-ethnography outlined by Noblit and Hare. Findings: Four key metaphors were identified: “I am alone, worried and angry—this is not me!”; ‘Making sense of my feelings’ ‘Dealing with my feelings’ and ‘What I need to change the way I feel!’. Primarily women related their feelings to their position as a migrant and as women, often living in poor socio-economic circumstances and they were exhausted keeping up with expected commitments. Many women were resourceful, drawing on their personal strengths and family / community resources. All the studies reported that women experienced difficulties in accessing appropriate services. Conclusion: The meta-ethnographic study demonstrates the impact of migration on perinatal mental health, particularly for women lacking family support, who have no employment, a precarious migration status and/or relationship conflict. Migrant women are resourceful and this requires support through appropriate services. Further research is needed to evaluate effective support strategies for migrant women in the perinatal period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the influence of Isaac Newton's astronomy on European culture. More than any other astronomer, Isaac Newton gave the 18th century its cosmology of unity, predictability and order. Newton's discovery of the law of gravity, published in 1687 in his Principia, provided a single universal 'rule' for the entire universe (Cassirer, 1951 [1979]: 9). The application of Newton's theories to wider culture is known as Newtonianism (Schaffer, 1996: 610-26). Newtonianism emphasised order, stability, regularity and the rule of a law under which all men were equal. It held out the possibility that the current state of political disharmony could be replaced by peace, freedom and harmony. This paper will explore three consequences of Newtonianism. The first is Natural Rights theory: the argument that just as one single law governs the entire universe, so human society must also be governed by the same single law (Becker, 1958). The second is progress theory: the idea that history moves in an ordered pattern, gradually improving until it reaches a final, benign, end point (Condorcet, 1955). The third is sociology, which originated in the attempt to find evidence for the operation of Newtonian law in human society (Comte, 1875). The paper will conclude that an understanding of important cultural developments at the beginning of the modern world requires an understanding of developments in astronomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cinta de Moebio is the property of Universidad de Chile, Facultad de Ciencas Sociales and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Domestic violence in South Africa is a consequence of the complex interplay of patriarchy, culture, and the negative masculine construct. The patriarchal cultural beliefs and traditions that emphasise on male assertiveness and domination of women influence the constructions of masculinity and reinforce domestic violence. The goal of this article was to highlight a relationship between culture, constructions of masculinity, and domestic violence in South Africa. Through adopting an African feminist lens, this paper unpacks how structures of patriarchy manifest in the traditional African context in which many men in South Africa construct and perform their masculinity and the embodied meaning attached to it. The paper argues that gender hierarchy and normative masculine and feminine roles prevalent in most South African cultures have implications for domestic violence. It argues that the inflexible gender hierarchy, which is enforced through culture and the dominant position of men in the home influence domestic violence. The article concludes that attempts to address domestic violence in South Africa must focus on changing patriarchal cultural norms and promote peaceful masculinity.

This paper utilizes eighteen months of ethnographic and interview research undertaken in 2003 and 2004 as well as follow-up fieldwork from 2005 to 2007 to explore the sociocultural factors affecting the interactions and barriers between U.S. biomedical professionals and their unauthorized Mexican migrant patients. The participants include unauthorized indigenous Triqui migrants along a transnational circuit from the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico, to central California, to northwest Washington State and the physicians and nurses staffing the clinics serving Triqui people in these locations. The data show that social and economic structures in health care and subtle cultural factors in biomedicine keep medical professionals from seeing the social determinants of suffering of their unauthorized migrant patients. These barriers lead clinicians inadvertently to blame their patients--specifically their biology or behavior--for their suffering. This paper challenges the focus of mainstream cultural competency training by showing that it is not the culture of the patient, but rather the structure and culture of biomedicine that form the primary barriers to effective multicultural health care.

The aim of this paper is to present new theorisations of social structure in light of the new sociologies of the individual currently being developed in France. Although these sociologies are little known, they have significant value in rethinking today's society and sociology. Starting from a review of the concept and the main conceptions of social structure, I will focus on the most significant contributions of these new sociologies of the individual. To do this, on the one hand, it will be shown that the two classical traditions of social structure (institutional or cultural and as a class structure) are insufficient to explain today's society, in which the individual has become the main protagonist and key focus of sociology. On the other hand, in contrast with the old sociologies of the individual, which are centred on the micro level of social interaction, this paper analyses new structural constraints that limit the individual's action. The paper concludes with an invitation to develop these new sociologies at an individual scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic thought evolved over the past two centuries to focus on individual behavior as the basis for all economic activity. Some heterodox economists have pointed to the importance of group behavior and the influence of organizations on economic activity, but the neoclassical paradigm, with the rational isolated individual as its main actor, prevails in mainstream economics. This paper presents a "sociology of economics" to explain why the prevailing paradigm of economics does not allow seeing and studying group behavior. Drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, the paper details the habitus, the system of beliefs and the symbolic violence against those who question them. Also, it highlights the support of commercial and financial interests to the dominant culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Responding to demands for transformed farming practices requires new forms of knowledge. Given their scale and complexity, agricultural problems can no longer be solved by linear transfers in which technology developed by specialists passes to farmers by way of extension intermediaries. Recent research on alternative approaches has focused on the innovation systems formed by interactions between heterogeneous actors. Rather than linear transfer, systems theory highlights network facilitation as a specialized function. This paper contributes to our understanding of such facilitation by investigating the networks in which farmers discuss science. We report findings based on the study of a pastoral farming experiment collaboratively undertaken by a group of 17 farmers and five scientists. Analysis of prior contact and alter sharing between the group’s members indicates strongly tied and decentralized networks. Farmer knowledge exchanges about the experiment have been investigated using a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods. Network surveys identified who the farmers contacted for knowledge before the study began and who they had talked to about the experiment by 18 months later. Open-ended interviews collected farmer statements about their most valuable contacts and these statements have been thematically analysed. The network analysis shows that farmers talked about the experiment with 192 people, most of whom were fellow farmers. Farmers with densely tied and occupationally homogeneous contacts grew their networks more than did farmers with contacts that are loosely tied and diverse. Thematic analysis reveals three general principles: farmers value knowledge delivered by persons rather than roles, privilege farming experience, and develop knowledge with empiricist rather than rationalist techniques. Taken together, these findings suggest that farmers deliberate about science in intensive and durable networks that have significant implications for theorizing agricultural innovation. The paper thus concludes by considering the findings’ significance for current efforts to rethink agricultural extension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the trends in today’s tourism sector is the development of environmentally-friendly tourism activities which rely on natural resources of cultural heritage and on biodiversity. This is definitely the case for agritourism, a form of rural tourism. The purpose of this paper is to identify the development aspects of Polish agritourism with particular emphasis on natural and cultural attractiveness. To demonstrate the relationship between agritourism activities of Polish farms and the cultural and natural attractiveness, the Hellwig’s synthetic development indicator was used. As shown by research, the cultural and natural attractiveness of a destination is an important exogenous development factor. Another finding was that the intensified efforts undertaken by the farmers to access EU funds were not focused on areas with valuable natural or cultural resources and an untapped agritourism potential; instead, they were oriented at regions dominated by semi-subsistence or family farms. For a large part of farmers, the new form of support is about to become a source of additional incomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contribution: This paper furthers understanding of how to use studio culture to develop instruction that supports learners’ epistemic development in the context of an engineering senior design course, with a focus on student development of epistemic frames. Background: Current capstone engineering design courses do not integrate the educational theories and practice of cognitive apprenticeship combined with studio culture. Combined, these can be useful constructs for developing instruction that encourages creativity and innovation in a situated, student-centered, and activity-focused environment. Prior research and evidence-based instructional methods from other non-engineering contexts were used to create an instructional environment that engenders epistemic change. Research Questions: How do instructional design methods based on studio culture impact the cognitive and epistemic development of engineering students in a Senior Design course? Methods: This exploratory case study examines the effects of instructional design methods based on studio culture to change an Engineering Senior Design course from lecture-based to activity-based instruction in a collaborative environment. The case study emerges from a design-based research intervention, and uses mixed methods data collection from multiple sources, including video interviews, classroom footage, and written debrief reflections. Data analysis applied an integrated thematic approach. Implications were developed through an emergent coding process. Findings: Cognitive apprenticeship methods used in a studio culture-based classroom provide learning experiences that benefit epistemic and cognitive growth for engineering students in a Senior Design course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Trust is regarded as a necessary component for the smooth running of society, although societal and political modernising processes have been linked to an increase in mistrust, potentially signalling social and economic problems. Fukuyama developed the notion of ‘high trust’ and ‘low trust’ societies, as a way of understanding trust within different societies. The purpose of this paper is to empirically test and extend Fukuyama’s theory utilising data on interpersonal trust in Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Australia and Thailand. This paper focuses on trust in family, neighbours, strangers, foreigners and people with a different religion. Methods: Cross-sectional surveys were undertaken in 2009–10, with an overall sample of 6331. Analyses of differences in overall levels of trust between countries were undertaken using Chi square analyses. Multivariate binomial logistic regression analysis was undertaken to identify socio-demographic predictors of trust in each country. Results: Our data indicate a tripartite trust model: ‘high trust’ in Australia and Hong Kong; ‘medium trust’ in Japan and Taiwan; and ‘low trust’ in South Korea and Thailand. Trust in family and neighbours were very high across all countries, although trust in people with a different religion, trust in strangers and trust in foreigners varied considerably between countries. The regression models found a consistent group of subpopulations with low trust across the countries: people on low incomes, younger people and people with poor self-rated health. The results were conflicting for gender: females had lower trust in Thailand and Hong Kong, although in Australia, males had lower trust in strangers, whereas females had lower trust in foreigners. Conclusion: This paper identifies high, medium and low trust societies, in addition to high and low trusting population subgroups. Our analyses extend the seminal work of Fukuyama, providing both corroboration and refutation for his theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) is widely used to screen for anxiety and depression. A large literature is citable in support of its validity, but difficulties are increasingly being identified, such as inexplicably discrepant optimal cutpoints and inconsistent factor-structures. This article examines whether these problems could be due to the construction of the HADS that poses difficulties for translation and cross-cultural use. Methods: Authors’ awareness of difficulties translating the HADS were identified by examining 20% of studies using the HADS, obtained by a systematic literature search in Pubmed and PsycINFO in May 2012. Reports of use of translations and validation studies were recorded for papers from non-English speaking countries. Narrative and systematic reviews were examined for how authors dealt with different translations. Results: Of 417 papers from non-English speaking countries, only 45% indicated whether a translation was used. Studies validating translations were cited in 54%. Seventeen reviews, incorporating data from diverse translated versions, were examined. Only seven mentioned issues of language and culture, and none indicated insurmountable problems in integrating results from different translations. Conclusion: Initial decisions concerning item content and response options likely leave the HADS difficult to translate, but we failed to find an acknowledgment of problems in articles involving its translation and cross-cultural use. Investigators’ lack of awareness of these issues can lead to anomalous results and difficulties in interpretation and integration of these results. Reviews tend to overlook these issues and most reviews indiscriminately integrate results from studies performed in different countries. Cross-culturally valid, but literally translated versions of the HADS may not be attainable, and specific cutpoints may not be valid across cultures and language. Claims about rates of anxiety and depression based on integrating cross-cultural data or using the same cutpoint across languages and culture should be subject to critical scrutiny. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author in this discussion opens a great theme from the spiritual creation of the Belgrade, Montenegro, ex-Yugoslav and European philosophers of culture, prof. dr. Ratko Bozovic (1934). It is a reception of sociological, philosophical and literary points of view, this excellent reader, critical intellectual and writer, or emeritus professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Belgrade. The life path of R. Božović went from his native Banja Luka through Montenegro (he finished high school in Nikšić), and then he was educated in Belgrade, where he studied and graduated in sociology and literature, master's and master's degree at the Belgrade University. He worked for a short time in several institutions, the culture of the federal administration, and then devoted himself to a professorial career at several universities. His opus is very impersonal and diverse, content and moves in several philosophical and sociological disciplines. He is the author of over fifty works and more than 300 debates and studies, published in the country and abroad. Translated into several world languages. In many democratic environments, a guest and a lecturer are very pleased. Prof. R. Bozovic is a participant in many tribunes and gatherings, which he gave the impression of an extraordinary critical reader, and many call him a modern Demonstration of Belgrade. In this paper, we intend to present a critical review of Božović's work, and on the occasion of the 83rd year of life and six decades of scientific and research work. The aim and task of this paper is to make a modest contribution to reflecting Božović's philosophical literary.

The paper aims at making an analysis of the erudite Dimitrie Cantemir from the perspective of contemporary sociology. The ideas brought forth by this paper can be summarized as follows: The erudite prince, whom Nicolae Iorga characterised as "raised among books of wisdom", managed to be a forerunner in the field of the future-to-be science of sociology. His fundamental work in this direction is Descriptio Moldaviae [Description of Moldavia], written upon request of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. Being written in Latin, as the philosopher-prince wrote this book of reference as foundation for the European sociology, allowed it to be studied by all European learners interested in aspects of a science that was to be defined. Moreover, arguments in support of the assertion that Dimitrie Cantemir is a forerunner of the science of sociology can also be found in other reference works, studies and monographs. A significant example is his work Hronicul vechimei a romano-moldo-vlahilor [Chronicle of the old history of the Romano-Moldo-Vlachs] in which, as a true sociologist, Cantemir makes a comprehensive analysis of the way in which the Romanians had lived in Dacia, their organization, customs, social hierarchy and their cultural-social relations with other European peoples, considering them a "bridge between the Orient and the West". Historia incrementorum atque decrementorum Aulae Othomanicae [The History of the Ascent and Descent of the Ottoman Court], although claimed by historians, is a reference work for the encyclopaedic mind of Dimitrie Cantemir, and a fundamental one for the European sociology. This book, existing in the Library of the American Congress, describes true sociologic investigations about the Turkish society and about the other European states of that time, which coexisted with the Ottoman Empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a sociological explanation for why the field of economics has so severely restricted the scope of its analysis to the point where it failed to foresee the financial crises, economic recessions, and other large shifts in economic activity that have characterized the global economy in recent decades. This paper's analysis of the culture of economics draws heavily on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, the French sociologist who developed a useful framework with which to analyze the culture of an intellectual field like economics. Specifically, the paper describes how the neo-liberal doxa supports the restrictive neoclassical (marginalist) modeling approach that is a central element of the habitus of mainstream economics. Bourdieu's concept of symbolic violence shows how the orthodox economics culture perpetuates itself even in the face of the complete failure of the culture's favored neoclassical and rational expectations models to anticipate recent macroeconomic crises. The paper concludes with some thoughts on how this understanding of the culture of economics can enable economists to free themselves from the oppressive culture of mainstream economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hofstede's model on cultural dimensions to explain cultural difference has been widely used for exploring different aspects of culture, from management to educational settings. Based on his research from the beginning of 1970, Geert Hofstede created a new paradigm for the study of cultural differences, meaning a model of national culture on four dimensions, later expanded and updated on the basis of an analysis of other cross-cultural data and on the extrapolation of the model. Following the penetration of the model in the scientific community, it became a cornerstone for cross-cultural research, providing a popular method for the study of cultural differences in a wide range of disciplines. In the same time, as with any idea or paradigm shift, Hofstede doctrine has also generated controversies, being both undervalued and overused (Peterson, 2003). The purpose of our paper is to conduct an in-depth analysis on Hofstede model, revealing an objective reflection upon the work of Hofstede by tracking various subtleties and exploring some of its limitations, postulating that seeking commonalities among existing models of national culture represents the way in which cross-cultural research is offered the possibility to advance. As for the methodology applied, the goal of the paper is achieved by analyzing the pro and cons of Hofstede's model and from the findings derived, by indentifying the keystones of a convergent widely accepted model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A community’s cultural beliefs, attitudes and discourse can affect their responses in surveys. Knowledge of these cultural factors and how to comply with them or adjust for them during data collection can improve data quality. Objective: This study describes implications of features of Gambian culture related to women’s reproductive health, and mortality, when collecting data in surveys. Methods: 13 in-depth interviews of female interviewers and a focus group discussion among male interviewers were conducted in two rural health and demographic surveillance systems as well as three key informant interviews in three regions in The Gambia. Results: From the fieldworker’s viewpoint, questions relating to reproduction were best asked by women as culturally pregnancies should be concealed, and menstruation is considered a sensitive topic. Gambians were reluctant to speak about decedents and the Fula did not like to be counted, potentially affecting estimation of mortality. Asking about siblings proved problematic among the Fula and Serahule communities. Proposals made to overcome these challenges were that culturally-appropriate metaphors and symbols should be used to discuss sensitive matters and to enumerating births/deaths singly instead of collecting summary totals, which had threatening connotations. This was as opposed to training interviewers to ask standardised and precise verbatim questions. Contribution: This paper presents indigenous Gambian solutions by fieldworkers to culturally sensitive topics when collecting pregnancy outcomes and mortality data in demographic and health surveys. For researchers collecting maternal mortality data, it highlights the potential shortcomings of the sibling history methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human populations show rich cultural diversity. Underpinning this diversity of tools, rituals, and cultural norms are complex interactions between cultural evolutionary and demographic processes. Most models of cultural change assume that individuals use the same learning modes and methods throughout their lives. However, empirical data on ‘learning life histories’—the balance of dominant modes of learning (for example, learning from parents, peers, or unrelated elders) throughout an individual’s lifetime—suggest that age structure may play a crucial role in determining learning modes and cultural evolutionary trajectories. Thus, studied in isolation, demographic and cultural evolutionary models show only part of the picture. This paper describes a mathematical and computational framework that combines demographic and cultural evolutionary methods. Using this general framework, we examine interactions between the ways in which culture is spread throughout an individual’s lifetime and cultural change across generations. We show that including demographic structure alongside cultural dynamics can help to explain domain-specific patterns of cultural evolution that are a persistent feature of cultural data, and can shed new light on rare but significant demographic events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Moral Foundations Dictionary (MFD) is a useful tool for applying the conceptual framework developed in Moral Foundations Theory and quantifying the moral meanings implicated in the linguistic information people convey. However, the applicability of the MFD is limited because it is available only in English. Translated versions of the MFD are therefore needed to study morality across various cultures, including non-Western cultures. The contribution of this paper is two-fold. We developed the first Japanese version of the MFD (referred to as the J-MFD) using a semi-automated method—this serves as a reference when translating the MFD into other languages. We next tested the validity of the J-MFD by analyzing open-ended written texts about the situations that Japanese participants thought followed and violated the five moral foundations. We found that the J-MFD correctly categorized the Japanese participants’ descriptions into the corresponding moral foundations, and that the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ) scores correlated with the frequency of situations, of total words, and of J-MFD words in the participants’ descriptions for the Harm and Fairness foundations. The J-MFD can be used to study morality unique to the Japanese and also multicultural comparisons in moral behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Google Books Ngram Viewer (Google Ngram) is a search engine that charts word frequencies from a large corpus of books and thereby allows for the examination of cultural change as it is reflected in books. While the tool's massive corpus of data (about 8 million books or 6% of all books ever published) has been used in various scientific studies, concerns about the accuracy of results have simultaneously emerged. This paper reviews the literature and serves as a guideline for improving Google Ngram studies by suggesting five methodological procedures suited to increase the reliability of results. In particular, we recommend the use of (I) different language corpora, (II) cross-checks on different corpora from the same language, (III) word inflections, (IV) synonyms, and (V) a standardization procedure that accounts for both the influx of data and unequal weights of word frequencies. Further, we outline how to combine these procedures and address the risk of potential biases arising from censorship and propaganda. As an example of the proposed procedures, we examine the cross-cultural expression of religion via religious terms for the years 1900 to 2000. Special emphasis is placed on the situation during World War II. In line with the strand of literature that emphasizes the decline of collectivistic values, our results suggest an overall decrease of religion's importance. However, religion re-gains importance during times of crisis such as World War II. By comparing the results obtained through the different methods, we illustrate that applying and particularly combining our suggested procedures increase the reliability of results and prevents authors from deriving wrong assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]