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The COVID-19 global pandemic has brought into sharp focus the urgency of tackling the question of how globalized humanity responds to a global societal threat, which can adversely affect a large portion of the human population. Changing geospatial distribution of COVID-19 morbidity paints a gloomy picture of cross-national differences in human vulnerabilities across the globe. We describe the dynamic nexus among societal – particularly pathogen – threat, social institutions, and culture, and discuss collectivism (ingroup favouritism and outgroup avoidance) and tightness (narrow prescription of behaviours and severe punishment of norm violations) as potential cultural adaptations to prevalent pathogen threats. We then sketch out a theoretical framework for cultural dynamics of collective adaptation to pathogen threats, outline a large number of theory- and policy-relevant research questions and what answers we have at present, and end with a call for renewed efforts to investigate collective human responses to societal threats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humanity faces twin problems of adaptation—natural environmental challenges of climate change and global humanitarian challenges of ensuring well-being for all—that pose a dilemma for sustainable development. One way forward is to develop cultures of sustainability that highlight and reward the ideas and practices that will help us transition to a sustainable lifestyle. Although institutional responses are necessary and multidisciplinary approaches are required, individual citizens can also participate in cultural dynamics—the process of cultural formation, maintenance, and transformation—to craft cultures of sustainability, and psychological science can point to potential mechanisms for effecting this cultural change. Informed by the niche-construction perspective, I suggest that the critical ingredients of cultures of sustainability include (a) conceptions of human–nature connectedness, (b) conceptions of human–artifact relation, (c) interpersonal conversations about sustainability norms within social networks, and (d) visions of an achievable utopia for a sustainable future. Further research and action are called for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotion is critical for cultural dynamics, that is, for the formation, maintenance, and transformation of culture over time. We outline the component micro- and macro-level processes of cultural dynamics, and argue that emotion not only facilitates the transmission and retention of cultural information, but also is shaped and crafted by cultural dynamics. Central to this argument is our understanding of emotion as a complete information package that signals the adaptive significance of the information that the agent is processing. It captures an agent's appraisal about the relationship between themself and the object of emotional focus, as well as action orientation and allostasis in context. We discuss implications of this perspective in the context of the changing natural and geopolitical environment, and future cultural dynamics into the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper outlines a cultural–psychological interpretation of the current European societies' socio-institutional crisis. To this end, preliminarily, the cultural psychological view of social behaviour is outlined, focusing on the idea that socio-political choices depend on how people make sense of their world. Second, the paper provides an interpretation of the current socio-political European scenario of crisis, based on the main results of a recent study that has mapped the cultural dynamics underpinning some European countries. The interpretation focuses on two complementary facets: on the one hand, the lack of symbolic resources (defined: semiotic capital) enabling people to perceive the collective dimension of life as a lived, subjectively relevant fact of experience; on the other hand, the relevance of a cultural form (defined: paranoid belongingness) that channels a trajectory of sensemaking consisting of the affective connotation of otherness in terms of threat and enemy. Third, the paper deepens the interplay between these cultural dynamics and the social, political and economic conditions that may have been triggered by them. In that perspective, the function of semiotic regulation played by the enemization of the other is highlighted. The conclusive part of the work is devoted to discuss implications the analysis suggests for policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on importance of norms for cross-cultural psychology. Topics discussed include the importance of intersubjectivity; distinction between descriptive and injunctive norms; complexity theory and neodiffusionism perspectives; and grounding model of cultural dynamics that theorize the process of establishment of common ground or intersubjectivity by interactants.

In cultural contexts in which sexist beliefs are considered traditional, shifts toward gender equality represent an example of cultural change. Polyculturalism is defined as the belief that cultures change constantly through different racial and ethnic groups’ interactions, influences, and exchanges with each other and, therefore, are dynamic and socially constructed rather than static. Thus, polyculturalism may involve openness to cultural change and, thereby, would be expected to be associated with lower sexist attitudes. Four studies (both cross-sectional and longitudinal) with undergraduate and community samples in the Northeastern United States tested whether endorsement of polyculturalism is inversely associated with sexism, above and beyond potentially confounding belief systems. Across studies, for both women and men, endorsement of polyculturalism was associated with lower sexist attitudes for two classes of sexism measures: (a) attitudes toward the rights and roles of women and (b) ambivalent sexist attitudes toward women. Associations remained significant while controlling for potentially confounding variables (colorblindness, conservatism, egalitarianism, gender and ethnic identity, gender and race essentialism, multiculturalism, right-wing authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation). Greater openness to criticizing one’s culture mediated polyculturalism’s association with attitudes toward the rights and roles of women but not with ambivalent sexist attitudes toward women. Studying polyculturalism may provide unique insights into sexism, and more work is needed to understand the mechanisms involved. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this editorial, we explore the growth of the International Simulation and Gaming Association (ISAGA) and Simulation & Gaming (S&G) over the past 40 years, comparing (a) the disciplines and affiliations of authors in the first volume of S&G, (b) authors who contributed papers to the ISAGA 2009 conference, and (c) authors of the most read and the most cited articles in the journal 41 years later, in September 2011. Finally, we present eight articles as an illustration of our growth and a foreshadowing of what we might attain in the next 40 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Randall Collins has introduced a simplified model of emotional dynamics in which emotional energy, heightened and focused by interaction rituals, serves as a common denominator for social exchange: a generic form of currency, except that it is active in a far broader range of social transactions. While the scope of this theory is attractive, the specifics of the model remain unconvincing. After a critical assessment of the currency theory of emotion, a field model of emotion is introduced that adds expressiveness by locating emotional valence within its cognitive context, thereby creating an integrated orientation field. The result is a model which claims less in the way of motivational specificity, but is more satisfactory in modeling the dynamic interaction between cognitive and emotional orientations at both individual and social levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many cross-border regions in Europe remain more political dreamscapes than examples of strong transnational integration. The development of the Öresund region through a bridge linking Copenhagen and eastern Denmark with Southern Sweden has been seen as a model for EU region building. Drawing on a multidisciplinary project, this article uses the Öresund case as a starting point, bringing in some contrastive Scandinavian examples. The aim is to discuss how regions try to make themselves visible and attractive for investments and visitors, but above all to what extent they produce regionauts actively creating integration by different border-crossing activities and contacts. The focus is on the cultural dimensions found in everyday practices and symbolic manifestations of these transnational processes. What kind of gaps between regional rhetoric and actual mundane activities emerge? A historical perspective is used to illustrate these changing border dynamics in which cultural, political and economic asymmetries often become an energizing factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the relationships between depression and marital adjustment in Hispanic couples as measured by the Beck Depression Inventory—II and the Dyadic Adjustment Scale. The participants were 98 married Hispanic couples from Las Vegas and San Antonio area churches and community centers who volunteered to participate in this study. Correlations for husbands and wives and the total group between depression and overall marital adjustment and the subscales of marital adjustment were significant. In addition, the husbands' and wives' depression scores were significantly correlated to one another Furthermore, the relationship between husbands' marital adjustment scores and wives' depression scores was significantly stronger than the inverse relationship of wives' marital adjustment with husbands' depression. The results of this study support an interactional theory of depression and thus highlight the need to take both members of a couple and the cultural dynamics into consideration when developing interventions to treat depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to explore communication strategies for relationship building across cultures from a linguistic as well as a culture-specific perspective. Specifically, it sees business relationships as part of social capital and compares communication strategies used to build relationships in sales firms. The research method is based on a discourse analysis of interviews with business managers, which also incorporates their success stories. In the analysis, relationship building is divided into two stages: the initiating stage and the maintaining stage. It has been found that more interpersonal strategies have been employed by Chinese and Indian business managers when initiating a business relationship. In contrast, the New Zealand and South African managers tend to use more impersonal communication strategies to promote public relations. Similar interpersonal communication strategies are employed in all the target cultures for maintaining relationships. However, a stronger orientation for long-term relationships in the Chinese and Indian cultures has been identified. Furthermore, the communication strategies are dynamic in all the countries investigated since they are becoming more and more multicultural and increasingly globalized in international business and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Homo sapiens is the only species in which we observe extensive cooperation among large numbers of genetically unrelated individuals. Incompatible approaches to explaining cooperation among humans have been offered by sociologists, biologists, and economists. None is wholly successful. Each discipline, moreover, has ignored basic insights of the others. This article explains cooperation by combining central contributions of these disciplines. developing a model of cultural evolution in which we use (a) the sociological concept of the internalization of norms to explain cultural transmission; (b) the biological concepts of vertical and oblique transmission to model the interaction of cultural and biological adaptation; and (c) the economic concepts of rational action and the replicator dynamic to model the interaction between self-interested and altruistic behavior. The article closes with a bioeconomic explanation of the human capacity to internalize norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]