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This study documents patterns of cultural value conflict and harmony for Latino students in two relational domains--among the students themselves and between the students and their teachers--in two second grade classrooms in the Los Angeles area. One of the classrooms was led by a teacher who participated in a professional development program, the Bridging Cultures Project, based on cultural and social psychology research and theory, and one led by a teacher who did not. Invoking the cultural value spectrum of individualism--collectivism, the Bridging Cultures Project engaged Spanish-English bilingual elementary teachers in learning about individualistic values rooted in the design of instruction and behavioral management in U.S. classrooms and how they may differ from the relatively more collectivistic values of their students. Through this program, teachers became researchers themselves, experimenting with new approaches grounded in a collectivistic values paradigm. Discourse analysis revealed that, through her instructional methods, the Bridging Cultures teacher made her classroom activities and interactions relatively more collectivistic. By contrast, the non-Bridging Cultures teacher encouraged relatively more individualistic behaviors. This study demonstrates how explicit learning about cultural values can help a teacher design instruction in a way that reduces cultural value conflicts in the classroom.

Based on the theory of social change, cultural evolution, and human development, we propose a mechanism whereby increased danger in society causes predictable shifts in valued forms of intelligence: (1) Practical intelligence rises in value relative to abstract intelligence; and (2) social intelligence shifts from measuring how well individuals can negotiate the social world to achieve their personal aims to measuring how well they can do so to achieve group aims. We document these shifts during the COVID-19 pandemic and argue that they led to an increase in the size and strength of social movements.

Background:: With in-person instruction, many undergraduates look at screens during lectures. Because screens can distract, attempts to curb this behavior through screen policies are increasingly common but understudied. Objective and Method:: Two quasi-experimental studies (Study 1: N = 412; Study 2: N = 179) in the same Psychology class explore results of restricting screens to one area of the classroom on exam performance and instructor/course evaluation. Results:: In both studies, these policies improved exam scores in the class. In Study 2, students who chose to sit in the screen-free zone did better on exams. Limiting screen use to the back of the classroom (Study 1) produced student pushback in qualitative comments and lower evaluations in quantitative instructor and course ratings. In contrast, placing screen and screen-free zones side-by-side (Study 2) was accepted without comment by students. Conclusion:: Together, these studies suggest that creating screen-free zones in classrooms can be beneficial for students, especially for those students who choose to sit in the screen-free section. Additionally, students accept side-by-side division of a classroom into screen and screen-free zones. Teaching Implications:: Because these studies are ecologically valid, results have implications for how students take notes and how instructors set restrictions on screens in their classroom.

The goal of this project was to reduce parent-child conflict and promote intergenerational harmony among Central American families who had experienced long-term parent-child separations in the immigration process. Through combining intensive case study of six families with experimental design, we show how a series of four workshops for immigrant parents and their recently immigrated adolescent children could reduce parent-child conflict and emotional distance by scaffolding intergenerational communication. Families were randomly assigned to one of three groups: (1) both parents and adolescent children attended workshops (full experimental group); (2) only adolescent children attended workshops (partial experimental group); and (3) no-treatment control group. The full experimental group achieved the greatest changes in communication patterns: In the posttest, parents and children in this group were more able to express negative aspects of separation and reunion; they also showed more understanding of each other's perspective.

Immigrant students and their families sometimes experience conflict or alienation in U.S. schools owing to differences between the collectivistic values of home (focused on the well-being of the family and group) and the individualistic values of schools (focused on the well-being of individuals) that drive instructional practices and school policies. The research project discussed here explored whether professional development based on cultural theory and research could support experienced teachers in creating culturally responsive classrooms for their primarily Latino immigrant students. Seven experienced, bilingual Spanish-English teachers from Southern California participated in professional development based on theory and research related to the cultural concepts of individualism and collectivism. The professional development approach was nonprescriptive and engaged teachers in collaborative inquiry and problem-solving. As a result of the training, teachers' proposed solutions to classroom and home-school conflicts shifted from primarily individualistic solutions on pretests to more collectivistic solutions and solutions that integrated both cultural perspectives on posttests. Gains in teachers' understanding of and respect for both cultures led to a more mutual stance toward parents, altered classroom organization, improved classroom management, and stimulated the use of instructional practices that were more harmonious with the values of their students.

Background: With in-person instruction, many undergraduates look at screens during lectures. Because screens can distract, attempts to curb this behavior through screen policies are increasingly common but understudied. Objective and Method: Two quasi-experimental studies (Study 1: N = 412; Study 2: N = 179) in the same Psychology class explore results of restricting screens to one area of the classroom on exam performance and instructor/course evaluation. Results: In both studies, these policies improved exam scores in the class. In Study 2, students who chose to sit in the screen-free zone did better on exams. Limiting screen use to the back of the classroom (Study 1) produced student pushback in qualitative comments and lower evaluations in quantitative instructor and course ratings. In contrast, placing screen and screen-free zones side-by-side (Study 2) was accepted without comment by students. Conclusion: Together, these studies suggest that creating screen-free zones in classrooms can be beneficial for students, especially for those students who choose to sit in the screen-free section. Additionally, students accept side-by-side division of a classroom into screen and screen-free zones. Teaching Implications: Because these studies are ecologically valid, results have implications for how students take notes and how instructors set restrictions on screens in their classroom.

The current study tests the application of Greenfield’s theory of social change and human development to an Arab Bedouin community transitioning from a nomadic to a sedentary way of life. We predicted that sociodemographic change across three generations away from a rural subsistence way of life (a Gemeinschaft ecology) toward an urban, educated, and technological way of life in a commercial economy (a Gesellschaft ecology) would correspond to generational differences in individualistic values related to gender, focusing on equality and chosen roles. We also examined the hypothesis that the pattern of intergenerational differences would suggest a more rapid pace of value change for women than for men. We presented 20 adolescent girls, their mothers, and their grandmothers, and 20 adolescent boys, their fathers, and their grandfathers with a series of vignettes to measure their values. Results showed increasing Gesellschaft-adapted values across generations of both women and men; however, the pattern of generational differences suggested that the most dramatic change for women was in the parent generation, whereas the most dramatic change for men was in the adolescent generation. This pattern suggested a more rapid pace of value change for women than for men. Mediation analyses showed that education, TV watching, and Internet use explained differences in values across the generations. Qualitative examples illustrate how beliefs about ideal gender behaviors and male–female relations shift across generations in correspondence with sociodemographic changes.

Evidence increasingly suggests that neural structures that respond to primary and secondary rewards are also implicated in the processing of social rewards. The 'Like'-a popular feature on social media-shares features with both monetary and social rewards as a means of feedback that shapes reinforcement learning. Despite the ubiquity of the Like, little is known about the neural correlates of providing this feedback to others. In this study, we mapped the neural correlates of providing Likes to others on social media. Fifty-eight adolescents and young adults completed a task in the MRI scanner designed to mimic the social photo-sharing app Instagram. We examined neural responses when participants provided positive feedback to others. The experience of providing Likes to others on social media related to activation in brain circuity implicated in reward, including the striatum and ventral tegmental area, regions also implicated in the experience of receiving Likes from others. Providing Likes was also associated with activation in brain regions involved in salience processing and executive function. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of the neural processing of social rewards, as well as the neural processes underlying social media use.

Mobile social media often feature the ability to "Like" content posted by others. This study examined the effect of Likes on youths' neural and behavioral responses to photographs. High school and college students (N = 61, ages 13-21) viewed theirs and others' Instagram photographs while undergoing functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Participants more often Liked photographs that appeared to have received many (vs. few) Likes. Popular photographs elicited greater activity in multiple brain regions, including the nucleus accumbens (NAcc), a hub of the brain's reward circuitry. NAcc responsivity increased with age for high school but not college students. When viewing images depicting risk-taking (vs. nonrisky photographs), high school students, but not college students, showed decreased activation of neural regions implicated in cognitive control.

We investigated a unique way in which adolescent peer influence occurs on social media. We developed a novel functional MRI (fMRI) paradigm to simulate Instagram, a popular social photo-sharing tool, and measured adolescents' behavioral and neural responses to likes, a quantifiable form of social endorsement and potential source of peer influence. Adolescents underwent fMRI while viewing photos ostensibly submitted to Instagram. They were more likely to like photos depicted with many likes than photos with few likes; this finding showed the influence of virtual peer endorsement and held for both neutral photos and photos of risky behaviors (e.g., drinking, smoking). Viewing photos with many (compared with few) likes was associated with greater activity in neural regions implicated in reward processing, social cognition, imitation, and attention. Furthermore, when adolescents viewed risky photos (as opposed to neutral photos), activation in the cognitive-control network decreased. These findings highlight possible mechanisms underlying peer influence during adolescence.

This study tested and extended Greenfield’s theory of social change and human development to adolescent development in Arab communities in Israel undergoing rapid social change. The theory views sociodemographic changes—such as contact with an ethnically diverse urban setting and spread of technology—as driving changes in cultural values. In one research design, we compared three generations, high school girls, their mothers, and their grandmothers, in their responses to value-assessment scenarios. In a second research design, we compared girls going to high school in an ethnically diverse city with girls going to school in a village. As predicted by the theory, a t test and ANOVA revealed that both urban life and membership in the youngest generation were significantly related to more individualistic and gender-egalitarian values. Regression analysis and a bootstrapping mediation analysis showed that the mechanism of change in both cases was possession of mobile technologies.

A field experiment examined whether increasing opportunities for face-to-face interaction while eliminating the use of screen-based media and communication tools improved nonverbal emotion-cue recognition in preteens. Fifty-one preteens spent five days at an overnight nature camp where television, computers and mobile phones were not allowed; this group was compared with school-based matched controls (n = 54) that retained usual media practices. Both groups took pre- and post-tests that required participants to infer emotional states from photographs of facial expressions and videotaped scenes with verbal cues removed. Change scores for the two groups were compared using gender, ethnicity, media use, and age as covariates. After five days interacting face-to-face without the use of any screen-based media, preteens' recognition of nonverbal emotion cues improved significantly more than that of the control group for both facial expressions and videotaped scenes. Implications are that the short-term effects of increased opportunities for social interaction, combined with time away from screen-based media and digital communication tools, improves a preteen's understanding of nonverbal emotional cues. © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Greenfield's theory linking sociodemographic change to dynamic cultural values for family interdependence versus individual independence is applied to sexual and gender role socialization and development. The theory explains how cultural pathways for sexual and gender-role development transform in concert with sociodemographic changes: urbanization, formal schooling, capitalism, and communication technologies. As environments become more urban, commercial, and technological, with more opportunities for formal education, sexual development moves away from the ideals of procreation and family responsibility and toward the ideals of personal pleasure and personal responsibility. At the same time, gender-role development moves away from the ideals of complementary and ascribed gender roles and toward chosen and equal gender roles. We present psychological, anthropological, and sociological evidence for these trends in a variety of communities undergoing social and ecological change. © 2014 by the American Anthropological Association.

How does a life-threatening pandemic affect a culture? The Theory of Social Change, Cultural Evolution, and Human Development predicts that danger, as indicated by rising death rates and narrowing social worlds, shifts human psychology and behavior toward that found in small-scale, collectivistic, and rural subsistence ecologies. In particular, mortality salience, collectivism, and engagement in subsistence activities should increase as death rates rise and the social world retracts. Studies on the psychological response to the pandemic in the United States confirmed these predicted increases. The present study sought to generalize these previous findings by comparing the frequency of conceptually relevant linguistic terms used in Google searches and Twitter posts in the United States, Japan, Indonesia, and Mexico for 30 days before the coronavirus pandemic began in each country with frequencies of the same terms for 30 days after. Generally, we found that mortality salience increased to the extent that countries experienced excess COVID mortality; collectivism increased to the extent that countries experienced excess COVID mortality and increased mortality salience; and subsistence activities increased to the extent that countries experienced excess COVID mortality and/or stay-at-home-policies. Almost all these increases went beyond the general increase in internet use, which was a control variable in all analyses. These findings support a growing body of research documenting a human response to ecological danger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is there a trade-off between having large networks of social connections on social networking sites such as Facebook and the development of intimacy and social support among today's generation of emerging adults? To understand the socialization context of Facebook during the transition to adulthood, an online survey was distributed to college students at a large urban university; participants answered questions about their relationships by systematically sampling their Facebook contacts while viewing their Facebook profiles online. Results confirmed that Facebook facilitates expansive social networks that grow disproportionately through distant kinds of relationship (acquaintances and activity connections), while also expanding the number of close relationships and stranger relationships, albeit at slower rates. Those with larger networks estimated that larger numbers of contacts in their networks were observing their status updates, a form of public communication to one's entire contact list. The major function of status updates was emotional disclosure, the key feature of intimacy. This finding indicates the transformation of the nature of intimacy in the environment of a social network site. In addition, larger networks and larger estimated audiences predicted higher levels of life satisfaction and perceived social support on Facebook. These findings emphasize the psychological importance of audience in the Facebook environment. Findings also suggest that social networking sites help youth to satisfy enduring human psychosocial needs for permanent relations in a geographically mobile world--college students with higher proportions of maintained contacts from the past (primarily high school friends) perceived Facebook as a more useful tool for procuring social support.

Within the cultural context of MySpace, this study explores the ways emerging adults experience social networking. Through focus group methodology, the role of virtual peer interaction in the development of personal, social, and gender identities was investigated. Findings suggest that college students utilize MySpace for identity exploration, engaging in social comparison and expressing idealized aspects of the selves they wish to become. The public nature of self and relationship displays introduce feedback mechanisms by which emerging adults can legitimize images as associated with the self. Also, male-female differences in self-presentation parallel, and possibly intensify, gender norms offline. Our study suggests that social networking sites provide valuable opportunities for emerging adults to realize possible selves; however, increased pressure for female sexual objectification and intensified social comparison may also negatively impact identity development. A balanced view, presenting both opportunities and drawbacks, should be encouraged in policies regarding youth participation in social networking sites.

Analyzing three sets of video data collected in one Maya community, we examined apprenticeship and learning of backstrap loom weaving over three generations spanning the years 1970 to 2012. Like many cultural groups, the Maya of Chiapas are experiencing rapid sociodemographic shifts. Three generations of girls (N = 134) were observed at their looms: in the 1970 subsistence economy; in the transition to a commercial economy in the 1990s; and in 2012, when the commercial economy required formal education. Multilevel models showed that intergenerational sociodemographic change - increased time in school, greater involvement in the money economy, and decreased family size - changed weaving apprenticeship, which, in turn, was related to changes in characteristics of learners. In 2012, weaving learners received more explanations, praise, and body instruction from their teachers. Learners, in turn, asked more questions. However, these changes came at a cost - the gradual loss of weaving as an everyday subsistence practice and art form. Tracing intergenerational change over three generations, this study makes a unique contribution to an understanding of cultural evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

U.S. colleges place a high value on the fulfillment of academic obligations by their students. The academic achievement of each individual student is the institutional priority; this is an individualistic frame of reference. However, many Latino first-generation college students have been raised to prioritize family obligations; their home socialization is collectivistic. Our exploratory study investigated how Latino first-generation college students experience home-school value conflict between family obligation and individual academic achievement during their transition to college. A group interview followed the prompt of a conflict scenario that each group member first responded to in writing. The written responses provide evidence of the prioritization of school or home and the conflict that can arise in making these decisions. The group discussions that followed identified multiple types of home-school conflict and provide insights into how these conflicts are experienced. Conflicts revealed by the data included attending family events or visiting parents versus doing academic work, family assistance versus focusing on academics, allocating money for travel to see family versus allocating money for educational expenses. In turn, these home-school value conflicts were experienced both as lasting over time and as playing a negative role in students' academic achievement and sense of well-being.

This mixed-method study assessed the nature of language brokering and the relationship between language brokering and prosocial capacities in a sample of 139 college students from ethnically diverse immigrant families. The prosocial capacities of interest were empathic concern and two forms of perspective-taking: general perspective-taking (understanding the perspectives of others) and transcultural perspective-taking (understanding of divergent cultural values). As predicted, structural equation modeling identified a significant pathway from language brokering for parents to skill in transcultural perspective-taking. We illustrated this pathway with a qualitative case study. We also identified a significant bidirectional relationship between language brokering for others (e.g., other relatives, friends) and empathic concern. The experience of language brokering for others develops empathic concern; at the same time, those with higher levels of empathic concern broker more for people outside their immediate families.

We documented cross-cultural similarities and differences in values concerning personal achievement between Latino immigrant parents, a group of multiethnic teachers, and European American parents. We also explored intergenerational similarities and differences between parents and their fifth-grade children. The theoretical premise was that sociodemographic factors, such as education, drive cultural values, with more formal education associated with individualistic values and less formal education associated with collectivistic/familistic values. Responding to open-ended social dilemmas relevant to family life, Latino immigrant parents, averaging a fifth-grade education, responded more familistically than the more highly educated multiethnic teachers or European American parents. In contrast, no group differences in values showed up in situations where school practices do not directly impact family life. Intergenerational differences were few; but, in family-centered scenarios, European American fifth graders were significantly more collectivistic than European American parents, a finding that suggested the possibility that, in an individualistic culture, individualism is socialized with age. (Contains 4 figures.)

Is there a trade-off between having large networks of social connections on social networking sites such as Facebook and the development of intimacy and social support among today's generation of emerging adults? To understand the socialization context of Facebook during the transition to adulthood, an online survey was distributed to college students at a large urban university; participants answered questions about their relationships by systematically sampling their Facebook contacts while viewing their Facebook profiles online. Results confirmed that Facebook facilitates expansive social networks that grow disproportionately through distant kinds of relationship (acquaintances and activity connections), while also expanding the number of close relationships and stranger relationships, albeit at slower rates. Those with larger networks estimated that larger numbers of contacts in their networks were observing their status updates, a form of public communication to one's entire contact list. The major function of status updates was emotional disclosure, the key feature of intimacy. This finding indicates the transformation of the nature of intimacy in the environment of a social network site. In addition, larger networks and larger estimated audiences predicted higher levels of life satisfaction and perceived social support on Facebook. These findings emphasize the psychological importance of audience in the Facebook environment. Findings also suggest that social networking sites help youth to satisfy enduring human psychosocial needs for permanent relations in a geographically mobile world--college students with higher proportions of maintained contacts from the past (primarily high school friends) perceived Facebook as a more useful tool for procuring social support. (Contains 9 tables and 1 figure.)