Search

Individualism and Collectivism (IC) is the most popular cultural dimension in psychology. Researchers suggest that countries with an individualistic culture are more developed, wealthier and experience less Human Rights violations than countries with a collectivist culture (Basabe & Ros, 2005). Some scholars suggest that the economic development fosters cultural change from the collectivism to individualism, measured by the endorsement of Self-Expression Values (Inglehart & Oyserman, 2004). However, Wasiel et al. (2023) found that Americans understand Self-Expression Values as a facet of collectivism instead of individualism. Therefore, the popularization of research showing the benefits of individualistic culture (or effect of modernization on individualism) might be misenterpreted by non-experts. In this project, we will experimentaly investigate the effects of popularizing scientific message stating that individualism/collectivism is connected to development and general well-being.

According to the research on Folk Theories of Social Change, modernization brings higher agency but lower communion (e.g., Kashima et al., 2009). We hypothesize that this is true for technological modernization mainly. We conceptualize that societal development may have at least three major facets: 1. social modernization (SM), 2. technological modernization (TM), and 3. economic modernization (EM). Furthermore, findings from our previous study (Krys et al., under review) suggest that conventional aims (e.g., emphasizing religious values, strong military power, demographic growth), although not particularly modernizing, may be of some importance for some people. Thus, we will also study conventional aims. Taking into account findings from our previous study (Krys et al., under review), we plan to study four different subcategories of SM: 1. SM prioritizing social inclusion (e.g., fighting with inequalities, protection of human rights, openness for new people), 2. SM prioritizing welfare (e.g., good quality education, living in freedom, eradication of poverty), 3. SM prioritizing agentic foundations of modernization (e.g., citizens living healthy long lives, democracy, safety), 4. SM prioritizing communal foundations of modernization (e.g., strong social ties, trust). We plan to study two different categories of TM: 1. industrialization (e. g., building new factories, increasing the productivity of manufacturing goods), and 2. digitalization (e. g., access to a high-speed Internet, digitization of public services, working online). All in all, we will study eight different forms of societal development: four facets of SM, two facets of TM, EM, and conventional aims, and we will measure perceived agency and communion of people living in societies described by different stages of societal development.

Objective: We examined the effects of control motivation on in-group positivity. Past research suggests that people compensate for low personal control by increasing support for social ingroups. We predicted that the effect of personal control on in-group positivity would depend on the type of in-group positivity. Low personal control should increase compensatory, narcissistic in-group positivity, while high personal control should increase secure, non-narcissistic in-group positivity. \ud \ud Method: These hypotheses were tested in a cross-sectional survey (Study 1, n= 1083,54% female, Mage= 47.68), two experiments (Study 2, n= 105, 50% female, Mage = 32.05; Study 3, n=154, 40% female, Mage= 29.93) and a longitudinal survey (Study 4, n= 398, 51% female,Mage= 32.05). \ud \ud Results: In all studies personal control was negatively associated with narcissistic in-group positivity but positively associated with non-narcissistic in-group positivity. The longitudinal survey additionally showed that the positive relationship between personal controland non-narcissistic in-group positivity was reciprocal. Moreover, both types of in-group positivity differentially mediated between personal control and out-group attitudes:narcissistic in-group positivity predicted negative attitudes and non-narcissistic positivity predicted positive attitudes. \ud \ud Conclusions: These findings highlight the role of individual motivation in fostering different types of in-group positivity and intergroup outcomes.