Globalisation and Cultural Change

Cultural Change in Societies

• Culture is not stable, but dynamic.
• Western and non-Western societies are becoming more individualistic.
  • Examples:
    • The United States (e.g., Twenge et al., 2013)
    • The United Kingdom (e.g., Greenfield, 2013)
    • China (Hamamura & Xu, 2015)
    • Japan (Hamamura, 2012)
• A study of 51 countries showed increasing individualism in 37 countries (Santos et al., 2017).
• Despite increasing individualism, cultural differences in the degree of individualism and other psychological processes remain (Hamamura, 2012).

Globalisation

• Cultures are becoming more interconnected (Hong & Cheon, 2017).
• Technological innovations lower transportation costs and simplify long-distance communication.
• This allows ideas from one culture to be transmitted and influence people in other cultures, accelerating cultural evolution and potentially facilitating the development of a global culture.
• Definition: A process of interaction and integration among the peoples, companies, and governments of different nations (Chiu et al., 2011).
• Driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology.
• Allows rapid diffusion of economic, political, and cultural practices across national borders and global flows of goods, services, ideas, cultural forms, and people.
• Fuels economic development but also intensifies positive and negative interdependence among cultures.

Change in Globalisation

• KOF Globalisation Index: (Dreher, 2006; Gygli et al., 2019)
  • An index indicating the level of globalisation on a scale of 1 to 100.
  • $42$ indicators are used and aggregated.
  • Examples:
    • Economic: International trade in goods and services, foreign investment.
    • Political: Number of embassies, international NGOs, participation in the UN.
    • Social: International telephone/internet connections, tourism flows, migration.

Globalisation-based Acculturation

• Increasing cultural diversity in many countries, due to increasing immigrants and visitors.
• People are coming into contact with others from diverse cultural backgrounds more than ever before.
• Exposure to other cultures often becomes necessary and unavoidable.
• Immigration-based acculturation: How migration impacts immigrants’ psychological processes, social behaviours, and individual experiences.
• Globalisation-based acculturation: How globalisation impacts acculturation processes among the majority group in the society (majority acculturation).
  • Directly, by interacting with people from other cultures.
  • Indirectly, by engaging with other cultures through media and the Internet (remote acculturation) (Chen et al., 2008; Ferguson & Bornstein, 2012; Kunst et al., 2021).

Psychology of Globalisation

1. Lay Perception of Globalisation
2. Perception of Multiple Cultures
3. Reactions to Inflow of Foreign Culture (Chiu & Kwan, 2016)

Lay Perception of Globalisation

• How do people understand globalisation? What are the social and psychological implications of such understanding?
• A study of four societies identified $26$ items that are perceived by people in the US, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China to be strongly associated with globalisation (Yang et al., 2011).
• Five categories:
  • Global business enterprises (e.g., Starbucks).
  • Information technology (e.g., Internet).
  • Migration of people (e.g., air travel).
  • Global disasters (e.g., HIV).
  • International regulations (e.g., UN).
• Report perceptions on levels of competence and warmth in societies.
• Globalisation-related issues/concepts have positive effects on competence and warmth (e.g., Olympics), particularly on competence.
• Americans have more critical attitudes toward global consumer brands (e.g., McDonald’s) than do Chinese (Yang et al., 2011).

Lay Perception and Societal Change

• People generally think that when a society develops from a traditional community to a modern society, its people become more capable and less trustworthy and warm-hearted (i.e., less moral) than before (Kashima et al., 2009).
• A study to understand lay perception of globalisation and societal change among people from China, Japan, and Australia (Kashima et al., 2011).
• In countries where globalisation is a major driver of development, globalisation is perceived to have the same impact as societal development.
  • People perceive these societies to become more competent but less moral.
• People who expect globalisation to have positive effects on wellbeing, or if they are from countries recently benefiting from globalisation, believe that development will turn their society into more competent and moral (Kashima et al., 2011).

Globalisation and Cross-Cultural Encounter

• Globalisation has brought diverse cultures together, resulting in experiential compression of space and time.
• Many residents of cosmopolitan cities often encounter symbols and ideas of different societies, as well as those of traditional and modern cultures, in the same place and at the same time.
• People may have acquired different cultural ideas and knowledge of the typical behaviours in multiple cultural groups.

Cultural Priming

• Culture as Situated Cognition:
  • Culture is information embedded into particular networks of ideas and situations (e.g., individualism-collectivism, independent-interdependent).
• Cultural priming works by making certain ideas associated with cultural meanings more accessible; people will then behave according to those cultural ideas.
  • Akin to cultural frame switching (Hong et al., 2000).
• People, even those from the dominant group, display the typical responses of another culture when primed with symbols or ideas of the other culture (Oyserman et al., 2009).
• Euro-Americans living in a global environment, when exposed to foreign cultures (e.g., symbols, situations) behave in a culturally typical way.
• Euro-Americans asked to make hypothetical weather forecast, after priming Chinese cultural ideas (Alter & Kwan, 2009).
• Cultural difference in prediction of change, such that Westerns predict a trend to continue, whereas East Asians predict things to change (Ji et al., 2001).
• Primed with a Yin-Yang symbol, or no symbol. Chinese cues make participants respond consistent with Chinese thinking about change.

Perception of Multiple Cultures

• People in cosmopolitan cities have more frequent exposure to multiple cultures simultaneously.
• Intercultural encounters afford ample opportunities for the simultaneous activation of two or more cultural representations (Chiu & Cheng, 2007).
• Co-activation of two dissimilar cultural representations makes people focus their attention on essential attributes that differentiate the two cultures (Chiu et al., 2009; Torelli et al., 2011).
• Beijing Chinese were presented some advertisements, and asked to make some judgments and ratings (Chiu et al., 2009).
• View two commercial messages for Timex:
  • Individualist message: “The Timex watch… It has an impressive personality, very individualistic, and with a strong focus and concern for oneself-in a positive way.”
  • Collectivist message: “The Timex watch… It’s an impressive social being, very concerned with others, and with a strong focus and concern for others-in a positive way.”
• How likely a Chinese advertising student designing a Chinese site for Timex will use the message (Chiu et al., 2009).
• Compared to those in the one culture condition, those in the two cultures or fusion condition perceived that the collectivist message would be more likely to be used.
• Simultaneous presentation of two cultures makes perception of cultures as real entities and focuses on differentiating cultures.
• Similar phenomena were observed among European Americans (Chiu et al., 2009).

Responses to Inflow of Foreign Culture

• Does globalisation make us all become citizens of a homogeneous world culture?
• Motivation for global homogeneity and for cultural distinctiveness.
  • Some people celebrate globalisation (Ohmae, 1999).
  • Some people reject the globalising force to return to the traditional cultures of their past (Barber, 1995).
• Two categories of psychological responses to inflow of foreign culture in global contexts:
  • Exclusionary reactions: Emotion-driven reactions to fears of cultural contamination and erosion.
  • Integrative reactions: Goal-oriented reactions geared toward problem-solving (Chiu et al., 2011).

Exclusionary Reactions

• Locals must see it as a symbolic act that signifies the attempt of a foreign culture to trample over the local culture.
  • E.g., an attempt by an American company (McDonald’s) to acquire an iconic Singaporean restaurant chain (Ya Kun Kaya Toast) evoked negative feelings from Singaporeans.
    • Only when people consider the acquirer and the restaurant chain as symbols of American and Singaporean culture (Tong et al., 2011) (Chiu et al., 2011).
• Use collective effort to protect the heritage culture from the predominant influence of globalisation and commercialisation (Li et al., 2015).
• Preserve the practices and policies that would uphold the traditional cultural norms (Wu et al., 2014).
• Selectively accept only those foreign cultural elements that are compatible with the core values of the local culture (Fu & Chiu, 2007) (Chiu et al., 2011).
• Exclusionary reactions are likely to occur when in-group identity is salient, and a cultural threat is perceived.
  • E.g., Hong Kong Chinese responded close-mindedly (high need for firm answers) when presented a mixture of unmatched languages and cultural symbols (Morris et al., 2011).
    • Especially if they were threatened by Western influx into Chinese heritage (Chiu et al., 2011).

Disgust and Cultural Fusion

• A study on disgust and mixing different cultures (Cheon et al., 2016).

• We feel disgusted when there is a physical contaminant (e.g., cockroach on our cake).

• Blending and mixing different cultural elements can be viewed as a form of contamination, which elicits disgust.

• American participants found cultural fusion to be more disgusting, as compared to presenting cultural elements side-by-side or alone.

• People with stronger national identification showed stronger disgust for cultural fusion.

• Motivated to maintain in-group integrity and purity (Cheon et al., 2016).

Cultural Borrowing

• Borrow/adopt elements from a culture that doesn’t belong to one’s own; imitate or apply them in a new context.
• Different forms (Rogers, 2006):
  • Exploitation: more powerful/dominant group takes from less powerful without permission, acknowledgment, or compensation; reflect intergroup inequality and viewed as theft or illegitimate cultural consumption.
  • Exchange: mutual, voluntary, equal status; can break down cultural barriers (Kunst et al., 2024; R. Zhang et al., 2023; Y. Zhang et al., 2024).

Cultural Appropriation

• “Act of taking or using things from a culture that is not your own, especially without showing that you understand or respect this culture” (Cambridge Dictionary definition).

• Asymmetry in power and status of cultural groups.

• Without consent, acknowledgment, or equitable compensation.

• Distortion or misrepresentation.

• Who are more likely to engage in cultural appropriation?

  • Have material or symbolic advantages (e.g., financial gain).
  • Perceive as not harmful and unintentional (Mosley & Biernat, 2020).
  • Higher levels of racial identification (Mosley et al., 2023).
  • Lack of historical knowledge of racism and injustice (Mosley et al., 2023).
  • Endorse colourblind and polycultural ideologies (vs. multiculturalism), but for different reasons (Mosley et al., 2023; Y. Zhang et al., 2024) (Kunst et al., 2024).

• What are some consequences of appropriating another culture?

  • Perpetuate inequality; promote stereotype and prejudice; impair intercultural relations.
  • Damage to minority groups’ cultural identity, threat to distinctiveness (Mosley & Biernat, 2021).
  • Perceived as causing harm to the minority group (Mosley et al., 2024) (Kunst et al., 2024).

Integrative Reactions

• Intercultural contacts afford opportunities for intercultural understanding and learning (Leung et al., 2008).
• Some people use ideas from foreign cultures as means or intellectual resources for problem-solving and to accomplish their valued goals (Chiu et al., 2011).
• Exposure to foreign cultures improves creative performance (Leung et al., 2008; Maddux & Galinsky, 2009).
  • Especially when individuals are oriented to learn from other cultures (Maddux et al., 2010).

Cultural Exposure and Creativity

• Euro-Americans viewed presentation of cultural elements (Leung & Chiu, 2010).
• Five conditions:
  • American culture only.
  • Chinese culture only.
  • Both American and Chinese cultures.
  • Fusion of American and Chinese cultures (e.g., McDonald’s rice burger).
  • Control.
• Complete two writing tasks (coded for creativity) $5-7$ days apart.
• Extend the conceptual boundaries of their knowledge by combining seemingly incompatible cultural ideas into new knowledge structures (Cheung & Leung, 2013; Cheung et al., 2011).
• Mixing cultures requires investment of cognitive resources to reconcile and integrate contradictions, which can temporarily induce unpleasant feelings (Cheng et al., 2011).
• But such negative emotional state can ultimately increase creative performance (Cheng et al., 2011).

Exclusionary vs Integrative Reactions

Global Citizenship and Identity

• Global citizenship: awareness, caring, and embracing cultural diversity, while promoting social justice and sustainability, with a sense of responsibility to act.
• Global identity: a form of social identity, a superordinate group of global citizens/community/village (McFarland et al., 2019; Reysen & Katzarska-Miller, 2013).

Stronger global identity is associated with:

• Desire to learn about other cultures and to attend diversity events (Reysen et al., 2013).
• Prosocial values (e.g., social justice, intergroup empathy, intergroup helping, environmental sustainability, responsibility to act on global issues; Katzarska-Miller et al., 2012; Reysen & Katzarska-Miller, 2013).
• Behavioural intention to reduce global inequality, because inequality is unjust (Reese et al., 2014).
• Pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours, and donation to an environmental organisation (Renger & Reese, 2017; Reysen et al., 2013).

Global Consciousness

• “A knowledge of both the interconnectedness and difference of humankind, and a will to take moral actions in a reflexive manner on its behalf” (Liu & Macdonald, 2016, p.310).
  • Engage in other cultures.
  • Open to the potential benefits of globalisation.
  • Aware that this requires effort and reflexivity.
• Empirically, GC has three main components.

Components

• Cosmopolitan orientation (CO; Leung et al., 2015):
  • Attitudinal and value orientations of individuals who immerse as part of the globalised world.
    • Cultural openness: valuing and acquiring experience with other and different cultures (e.g., “It is exciting to immerse in a foreign culture”).
    • Respect for cultural diversity: preservation of cultural diversity and respect for cultural differences (e.g., “I embrace cultural diversity”).
    • Global prosociality: moral obligation to help others from other parts of the world (e.g., “I want to play my part to help make the world a better place for all”).
• Identification with all humanity (IWAH; McFarland et al., 2012):
  • Feeling close to and caring about progressively larger groups, including multiple identifications with people in one’s community, country, and with all humans everywhere.
• Global orientations (GO; Chen et al., 2016):
  • Proactive orientation towards multicultural learning, which maximises beneficial outcomes in intercultural interactions (e.g., “I learn customs and traditions of other cultures”).

Global Consciousness and Outcomes

• GC and its components are related to pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours (Leung et al., 2015) and cross-national cooperation (Liu et al., 2023).
• During the COVID pandemic, GC and its components are related to:
  • Adopting more safety measures against COVID.
  • Greater willingness to be vaccinated.
  • Better collaboration to contain the pandemic.
  • More prosocial behaviours in response to COVID.

Cultivating Global Consciousness

• GC decreases with age.
  • Younger people may be learning from their peers and through mass media, rather than a ‘wisdom of elders’.
• Some socialising institution factors promote GC:
  • Education, white-collar work (and higher and more regular income), and religiosity.
• Some life events contribute to the growth of GC:
  • Positive empathy-building, network-enhancing (e.g., getting married, welcoming a new baby).
  • Work and education related (e.g., receiving a promotion, getting a better job, achieving education).
  • Death of a close-other (Zhang et al., 2023).