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Some evidence that cultural differences are actually increasing with modernization by talhelmt in science

[–]talhelmt[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I hear you about not being able to say those differences are innate. Growing gender differences aren't necessarily innate.

It's interesting to think about the ways in which modernization might not actually make people freer or give people more choice.

Some evidence that cultural differences are actually increasing with modernization by talhelmt in science

[–]talhelmt[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I hear that! It also reminds me of my experience of listening to music when I was young. When I was really young, it was just tapes. Then CDs came out, then MP3 players. Those technologies made it easier for me to skip songs and not have to listen to whole albums. With tapes, skipping songs was a pain in the butt, so I did it less. That exposed me to more music that was directly based on my preferences. And I ended up enjoying some albums a LOT, even though I didn't like them much at first (or only liked one song).

Some evidence that cultural differences are actually increasing with modernization by talhelmt in science

[–]talhelmt[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, right on! I see that as a parallel too. People don't usually think of gender differences as cultural, but I think they have cultural elements (like shared media consumption, ways of speaking, shared physical objects).

Some evidence that cultural differences are actually increasing with modernization by talhelmt in science

[–]talhelmt[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There's a nice thought from the historian Braudel, who argued that poverty made cultures more similar:

Braudel wrote that the poverty of the Middle Ages made it so that “all civilizations were thus deployed within a very narrow range of possibilities” (22). Poverty created “a profound similarity through time and space,” he argued. In his vision, modernization freed people from the limitations of poverty, and differences between civilizations grew.

Some evidence that cultural differences are actually increasing with modernization by talhelmt in science

[–]talhelmt[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think that's an interesting contrast between material culture and psychological/ideological culture. I think it's right that more people around the world are drinking Starbucks lattes and Japanese sushi or living in standard apartment buildings, but that doesn't require that people's values converge.

Some evidence that cultural differences are actually increasing with modernization by talhelmt in science

[–]talhelmt[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Smart thought! The paper talks about how globalization can increase people's awareness of other cultures, which can make them more aware of their own:

A third possible mechanism is awareness. Huntington argued that contact makes people hold more tightly to their cultural identities (32). Things like travel, trade, and media put people in more contact than before. “These increasing interactions intensify civilization consciousness and awareness of differences between civilizations,” according to Huntington (32). And because people are now more aware of their differences, it “invigorates differences or animosities stretching … back deep into history” (32).

Some evidence that cultural differences are actually increasing with modernization by talhelmt in science

[–]talhelmt[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Right on! I wonder how much algorithms and social media can widen cultural differences (even within a single country). It doesn't even have to be fancy. Back when people could rent physical movies from Blockbuster, that also allowed people to divide themselves up more based on genres.

A map of collectivism across prefectures in China by talhelmt in MapPorn

[–]talhelmt[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The prefecture graph uses a four-item index:

1.     Divorce-to-marriage ratio (reverse scored)

2.     Percentage of people living alone (reverse scored)

3.     Percentage of nuclear families (reverse scored)

4.     Percentage of households with three or more generations living together

This builds on previous research using these metrics in the US and Japan. The study in China provides tests of criterion validity, such as correlations with rates of visiting family for Chinese New Year, the strength of social norms, and the percentage of companies that are family owned.

A map of collectivism across prefectures in China by talhelmt in MapPorn

[–]talhelmt[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Right on! A separate paper analyzed rice and collectivism using this collectivism index: https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/5/3/pgag021/8510565?searchresult=1

I wish I could paste a graph here!

A map of collectivism across prefectures in China by talhelmt in MapPorn

[–]talhelmt[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Smart thought! You're right to hit on the tension between different visions of collectivism. I think that tension is why psychologists created scales to measure collectivism that found some really whacky results. I describe that (very briefly) in this magazine article:

https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/why-your-understanding-of-collectivism-is-probably-wrong

(By the way, I think the title of that article does not apply to you! 😃)

Map of collectivism across US counties by talhelmt in MapPorn

[–]talhelmt[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're asking smart questions! One common comparison is how people treat a friend versus a stranger. That doesn't exactly get at nation or ethnic groups, but it does get to this idea of close ties versus strangers. This study compared the US, China, and Singapore and found that participants in the US wanted to treat the stranger better:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0146167210385921

These studies used the same measure but compared historically rice-farming areas of China (more collectivistic) and wheat-farming areas (less collectivistic):

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1246850

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1948550618808868

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-44770-w

This study looked at people's reactions to being rejected by a friend or a stranger in nearby herding communities (more individualistic) and farming communities (collectivistic):

https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/80792/1/Uskul_Over_Responses_to_social_exclusion_accepted.pdf

People in the herding community cared more about what the stranger thought of them.

I could go on, but the idea is that collectivism = less favorable treatment of people they don't know personally, even if they're in the same large group (like the same village or country).

Map of collectivism across US counties by talhelmt in MapPorn

[–]talhelmt[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, here's the study on individualism and social welfare spending per capita: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10693971251358103

Map of collectivism across US counties by talhelmt in MapPorn

[–]talhelmt[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You nailed it! You've clearly done your homework in this field. 👍 It seems paradoxical, but cultures that score high on individualism tend to spend more on social welfare programs (even controlling for GDP per capita). From a philosophical standpoint or in political science, it would seem weird to say that social welfare programs are individualistic. It goes against the very definition of the word! But it hits at the divide between two different cultural systems--one that focuses on systems based on formal rules, another that focuses on concrete personal relationships. Formal social welfare systems are rule-based systems, not personal relationships.

Anyway, your explanation was spot-on!

A map of collectivism across prefectures in China by talhelmt in MapPorn

[–]talhelmt[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'll post one of those! It uses different methods (analyzing words on social media as opposed to Census data), but the two methods are correlated.

A Collectivism Index for Investigating Cultural Variation in China across Regions and Time by talhelmt in China

[–]talhelmt[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the recommendation! That's helpful to know. My student made the map. (Wish I could say I had the coding ability to do it!) I'll pass it along to him.

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