Leung and colleagues have revealed a five-dimensional structure of social axioms across individuals from five cultural groups. The present research was designed to reveal the culture level factor structure of social axioms and its correlates across 41 nations. An ecological factor analysis on the 60 items of the Social Axioms Survey extracted two factors: Dynamic Externality correlates with value measures tapping collectivism, hierarchy, and conservatism and with national indices indicative of lower social development. Societal Cynicism is less strongly and broadly correlated with previous values measures or other national indices and seems to define a novel cultural syndrome. Its national correlates suggest that it taps the cognitive component of a cultural constellation labeled maleficence, a cultural syndrome associated with a general mistrust of social systems and other people. Discussion focused on the meaning of these national level factors of beliefs and on their relationships with individual level factors of belief derived from the same data set.
Berger, P. L., & Luckman, T. (1966). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. New York: Doubleday.
2.
Bond, M. H. (1988). Finding universal dimensions of individual variation in multi-cultural studies of value. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 1009-1015.
3.
Bond, M. H. (2001). Surveying the foundations: Approaches to measuring group, organizational, and national variation. In M. Erez, U. Kleinbeck,& H. Thierry (Eds.), Work motivation in the context of a globalizing economy(pp. 395-412). Manwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
4.
Chinese Culture Connection. (1987). Chinese values and the search for culture-free dimensions of culture. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 18, 143-164.
5.
Feather, N. T. (1982). Expectations and actions: Expectancy-value models in psychology. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
6.
Guadagnoli, E.,& Velicer, W. F. (1988). Relation of sample size to the stability of component patterns. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 265-275.
7.
Gupta, V.,& House, R. J. (in press). Leveraging cultural dimensions and cultural differentials: Managerial implications of Project GLOBE. In D. W. Tjosvold & K. Leung (Eds.), Cross-cultural management: Foundations and future. Hampshire, UK: Ashgate.
8.
Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s consequences: International differences in work-related values. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
9.
Hofstede, G. (1991). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind. London: McGraw-Hill.
10.
Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations(2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
11.
House R. J., Hanges, P. J., Javidan, M., Dorfman, P., & Gupta, V. (Eds.). (2003). GLOBE, cultures, leadership, and organizations: GLOBE study of 62 societies. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
12.
Inglehart, R. (1997). Modernization and postmodernization. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
13.
Inglehart, R.,& Baker, W. E. (2000). Modernization, cultural change and the persistence of traditional values. American Sociological Review, 65, 19-51.
14.
Kashima, Y., & Kashima, E. (1998). Culture and language: The case of cultural dimensions and personal pronoun use. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 29, 461-486.
15.
Keller, H. (1997). Evolutional approaches. In J. W. Berry, Y. H. Poortinga, & J. Pandey (Eds.), Handbook of crosscultural psychology(Vol. 1, pp. 215-255). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
16.
Kluckhohn, F. R., & Strodtbeck, F. L. (1961). Variations in value orientations. Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson.
17.
Kroeber, A. L., & Kluckhohn, C. (1952). Culture: A critical review of concepts and definitions. Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum.
18.
Leung, K. (1989). Cross-cultural differences: Individual-level vs. cultural-level analysis. International Journal of Psychology, 24, 703-719.
19.
Leung, K., & Bond, M. H. (1989). On the empirical identification of dimensions for cross-cultural comparisons. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 20, 133-151.
20.
Leung, K., & Bond, M. H. (2004). Social axioms: A model of social beliefs in multi-cultural perspective. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
21.
Leung, K., Bond, M. H., Reimel deCarrasquel, S., Muñoz, C., Hernández, M., Murakami, F., et al. (2002). Social axioms: The search for universal dimensions of general beliefs about howtheworld functions. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 33, 286-302.
22.
Levine, R. V.,& Norenzayan, A. (1999). The pace of life in 31 countries. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 30, 178-205.
23.
Levine, R. V., Norenzayan, A., & Philbrick, K. (2001). Cross-cultural differences in helping strangers. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 32, 543-560.
24.
McClelland, D. C. (1961). The achieving society. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
25.
Robinson, W. S. (1950). Ecological correlations and the behavior of individuals. American Sociological Review, 15, 351-357.
26.
Rohner, R. P. (1984). Toward a conception of culture for cross-cultural psychology. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 15, 111-139.
27.
Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychological Monographs, 80, 1-28.
28.
Schwartz, S. H. (1992). The universal content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology(vol. 25, pp. 1-65). New York: Academic Press.
29.
Schwartz, S. H. (1994a). Beyond individualism/collectivism: New dimensions of values. In U. Kim, H. C. Triandis, & C. Kagitcibasi, S. C. Choi, & G. Yoon (Eds.), Individualism and collectivism: Theory, method, and applications. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
30.
Schwartz, S. (1994b). The fallacy of the ecological fallacy: The potential misuse of a concept and the consequences. American Journal of Public Health, 84, 819-824.
31.
Smith, P. B., & Bond, M. B. (1998). Social psychology across cultures(2nd ed.). London: Prentice Hall.
32.
Smith, P. B., Dugan, S.,& Trompenaars, F. (1996). National culture and managerial values: A dimensional analysis across 43 nations. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 27, 231-264.
33.
Smith, P. B., Peterson, M. F., & Schwartz, S. H. (2002). Cultural values, sources of guidance, and their relevance to managerial behavior. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 33, 188-208.
34.
Triandis, H. C. (1973). Work and non-work: Intercultural perspectives. In M. D. Dunnette (Ed.), Work and non-work in the year 2001(pp. 29-52). Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.
35.
Van deVliert, E. (2003). Thermoclimate, culture, and poverty as country-level roots of workers’wages. Journal of International Business Studies, 34, 40-52.
36.
Van deVliert, E., Schwartz, S. H., Huismans, S. E., Hofstede, G., & Daan, S. (1999). Temperature, cultural masculinity, and domestic political violence: A cross-national study. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 30, 291-314.
37.
Welzel, C., Inglehart, R., & Klingemann, H.-D. (2003). The theory of human development. European Journal of Political Research, 42, 341-379.
