This research examines how technology usage can instigate social change in a developing country. We expected that technology usage leads to changes in modern cultural values and attitudes toward gender equality while traditional values persist. This was tested in an information and communication technology (ICT) for Development Aid project among Ethiopian children who had received a laptop. A longitudinal field experiment compared children who received a laptop (n = 573) with a matched control group without a laptop (n = 485). Measures were taken before laptop introduction and 6 months later. Laptops had medium to strong effects on value and attitude change, particularly in rural areas. Children with laptops endorsed modern values more strongly, but traditional values were bolstered as well. Modern value change mediated the effect of laptop usage on the endorsement of gender equality. Theoretical and practical implications for cultural changes related to gender equality are discussed.
AllportG. W. (1961). Pattern and growth in personality. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
2.
AnthonyD. A. (2007). The horse, the wheel, and language: How bronze-age riders from the Eurasian steppes shaped the modern world. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
3.
BardiA.GoodwinR. (2011). The dual route to value change: Individual processes and cultural moderators. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 42, 271-287.
4.
BardiA.LeeJ. A.Hofmann-TowfighN.SoutarG. (2009). The structure of intraindividual value change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 913-929.
5.
BardiA.SchwartzS. H. (1996). Relations among sociopolitical values in Eastern Europe: Effects of the communist experience?Political Psychology, 17, 525-550.
6.
BardiA.SchwartzS. H. (2003). Values and behavior: Strength and structure of relations. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 1207-1220.
7.
BeckerM.VignolesV. L.OweE.BrownR.SmithP. B.EasterbrookM.. . .YamakoğluN. (2012). Culture and the distinctiveness motive: Constructing identity in individualist and collectivist contexts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 833-855.
8.
BerghJ. (2007). Gender attitudes and modernization processes. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 19, 5-23.
CohenA. B. (2009). Many forms of culture. American Psychologist, 64, 194-204.
11.
DanielE.SchieferD.MölleringA.Benish-WeismanM.BoehnkeK.KnafoA. (2012). Value differentiation in adolescence: The role of age and cultural complexity. Child Development, 83, 322-336.
12.
FeatherN. T. (2004). Value correlates of ambivalent attitudes toward gender relations. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 3-12.
13.
FerrimanK.LubinskiD.BenbowC. (2009). Work preferences, life values, and personal views of top math/science graduate students and the profoundly gifted: Developmental changes and gender differences during emerging adulthood and parenthood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 517-532.
14.
FischerC. S. (1992). America calling: A social history of the telephone to 1940. Berkeley: University of California Press.
15.
FreemanM. A. (1997). Demographic correlates of individualism and collectivism: A study of social values in Sri Lanka. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 28, 321-341.
16.
GeorgasJ. (1989). Changing family values in Greece. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 20, 80-91.
17.
GoodwinR.PolekE.BardiA. (2012). The temporal reciprocity of values and beliefs: A longitudinal study within a major life transition. European Journal of Personality, 26, 360-370.
18.
HansenN.KoudenburgN.HiersemannR.TellegenP.KocsevM.PostmesT. (2012). Laptop usage affects abstract reasoning of children in the developing world. Computers & Education, 59, 989-1000.
19.
HansenN.PostmesT. (2013). Broadening the scope of societal change research: Psychological, cultural, and political impacts of development aid. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 1, 273-292.
20.
HansenN.PostmesT.vandeVinneN.van ThielW. (2012). Information and communication technology and cultural change. How ICT usage changes self-construal and values. Social Psychology, 43, 222-231.
21.
HiltzS. R.TuroffM. (1993). The network nation (Rev. ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
22.
HofstedeG.de HilalA.MalvezziS.TanureB.VinkenH. (2010). Comparing regional cultures within a country: Lessons from Brazil. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 41, 336-352.
InglehartR. F. (1997). Cultural, economic and political change in 41 societies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
25.
InglehartR. F.BakerW. E. (2000). Modernization, cultural values, and the persistence of traditional values. American Sociological Review, 65, 19-51.
26.
InglehartR. F.NorrisP. (2003). Rising tide: Gender equality and cultural change around the world. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
27.
InglehartR. F.OysermanD. (2004). Individualism, autonomy, self-expression and human development. In VinkenH.SoetersJ.EsterP. (Eds.), Comparing cultures, dimensions of culture in a comparative perspective (pp. 74-96). Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
28.
InglehartR. F.WelzelC. (2005). Modernization, cultural change and democracy: The human development sequence. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
29.
InkelesA.SmithD. H. (1974). Becoming modern: Individual change in six developing countries. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.
30.
JansL.PostmesT.Van der ZeeK. I. (2011). The induction of shared identity: The positive role of individual distinctiveness for groups. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37, 1130-1141.
31.
KashimaY.KokuboT.KashimaE. S.BozallD.YamaguchiS.MacraeK. (2004). Culture and self: Are there within-culture differences in self between metropolitan areas and regional cities?Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 816-823.
32.
KatzJ. E.RiceR. E. (2002). Social consequences of Internet use: Access, involvement, and interaction. Boston, MA: MIT press.
33.
KitayamaS.UchidaY. (2004). Interdependent agency: An alternative system for action. In SorrentineR.CohenD.OlsonJ. M.ZannaP. (Eds.), Culture and social behavior: The Ontario symposium (Vol. 10, pp. 137-164). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
34.
KnafoA.RoccasS.SagivL. (2011). The value of values in cross cultural research: A special issue in honor of Shalom Schwartz. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 42, 178-185.
KrautR.KieslerS.BonevaB.CummingsJ.HelgesonV.CrawfordA. (2002). The Internet paradox revisited. Journal of Social Issues, 58, 49-74.
37.
LönnqvistJ. E.Jasinskaja-LahtiI.VerkasaloM. (2011). Personal values before and after migration: A longitudinal case study on value change in Ingrian–Finnish migrants. Social Psychology & Personality Science, 2, 584-591.
38.
MaioG. R.PakizehA.CheungW.ReesK. J. (2009). Changing, priming, and acting on values: Effects via motivational relations in a circular model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 699-715.
39.
MarkusH.KitayamaS. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98, 224-253.
40.
McShaneC. (1995). Down the asphalt path: The automobile and the American city. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
41.
OgburnW. F.NimkoffM. F. (1955). Technology and the changing family. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
42.
OweE.VignolesV. L.BeckerM.BrownR.SmithP. B.LeeS. W. S.. . .BalandJ. (2013). Contextualism as an important facet of individualism-collectivism: Personhood beliefs across 37 national groups. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 44, 24-45.
43.
OysermanD.CoonH. M.KemmelmeierM. (2002). Rethinking individualism and collectivism: Evaluation of theoretical assumptions and meta-analyses. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 3-72.
44.
PenuelW. R. (2006). Implementation and effects of one-to-one computing initiatives: A research synthesis. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 38, 329-348.
45.
RosseelY. (2012). Lavaan: An R package for structural equation modeling. Journal of Statistical Software, 48, 1-36.
46.
RutlandA.CameronL.MilneA.McGeorgeP. (2005). Social norms and self-presentation: Children’s implicit and explicit intergroup attitudes. Child Development, 76, 451-466.
47.
SassenS. (1998). Globalization and its discontents: Essays on the new mobility of people and money. New York, NY: New Press.
48.
SchwartzS. H. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theory and empirical tests in 20 countries. In ZannaM. (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 25, pp. 1-65). New York, NY: Academic Press.
49.
SchwartzS. H.MelechG.LehrnamiA.BurgessS.HarrisM.OwensV. (2001). Extending the cross-cultural validity of the theory of basic human values with a different method of measurement. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 32, 519-542.
50.
SproullL.KieslerS. (1991). Connections: New ways of working in the networked organization. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
WoldehannaT.TeferaB.JonesN.BayrauA. (2005, November). Child labour, gender inequality and rural/urban disparities [Working paper. Young Lives (Project), DFID (University of Oxford)]. Retrieved from http://economics.ouls.ox.ac.uk/13619/
53.
World Bank. (2009). Information and communications for development 2009: Extending research and increasing impact. Available from http://web.worldbank.org/
54.
ZuboffS. (1988). In the age of the smart machine. New York, NY: Basic Books.
55.
ZuckerA. A.LightD. (2009). Laptop programs for students. Science, 323, 82-85.
