Alle Publikationen
2018
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(2018): Alibis for Adult Play. A Goffmanian Account of Escaping Embarrassment in Adult Play. In: Games and culture 13 (3), S. 260-279. DOI: 10.1177/1555412017721086
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29706842 Abstract: The social meanings of play sit at odds with norms of responsible and productive adult conduct. To be "caught" playing as an adult therefore risks embarrassment. Still, many designers want to create enjoyable, nonembarrassing play experiences for adults. To address this need, this article reads instances of spontaneous adult play through the lens of Erving Goffman's theory of the interaction order to unpack conditions and strategies for nonembarrassing adult play. It identifies established frames, segregated audiences, scripts supporting smooth performance, managing audience awareness, role distancing, and, particularly, alibis for play: Adults routinely provide alternative, adult-appropriate motives to account for their play, such as child care, professional duties, creative expression, or health. Once legitimized, the norms and rules of play themselves then provide an alibi for behavior that would risk being embarrassing outside play.
Keywords: accounts, adult play, adulthood, alibi, BEHAVIOR, Disziplin, embarrassment, Erving Goffman, frame analysis, Goffman, IDENTITY, Interaktion, Kulturtheorie, MODELS, play, motivational accounting system, Rechtfertigung, role distance, script, Spiel, spielen, theory of interaction, Theory of interaction (Goffman), TRANSITION, VOCABULARIES, Wissen um Normen, WORK -
(2018): Clothes, condoms, and customer satisfaction. The effect of employee mere presence on customer satisfaction depends on the shopping situation. In: Psychology & Marketing 35 (6), S. 454-462. DOI: 10.1002/mar.21098
Abstract: Few studies have examined how customers respond to the mere presence of others in the shopping environment, and only one article (Soderlund, ) has investigated the unique impact that employee presence has on key customer outcomes. Soderlund () found that customers entering a store with an employee present (vs. absent) reported significantly higher levels of customer satisfaction, with their increased levels of pleasurable feelings mediating this effect. However, similar to the majority of theorizing on customer satisfaction, that article was restricted to data collected in a Western society. Given the rapid economic growth in many Asian regions, there is a need to examine the applicability of such Western-based findings from an Asian perspective, and hence include participants from Eastern societies. Accordingly, the present research investigated whether Soderlund's () results could be replicated among Asian customers. The current work also sought to extend prior findings beyond pleasure and customer satisfaction while simultaneously documenting a boundary condition for the hitherto positive employee mere presence effects. To this end, two between-subjects experiments with a total sample of 498 Chinese customers were conducted. Study 1, which involved a shopping situation in a clothing store, replicated Soderlund's () main results and further found that employee mere presence (vs. absence) had a significant positive impact on customers' loyalty intentions. These results were reversed in Study 2, in which the shopping situation involved the purchase of an embarrassing product. Under such circumstances, employee presence (vs. absence) consistently produced negative effects on customers' levels of pleasure, satisfaction, and loyalty intentions.
Keywords: Disziplin, dominance, Kulturinvarianz, Kulturtheorie, Marketing, Psychologie, Sozialpsychologie 2017
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(2017): ‘What I see is not what you get’. Why culture-specific behaviours for virtual characters should be user-tested across cultures. In: AI & Society 32 (1), S. 37-49. DOI: 10.1007/s00146-014-0567-2
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-014-0567-2 Abstract: Abstract Integrating culture into the behavioural models of virtual characters requires knowledge from very different disciplines such as cross-cultural psychology and computer science. If culture-related behavioural differences are simulated with a virtual character system, users might not necessarily understand the intent of the designer. This is, in part, due to the influence of culture on not only users, but also designers. To gain a greater understanding of the instantiation of culture in the behaviour of virtual characters, and on this potential mismatch between designer and user, we have conducted two experiments. In these experiments, we tried to simulate one dimension of culture (Masculinity vs. Femininity) in the behaviour of virtual characters. We created four scenarios in the first experiment and six in the second. In each of these scenarios, the same two characters interact with each other. The verbal and non-verbal behaviour of these characters differs depending on their cultural scripts. In two user perception studies, we investigated how these differences are judged by human participants with different cultural backgrounds. Besides expected differences between participants from Masculine and Feminine countries, we found significant differences in perception between participants from Individualistic and Collectivistic countries. We also found that the user’s interpretation of the character’s motivation had a significant influence on the perception of the scenarios. Based on our findings, we giverecommendations for researchers that aim to design culture-specific behaviours for virtual characters.
Keywords: Agent-based Modelling, Behaviour modelling, Culture, Design, Disziplin, Evaluation, Favoriten, Interaktion, Kognitionswissenschaft/Social Sciences/Humanities, Kultur, Kultursensibilität, Kulturspezifizität, Kulturtheorie, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), Modell, Modelle/Theorien, Modellierung, Realtechnik, social importance dynamics, Soziosensitive Systeme, Technik, User testing, Virtual characters -
(2017): Individual Differences in Verbal and Non-Verbal Affective Responses to Smells. Influence of Odor Label Across Cultures. In: Chemical senses 42 (1), S. 37-46. DOI: 10.1093/chemse/bjw098
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27655940 Abstract: Olfactory perception is highly variable from one person to another, as a function of individual and contextual factors. Here, we investigated the influence of 2 important factors of variation: culture and semantic information. More specifically, we tested whether cultural-specific knowledge and presence versus absence of odor names modulate odor perception, by measuring these effects in 2 populations differing in cultural background but not in language. Participants from France and Quebec, Canada, smelled 4 culture-specific and 2 non-specific odorants in 2 conditions: first without label, then with label. Their ratings of pleasantness, familiarity, edibility, and intensity were collected as well as their psychophysiological and olfactomotor responses. The results revealed significant effects of culture and semantic information, both at the verbal and non-verbal level. They also provided evidence that availability of semantic information reduced cultural differences. Semantic information had a unifying action on olfactory perception that overrode the influence of cultural background.
Keywords: Adult, Affect, Culture, culture specific, Disziplin, Female, France, Geruch / mikrobiologische Zusammensetzung von Körpersekreten, Humans, Kognitionswissenschaft/Social Sciences/Humanities, kulturspezifisch, Kulturtheorie, Male, Odorants/analysis, Olfactory Perception, Quebec, Semantics, Smell, Status / biologische Marker, Young Adult -
(2017): Fight and flight. A multilevel analysis of facework strategies in intercultural face-threatening acts. In: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTERCULTURAL RELATIONS 58, S. 69-81. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijintrel.2017.04.008
Abstract: This study investigates facework strategies of managing face-threatening acts in intercultural interactions where communicators' cultural backgrounds are different from each other. Based on a pre-study with U.S. (n = 89) and Chinese (n = 76) college students, four scenarios featuring intercultural face-threatening acts were developed, where a Chinese student communicated politely and appropriately according to the Chinese culture, but the exact same act was considered otherwise in U.S. culture. In the main study, U.S. college students (N = 217) were given these scenarios and asked to report the general level of face needs, perceived face threats, and facework strategies in each scenario. Multilevel analyses (i.e., Hierarchical Linear Modeling) were employed to parse out the different levels of influence in order to understand both separate and joint impacts of situational face threats and individual face needs on facework strategies. Results showed that: 1) intercultural communicators use both mitigating (i.e., fleeing) and aggravating (i.e., fighting) facework strategies, and a slight preference is given to mitigating strategies; 2) facework strategies are more sensitive to particular situational conditions than to individual dispositions; and 3) individuals' value for others' face moderates the relationship between situational conditions and facework strategies. The current study provides empirical evidence of challenges in establishing meaningful intercultural relationships by identifying the multiple levels of impact on facework strategies in intercultural communication. Further discussion and implications of the findings are also included.
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(2017): Promises and reservations towards science and technology among South African publics. A culture-sensitive approach. In: Public understanding of science (Bristol, England). DOI: 10.1177/0963662517693453
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29298580 Abstract: Against the background that surveys measuring public perceptions of science and technology are often removed from cultural contexts and do not equally represent all regions of the world, this study investigated attitudes towards science and technology among different publics of the South African population. To apply a culture-sensitive approach, theoretical considerations of cultural distance were combined with methodological considerations of segmentation studies, and representative data ( n = 3183) were reanalysed. The findings show that six South African publics can be distinguished, and that - despite the fact that all publics see more promises of science than reservations - there tend to be sensitive differences between these publics. In the long run, such findings might help to make science communication more effective.
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(2017): Real-time gesture translation in intercultural communication. In: AI & Society 32 (1), S. 25-35. DOI: 10.1007/s00146-014-0573-4
Abstract: Nonverbal behavior plays a crucial role in human communication and often leads to misunderstandings between people from different cultures, even if they speak the same language fluently. While translation systems are available for verbal communication, translators for nonverbal communication do not exist yet. We present the conceptual design and an early prototype of a real-time gesture translator using body tracking and gesture recognition in avatar-mediated intercultural interactions. It contributes to the ambitious goal of bridging between cultures by translating culture-specific gestures to enhance mutual understanding. Possible applications of the gesture translator are discussed as a facilitating tool for global business meetings and as a means of technology-enhanced conflict resolution and prevention.
Keywords: body tracking, Computerwissenschaft, Cultural interaction, culture specific, Disziplin, Gestik, Gestik/Mimik, gesture, Interaktion, Kommunikation, kulturspezifisch, Kulturtheorie, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), Nonverbal behaviour, Nonverbales Verhalten, Personenerkennung, Realtechnik, real-time gesture translation, Sozial Intelligente Agenten, Status / biologische Marker, Technik, translators for nonverbal communication -
(2017): A tale of two processes. On Joseph Henrich’s the secret of our success: How culture is driving human evolution, domesticating our species, and making us smarter. In: Philosophical Psychology 30 (6), S. 832-848. DOI: 10.1080/09515089.2017.1299857
Abstract: We situate Henrich’s book in the larger research tradition of which it is a part and show how he presents a wide array of recent psychological, physiological, and neurological data as supporting the view that two related but distinct processes have shaped human nature and made us unique: cumulative cultural evolution and culture-driven genetic evolution. We briefly sketch out several ways philosophers might fruitfully engage with this view and note some implications it may have for current philosophic debates in moral and political theory and over the nature of extended cognition. We end by noting how Henrich’s view of the source of cultural design and innovation, and the prominence of place he gives to the extended process of cultural evolution, cuts against a cluster of broad but common views about human minds, recasting putative bugs as features and indicating that many of the distinctive features of our individual minds evolved to allow them to be effective cogs in the larger, more productive cultural machine.
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(2017): Kultursensible Aspekte während der Diagnostik von psychischen Belastungen bei Flüchtlingen – Zwei kommentierte Fallberichte. In: Psychotherapie, Psychosomatik, medizinische Psychologie 67 (3-04), S. 109-118. DOI: 10.1055/s-0042-107802
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27706544 Abstract: High levels of mental disorders, especially PTSD, are commonly known among groups of people forced to leave their homeland as a consequence of war-related experiences (e. g. armed conflict, torture or persecution). Depending on the cultural background the perceptions of illnesses vary, different symptom presentation and thereupon different coping strategies respectively expectations towards health care services exist. To minimize the danger of misdiagnosis by different experts working with refugees in the host countries, a culture-sensitive diagnostic approach is needed from the beginning. This article describes important aspects of culture-sensitive diagnostics by means of 2 commented case reports. Special focus is set on the aspect of linguistic and in a broader sense cultural comprehension between therapist, client and if necessary language mediator.
Keywords: Adult, Communication Barriers, Culturally Competent Care, Culture, culture sensitive, Disziplin, Female, Germany, Humans, Kultur, Kulturtheorie, Life Change Events, Linguistik, Male, Mental Disorders/diagnosis/ethnology/psychology, Observablen/Kriterien für sozial angemessenes Verhalten und dessen Bewertung, Pathologie, Physician-Patient Relations, PREJUDICE, Psychologie, Refugees/psychology, Social Identification, Somatoform Disorders/diagnosis/ethnology/psychology, Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/diagnosis/ethnology/psychology, Suicidal Ideation, Translating -
(2017): Culture-specific models of negotiation for virtual characters. Multi-attribute decision-making based on culture-specific values. In: AI & Society 32 (1), S. 51-63. DOI: 10.1007/s00146-014-0570-7
Abstract: We posit that observed differences in negotiation performance across cultures can be explained by participants trying to optimize across multiple values, where the relative importance of values differs across cultures. We look at two ways for specifying weights on values for different cultures: one in which the weights of the model are hand-crafted, based on intuition interpreting Hofstede dimensions for the cultures, and one in which the weights of the model are learned from data using inverse reinforcement learning (IRL). We apply this model to the Ultimatum Game and integrate it into a virtual human dialog system. We show that weights learned from IRL surpass both a weak baseline with random weights and a strong baseline considering only one factor for maximizing gain in own wealth in accounting for the behavior of human players from four different cultures. We also show that the weights learned with our model for one culture outperform weights learned for other cultures when playing against opponents of the first culture.
Keywords: Cultural decision-making, culture specific, Disziplin, entscheiden, Inverse reinforcement learning: Hofstede, Kulturtheorie, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), NEGOTIATION, Realtechnik, Science and Technology Studies (STS), social importance dynamics, Sozial Intelligente Agenten, Soziale Robotik, Spieltheorie, Technik, Ultimatum Game, virtual agents -
(2017): Neural substrates of embodied natural beauty and social endowed beauty. An fMRI study. In: Scientific reports 7 (1). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-07608-8
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28769082 Abstract: What are the neural mechanisms underlying beauty based on objective parameters and beauty based on subjective social construction? This study scanned participants with fMRI while they performed aesthetic judgments on concrete pictographs and abstract oracle bone scripts. Behavioral results showed both pictographs and oracle bone scripts were judged to be more beautiful when they referred to beautiful objects and positive social meanings, respectively. Imaging results revealed regions associated with perceptual, cognitive, emotional and reward processing were commonly activated both in beautiful judgments of pictographs and oracle bone scripts. Moreover, stronger activations of orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and motor-related areas were found in beautiful judgments of pictographs, whereas beautiful judgments of oracle bone scripts were associated with putamen activity, implying stronger aesthetic experience and embodied approaching for beauty were elicited by the pictographs. In contrast, only visual processing areas were activated in the judgments of ugly pictographs and negative oracle bone scripts. Results provide evidence that the sense of beauty is triggered by two processes: one based on the objective parameters of stimuli (embodied natural beauty) and the other based on the subjective social construction (social endowed beauty).
Keywords: ACTIVATION, APPRAISAL, ATTRACTIVENESS, Attraktivität, beauty, Beeinflussung der Bewertung moralischer Urteile, Bewertung von sozialem Verhalten (/sozialer Angemessenheit), BRAIN, CORTEX, Disziplin, Einfluss von ästhetischer Vorprägung/Erziehung, FACES, interdisziplinär, Kulturtheorie, LATERALIZATION, Observablen/Kriterien für sozial angemessenes Verhalten und dessen Bewertung, PAINTINGS, Psychologie, schönheit, Schönheit/Attraktivität, script, social endowered beauty, sozial konstruiert, soziale Konstruktion, SYMMETRY, VISUAL AESTHETIC PERCEPTION 2016
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(2016): Improving Medical Decision Making and Health Promotion through Culture-Sensitive Health Communication. An Agenda for Science and Practice. In: Medical decision making : an international journal of the Society for Medical Decision Making 36 (7), S. 811-833. DOI: 10.1177/0272989X15600434
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26296619 Abstract: This review introduces the concept of culture-sensitive health communication. The basic premise is that congruency between the recipient's cultural characteristics and the respective message will increase the communication's effectiveness. Culture-sensitive health communication is therefore defined as the deliberate and evidence-informed adaptation of health communication to the recipients' cultural background in order to increase knowledge and improve preparation for medical decision making and to enhance the persuasiveness of messages in health promotion. To achieve effective health communication in varying cultural contexts, an empirically and theoretically based understanding of culture will be indispensable. We therefore define culture, discuss which evolutionary and structural factors contribute to the development of cultural diversity, and examine how differences are conceptualized as scientific constructs in current models of cultural differences. In addition, we will explicate the implications of cultural differences for psychological theorizing, because common constructs of health behavior theories and decision making, such as attitudes or risk perception, are subject to cultural variation. In terms of communication, we will review both communication strategies and channels that are used to disseminate health messages, and we will discuss the implications of cultural differences for their effectiveness. Finally, we propose an agenda both for science and for practice to advance and apply the evidence base for culture-sensitive health communication. This calls for more interdisciplinary research between science and practice but also between scientific disciplines and between basic and applied research.
Keywords: Clinical Decision-Making, Communication, Cultural Competency, culture sensitive, Disziplin, Health Behavior, Health Promotion/standards, Humans, Kultur, Kulturtheorie, Medizin, Models, Psychological, Observablen/Kriterien für sozial angemessenes Verhalten und dessen Bewertung, Pathologie, Risk-Taking, Social Norms -
(2016): A cross-cultural comparative analysis of small group collaboration using mobile twitter. In: Computers in Human Behavior 65, S. 308-318. DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2016.08.043
Abstract: This study was undertaken to determine the distinctive user behaviors and patterns of participants communicating using Twitter on a mobile device in a small-group collaborative setting. Participants were from Western and Eastern cultures (the United States and Korea). Tweets were coded and classified and the results analyzed. Several cultural dimensions were utilized to detect subtle differences between participants from these two different cultures in their dynamic mobile exchanges. Systematic differences in microblogging behaviors were found mostly in the direction predicted by the findings of previous studies on differences in national culture; however, we also report new and interesting findings that contribute to the knowledge base. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings and how this mobile communication information technology can be leveraged to the advantage of individuals and organizations.
Keywords: Art des Kommunikationsmediums, Disziplin, East-West divide, Informations- & Kommunikationstechnik, Interaktion, Kultur, Kultursensibilität, Kulturspezifizität, Kulturtheorie, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), microblogging behaviours, mobile communication technology, national culture, Realtechnik, Technik, Twitter, user behaviour -
(2016): Don't Be a Stranger-Designing a Digital Intercultural Sensitivity Training Tool that is Culture General. In: IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies 9 (2), S. 120-132. DOI: 10.1109/TLT.2015.2456912
Abstract: Digital intercultural training tools play an important role in helping people to mediate cultural misunderstandings. In recent years, these tools were made to teach about specific cultures, but there has been little attention for the design of a tool to teach about differences across a wide range of cultures. In this work, we take the first steps to create a digital self-contained culture-general training tool. In the first part of the article, we focus on different aspects and methods of intercultural training. This information is then used in the second part to evaluate the effect of these different methods on the perception of behaviour in misunderstandings. We found that experiential and story-based approaches may lead to different perceptions of participants. In the third part, we expanded on these critical incidents, and incorporated virtual characters, to evaluate if experiential incidents in an embedded story can lead to an attribution of perceived differences in behaviour to specific differences in culture and to users becoming less judgemental of inappropriate behaviours by people from different cultures. The results suggest that the tool had some effect, but that a debriefing relating the general differences to specific instances would be beneficial.
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(2016): Smell in Polish. Lexical Semantics and Cultural Values. In: JOURNAL OF SLAVIC LINGUISTICS 24 (2), S. 273-299
Abstract: Verbs of perception have been typically classified into three semantic groups. Gisborne (2010) calls the three categories agentive (listen class), experiencer (hear class), and percept (sound class). Examples pertaining to the sense of smell in English use the same lexical item (smell), while in Polish, the three senses of smell are expressed with different verbs: wąchać (agentive), czuć zapach (experiencer), and pachnieć (percept). In metaphorical extensions of the verbs of sensory perception these verbs often stand for mental states, as meaning shifts typically involve the transfer from concrete to abstract domains. I show that the metaphorical extensions of pachnieć and percept to smell are quite different. Not only does pachnieć not suggest bad character or dislikeable characteristics, it actually conveys the opposite, as in the expression coś komuś pachnie ‘something is attractive to someone’ or when used without a modifier. These differences stem from the positive meaning of pachnieć and the negative meaning of to smell. Since the percept verbs of smell seem to be intrinsically positively or negatively valued, they do not lend themselves to universal Mind-as-Body extensions. I also consider some of the dramatic frequency contrasts between Polish and English smell constructions and show they can have their root in different cultural scripts underlying modes of speaking (pachnieć jak vs. smell like), framing of experiences (czuć zapach vs. experiencer to smell), polysemy, and different constructional capabilities (wąchać vs. to sniff).
Keywords: Agent, Agentive, Biologische Marker, Disziplin, Erlebender, Experiencer, frame semantics, Geräuschhören, Gisborne, Hear, Hören, Kultur, Kulturdifferenz, Kulturspezifizität, Kulturtheorie, Kulturvergleich, Linguistik, Listen, Percept, Perzept, Riechen, schnüffeln, Semantik, Semantische Gruppen, Smell, Smell like, Sniff, sound, Sprachgebrauch, Sprachverstehen, Status, Verben, Wahrnehmung, Wahrnehmung und Sprache, Wahrnehmungsverben, Zuhören -
(2016): Effects of culture-sensitive adaptation of patient information material on usefulness in migrants. A multicentre, blinded randomised controlled trial. In: BMJ open 6 (11). DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2016-012008
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27881523 Abstract: OBJECTIVES To evaluate the usefulness of culture-sensitive patient information material compared with standard translated material. DESIGN Multicentre, double-blind randomised controlled trial. SETTING 37 primary care practices. PARTICIPANTS 435 adult primary care patients with a migration background with unipolar depressive disorder or non-specific chronic low back pain were randomised. Patients who were unable to read in the language of their respective migration background were excluded. Sufficient data were obtained from 203 women and 106 men. The largest group was of Russian origin (202 patients), followed by those of Turkish (52), Polish (30) and Italian (25) origin. INTERVENTIONS Intervention group: provision of culture-sensitive adapted material. CONTROL GROUP provision of standard translated material. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Primary outcome: patient-rated usefulness (USE) assessed immediately after patients received the material. SECONDARY OUTCOMES patient-rated usefulness after 8 weeks and 6 months, symptoms of depression (PHQ-9), back pain (Back Pain Core Set) and quality of life (WHO-5) assessed at all time points. RESULTS Usefulness was found to be significantly higher (t=1.708, one-sided p=0.04) in the intervention group (USE-score=65.08, SE=1.43), compared with the control group (61.43, SE=1.63), immediately after patients received the material, in the intention-to-treat analysis, with a mean difference of 3.65 (one-sided 95% lower confidence limit=0.13). No significant differences were found for usefulness at follow-up (p=0.16, p=0.71). No significant effect was found for symptom severity in depression (p=0.95, p=0.66, p=0.58), back pain (p=0.40, p=0.45, p=0.32) or quality of life (p=0.76, p=0.86, p=0.21), either immediately after receiving the material, or at follow-up (8 weeks; 6 months). Patients with a lower level of dominant society immersion benefited substantially and significantly more from the intervention than patients with a high level of immersion (p=0.005). CONCLUSION Cultural adaptation of patient information material provides benefits over high quality translations. Clinicians are encouraged to use culture-sensitive material in their consultations, particularly with low-acculturated patients. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER German Register for Clinical Trials: DRKS00004241, Universal Trial Number: U1111-1135-8043, Results.
Keywords: Adult, Aged, Cultural Competency, culture sensitive, Depressive Disorder, Major/therapy, Disziplin, Double-Blind Method, Female, Focus Groups, Health Literacy, Humans, Italy, Kultur, Kulturtheorie, Language, Low Back Pain/therapy, Male, Medizin, Middle Aged, Pamphlets, Patient Education as Topic/methods, Patient Participation, Poland, Psychologie, Quality of Life, Rolle (Beruf), Russia, Transients and Migrants, Translating, Turkey -
(2016): The Detour of an Obstetric Technology. Active Management of Labor Across Cultures. In: Medical anthropology 35 (1), S. 17-30. DOI: 10.1080/01459740.2015.1091817
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26484745 Abstract: Active management of labor (AML) is an obstetric technology developed in Ireland in the 1970s to accelerate labor in nulliparous women. This technology achieved rapid success in Great Britain and in English-speaking countries outside America, which adopted it before many other states around the world. In this article, I explore AML's technical and social characteristics when it was first designed, and then examine its local inflections in a Jordanian and a Swiss maternity hospital to shed light on the ways its transnational circulation modifies its script. I argue that its application is shaped by local material constraints and specific sociocultural configurations, gender regimes, and hospital cultures. Finally, I make a comparative analysis of AML practices in these two settings and in the foundational textbook to disentangle the technical and sociocultural components modeling its local applications.
Keywords: Active management of labor (AML), ANTHROPOLOGY, Disziplin, Ethnology, Female, Geburt, Gender, Human Body, Humans, Jordan, Konventionen, Kriterien für sozial angemessenes Verhalten und dessen Bewertung, Kultur, Kulturdifferenz, Kulturspezifizität, Kulturtechnik, Kulturtheorie, Kulturvergleich, labor, Medical, Medizin, Normen, Observablen, Obstetrics, Pregnancy, script, Switzerland, Women -
(2016): The Development of Korean Children’s and Adolescents’ Concepts of Social Convention. In: Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 47 (7), S. 918-928. DOI: 10.1177/0022022116655775
Abstract: Previous research in the United States has revealed that children's and adolescents' understandings of social convention go through a developmental trajectory that includes an early adolescent phase negating the importance of convention. This study examined whether this developmental pattern would generalize to children and adolescents from the more traditional East Asian culture of Korea. Specifically, among U.S. samples, children in middle childhood have an understanding of conventions based on a concrete understanding of social hierarchy; early adolescents negate their prior understandings and view conventions as merely the dictates of authority; and in middle adolescence, U.S. samples establish an affirmation of convention as constituent elements of a social system structured by shared norms. Our hypotheses were that Korean children would not exhibit the negation phase associated with early adolescence and might develop an understanding of the societal function of convention earlier than U.S. samples. To examine this, interviews were conducted using culturally appropriate situations with 64 Korean children and adolescents in three age groups of 10 to 11 years (M-age = 10.1 years), 12 to 13 years (M-age = 13.2 years), and 15 to 16 years (M-age = 15.8 years). Findings revealed that, contrary to our expectations, Korean children go through the same developmental sequence of concepts about convention as observed with children in the United States. This implies that the developmental trajectories of understandings of the functions of social convention can be generalized to children in traditional East Asian cultural settings.
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(2016): Social Dominance Orientation and the Legitimization of Inequality Across Cultures. In: Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 31 (3), S. 369-409. DOI: 10.1177/0022022100031003005
Abstract: The authors tested three hypotheses from social dominance theory in four cultures: (a) that individual differences in social dominance orientation (SDO), or the preference for group-based inequality, can be reliably measured in societies that are group-based hegemonies; (b) that SDO correlates positively with attitudes supporting hegemonic groups and correlates negatively with attitudes supporting oppressed groups; and (c) that men are higher on SDO than women. For the most part, the results confirmed the hypotheses. SDO scales were internally reliable and were administered in English, Chinese, and Hebrew. SDO scores correlated with sexism, measured in culturally appropriate ways, in every culture, and with ethnic prejudice and other attitudes concerning the local hegemony except in China. Men were higher on SDO than women in most samples. Findings are discussed in terms of ideological and psychological facilitators of group dominance.
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(2016): Culture-sensitive psychotraumatology. In: European journal of psychotraumatology 7
Abstract: BACKGROUND Although there is some evidence of the posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) construct's cross cultural validity, trauma-related disorders may vary across cultures, and the same may be true for treatments that address such conditions. Experienced therapists tailor psychotherapy to each patient's particular situation, to the nature of the patient's psychopathology, to the stage of therapy, and so on. In addition, culture-sensitive psychotherapists try to understand how culture enhances the meaning of their patient's life history, the cultural components of their illness and help-seeking behaviors, as well as their expectations with regard to treatment. We cannot take for granted that all treatment-seeking trauma survivors speak our language or share our cultural values. Therefore, we need to increase our cultural competencies. METHODS The authors of this article are clinicians and/or researchers from across the globe, working with trauma survivors in various settings. Each author focused on one or more specific cultural aspects of working with trauma survivors and highlighted the following aspects. RESULTS As a result of culture-specific individual and collective meanings linked to trauma and trauma-related disorders survivors may be exposed to (self-) stigma in the aftermath of trauma. Patients who are reluctant to talk about their traumatic experiences may instead be willing to write or use other ways of accessing the painful memories such as drawing. In other cultures, community and family cohesion are crucial elements of recovery. While awareness of culture-specific aspects is important, we also need to beware of premature cultural stereotyping. When disseminating empirically supported psychotherapies for PTSD across cultures, a number of additional challenges need to be taken into account: many low and middle income countries have very limited resources available and suffer from a poor health infrastructure. CONCLUSIONS In summary, culture-sensitive psychotraumatology means assuming an empathic and non-judgmental attitude, trying to understand each individual's cultural background.
Keywords: Beeinflussung der Bewertung moralischer Urteile, Bewertung von sozialem Verhalten (/sozialer Angemessenheit), Culture, culture sensitive, dissemination, Disziplin, evidence-based treatments, Kultur, Kulturtheorie, low and middle income countries, Observablen/Kriterien für sozial angemessenes Verhalten und dessen Bewertung, Pathologie, Psychologie, psychotraumatology, stigma, Trauma 2015
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(2015): Variational pragmatics and responding to thanks – revisited. In: Multilingua 34 (4), S. 527-546. DOI: 10.1515/multi-2014-0106
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2014-0106 Abstract: In 2005, Klaus P. Schneider published a fascinating article with the title “‘No problem, you’re welcome, anytime’: Responding to thanks in Ireland, England, and the U.S.A.”. Adopting the then emerging and now established framework of variational pragmatics, Schneider’s pioneering paper presents the results of a study on differences between responses to thanks across different varieties of English using experimental discourse completion tasks (DCTs). The paper at hand revisits this cross-varietal analysis and presents the results of an empirical investigation of this same speech act based on natural data collected with the help of Labovian-style fieldwork methodology common in variationist sociolinguistics. The results reveal fundamental differences between the two data types and underline the fact that these different datasets address different research questions. The findings also highlight the existence of regional variation in the use of this speech act in spontaneous real-life interaction. Finally, the paper also puts forward the term imbalance reducer after thanks (IRAT) as a more appropriate term for the speech act of responding to thanks.
Keywords: Danksagung, Disziplin, Höflichkeit, IRAT, Kultur, Kulturdifferenz, Kulturelle Normen, Kultursensibilität, Kulturspezifizität, Kulturtheorie, Linguistik, Pragmatics, Pragmatik, Real-Life Interaction, Regionale Varianz, Soziale Angemessenheit, Soziolinguistik, Sprachgebrauch, Sprechakt, Thanks -
(2015): Intersectionality, Critical Race Theory, and the Primacy of Racism. In: Qualitative Inquiry 21 (3), S. 277-287. DOI: 10.1177/1077800414557827
Abstract: The article explores the utility of intersectionality as an aspect of critical race theory (CRT) in education. Drawing on research with Black middle-class parents in England, the article explores the intersecting roles of race, class, and gender in the construction and deployment of dis/ability in education. The author concludes that intersectionality is a vital aspect of understanding race inequity but that racism retains a primacy for critical race scholars in three key ways: namely, empirical primacy (as a central axis of oppression in the everyday reality of schools), personal/autobiographical primacy (as a vital component in how critical race scholars view themselves and their experience of the world), and political primacy (as a point of group coherence and activism).
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(2015): Culture’s causes. The next challenge. In: Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal 22 (4), S. 545-569. DOI: 10.1108/CCM-03-2015-0040
Abstract: Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to argue that in cross-cultural and strategic management, we must pay attention to the processes creating and maintaining culture. How can everyday interactions give rise to national, "deep" cultures, recognizable across centuries, or organizational cultures, recognizable across decades? Design/methodology/approach - This is a conceptual paper using the evidence provided by research about cultural patterns, and using sociological status-power theory to explain the causation of these patterns. Emergence, also called self-organization, is introduced as mechanism connecting individual-level causation with resulting system-level patterns. Cases are used to illustrate points. Findings - Simulation gaming and computational social simulation are introduced. These methods allow "growing" a system, thus allowing to experiment with potential interventions and their unanticipated effects. Research limitations/implications - This essay could have major implications for research, adding new methods to survey-based and case-based studies, and achieving a new synthesis. Strategic management today almost invariably involves cross-cultural elements. As a result, cross-cultural understanding is now strategically important. Practical implications - The suggestions in this essay could lead to new collaborations in the study of culture and organizational processes. Examples include team formation, negotiation, mergers and acquisitions, trans-national collaboration, incentive systems and job interviews. Social implications - The suggestions in this essay could contribute to our ability of proactively steering processes in organizations. In particular, they can provide a check to the notion that a control measure necessarily results in its intended effect. Originality/value - The synthesis of biological, sociological and cross-cultural psychological viewpoints with design-oriented method, using games or social simulations as research instruments, is original in the field.
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(2015): Modeling culture in intelligent virtual agents. In: Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems 30 (5), S. 931-962. DOI: 10.1007/s10458-015-9312-6
Abstract: This work addresses the challenge of creating virtual agents that are able to portray culturally appropriate behavior when interacting with other agents or humans. Because culture influences how people perceive their social reality it is important to have agent models that explicitly consider social elements, such as existing relational factors. We addressed this necessity by integrating culture into a novel model for simulating human social behavior. With this model, we operationalized a particular dimension of culture—individualism versus collectivism—within the context of an interactive narrative scenario that is part of an agent-based tool for intercultural training. Using this scenario we conducted a cross-cultural study in which participants from a collectivistic country (Portugal) were compared with participants from an individualistic country (the Netherlands) in the way they perceived and interacted with agents whose behavior was either individualistic or collectivistic, according to the configuration of the proposed model. In the obtained results, Portuguese subjects rated the collectivistic agents more positively than the Dutch but both countries had a similarly positive opinion about the individualistic agents. This experiment sheds new light on how people from different countries differ when assessing the social appropriateness of virtual agents, while also raising new research questions on this matter.
Keywords: Agent-based Modelling, cross-cultural, culturally appropriate behavior, Culture, Disziplin, Favoriten, individual vs collective, individuell, intercultural training, kollektiv, Kultur, Kulturspezifizität, Kulturtheorie, Modelle/Theorien, Modellierung, simulation, social appropriateness, social importance dynamics, virtual agents -
(2015): DATA DRIVEN NARCISSISM: HOW WILL 'Big Data' FEED BACK ON US. In: Journal of Consciousness Studies (22.9/10), S. 215-228
Abstract: How do 'big data' affect us as psychological beings? In this paper I argue that the user-specific contents spawned by analyses of massive data sets obtained by transaction data and online marketing software agents of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. must tend to reinforce the respective user's 'self-image'. As long as this man-machine feedback loop is not interrupted by purposeful manipulation, it will thus lead to a general behaviour schematization enabling a yet more precise consumer prediction and so forth. The final result may be a population that is maximally predictable while at the same time each individual of that population may feel maximally singular. Is such a social end state heaven — or is it hell?