Cross-Cultural Differences and Similarities in Human Value Instantiation

Area of Science:

• Social Psychology
• Cross-Cultural Psychology
• Behavioral Science

Background:

• Human values (e.g., equality, helpfulness) exhibit greater variability within nations than between them.
• Prior research suggests that understanding cultural differences in values requires examining concrete manifestations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether cross-national differences in human values are primarily reflected in abstract importance or in concrete behavioral instantiations.
• To test if cultural variations in values are linked to the specific behaviors used to exemplify or understand abstract ideals.

Main Methods:

• Study 1 involved student samples from Brazil, India, and the United Kingdom (N=630) to identify between-country differences in value-related behaviors.
• Study 2 (N=677) assessed participants' ability to match behavioral instantiations to their corresponding abstract values, including cross-nationally and researcher-created examples.

Main Results:

• Study 1 confirmed significant between-country variations in behaviors instantiating values, coexisting with substantial within-country variability.
• Study 2 demonstrated that participants could correctly associate behavioral examples with their originating values, irrespective of the behavior's cultural origin or creation method.

Conclusions:

• Findings support the hypothesis that cultural differences in human values are more pronounced in the specific behaviors associated with them, rather than in the abstract ideals themselves.
• People across different nations may share similar abstract value concepts and importance, but differ in the concrete actions considered typical instantiations of these values.