Many countries around the world embrace freedom and democracy as part of their political culture. However, culture is at least in part a human response to the ecological challenges that a society faces; hence, it should not be surprising that the degree to which societies regulate the level of individual freedom is related to environmental circumstances. Previous research suggests that levels of societal freedom across countries are systematically related to three types of ecological threats: prevalence of pathogens, climate challenges, and natural disaster threat. Though their incidence overlaps, the literature has not yet provided a competitive test. Drawing upon the ecocultural framework, we tested five rival hypotheses, alternately focused on the above ecological factors and their interactions with economic wealth in explaining country variations in socio-political freedom. Focusing on data from 150 countries, we performed a series of linear mixed-effects regressions predicting freedom in the domains of politics, media, and economy. We found that countries with higher pathogen prevalence were more likely to suppress democracy and media freedom. Economic wealth, however, moderated the effect of pathogen prevalence on economic freedom, with the main effect being only found among wealthy countries, but not among poor countries. In contrast, natural disaster threat predicted political freedom and press freedom only among poor countries, consistent with the idea that disaster threat accompanied by poor resources promote socio-political freedom as a means of increasing collective survival. Throughout our analyses, we found no support for hypotheses based on climatic challenges. In addition, our multilevel approach revealed that country scores for socio-political freedom were highly clustered within world regions, accounting for substantial portions of variance. Overall, the present research offers a nuanced view of the interplay between ecology and wealth in the emergence of socio-political freedom. We discuss new directions in future research considering methodological and theoretical contributions of the present findings.
Executive SummaryThe present study analyzes the effects of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) environment on teachers' attitude toward technology integration in Japanese and U.S. elementary schools. Teacher's attitude plays an important role in influencing the effectiveness of ICT education from a variety of perspectives. A number of studies have been done regarding teachers' attitude toward ICT, but there is very little research concerning international comparisons. The interest of observation in the present paper is the cross-cultural comparison between Japanese elementary school and U.S. elementary school teachers. The purpose of the paper is to identify the factors that affect teachers' perception of ICT and how they differ between the two countries.Past research supports the usefulness of technology for students to engage in collaborative learning. Also, when teachers view technology as a possible asset, the effectiveness of ICT is at maximal. Research in the field of ICT has provided evidences of a positive impact on students' learning, but elementary school teachers may have mixed opinions about the use of technology. From the latest statistical analysis and literature reviews, it appears that Japan may be more hesitant to ICT education on societal and individual levels.The technology acceptance model (TAM) was utilized to identify the teachers' perceived ease of use and usability (PEUU), perceived usefulness (PE), and attitudes toward using technology (AT). The demographic and environmental sections (gender, age, teaching experience, the technology availability, and the frequency of ICT use) were added in the survey to examine additional factors that may affect the Material published as part of this publication, either on-line or in print, is copyrighted by the Informing Science Institute. Permission to make digital or paper copy of part or all of these works for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that the copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage AND that copies 1) bear this notice in full and 2) give the full citation on the first page. It is permissible to abstract these works so long as credit is given. To copy in all other cases or to republish or to post on a server or to redistribute to lists requires specific permission and payment of a fee. Contact Publisher@InformingScience.org to request redistribution permission. Effects of ICT Environment 30teachers' attitude toward ICT. The data was collected from the teachers at the elementary schools in Hokkaido (northern Japan) and in southern Utah in the U.S.Independent t-tests analysis showed that the U.S. teachers had more positive PEUU, PU, and AT than did the Japanese teachers. Chi-square analysis on the ICT environmental factors revealed that the U.S. teachers were provided with richer technology environments. Overall, the U.S. teachers' use of interactive boards, number of computers, and use of computers outnumbered the Japanese counterparts to a great extent. Multiple regression analy...
What is the relationship between environment and democracy? The framework of cultural evolution suggests that societal development is an adaptation to ecological threats. Pertinent theories assume that democracy emerges as societies adapt to ecological factors such as higher economic wealth, lower pathogen threats, less demanding climates and fewer natural disasters. However, previous research confused within-country processes with between-country processes and erroneously interpreted between-country findings as if they generalize to within-country mechanisms. We analyse a time-series cross-sectional dataset to study the dynamic relationship between environment and democracy (1949–2016), accounting for previous misconceptions in levels of analysis. By separating within-country processes from between-country processes, we find that the relationship between environment and democracy not only differs by country but also depends on the level of analysis. Economic wealth predicts increasing levels of democracy in between-country comparisons, but within-country comparisons show that democracy declines in years when countries become wealthier. This relationship is only prevalent among historically wealthy countries but not among historically poor countries, whose wealth also increased over time. By contrast, pathogen prevalence predicts lower levels of democracy in both between-country and within-country comparisons. Multi-level modelling also confirms that the within-country effect of pathogen prevalence remains robust even after considering a region-level analysis. Longitudinal analyses identifying temporal precedence reveal that not only reductions in pathogen prevalence drive future democracy, but also democracy reduces future pathogen prevalence and increases future wealth. These nuanced results contrast with previous analyses using narrow, cross-sectional data. Overall, our findings illuminate the dynamic process by which environment and democracy shape each other.
Researchers theorize cultural change as societal adaptation to the environment. But where does the environment come from? Here we advance conceptual and analytical tools for a more dynamic framework of cultural change and emphasize that people create their own environment, to which they adapt through cultural change. First, we draw on the theory of niche construction to argue that organisms modify their environments in ways that impact their own evolution. Second, we advocate for a multilevel approach to analyze heterogeneity of longitudinal processes across multiple units: cultural change can be understood as a within-society process nested within higher-level units that differ across space. We then apply a multilevel distributed lag/lead model to identify the reciprocal causation between ecology and culture. We demonstrate these points by analyzing how cultural changes in individualism and economic prosperity are associated with changing prevalence of tuberculosis (TB, 1993(TB, -2018 and sexually transmitted diseases (STD, 1984(STD, -2014 across 50 U.S. states. We found evidence for reciprocal causation: (a) Increases in individualism and economic prosperity followed reduction of disease prevalence, and (b) cultural change in those variables decreased TB but increased STD. Moreover, historically collectivistic states were more successful at amplifying the positive impacts of cultural change on reducing TB and attenuating harmful effects of cultural change on increasing STD. In discussion, we encourage a more dynamic approach and expand a range of questions for future research on cultural change.
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