No abstract

Violators of cooperation norms may be informally punished by their peers. How such norm enforcement is judged by others can be regarded as a meta-norm (i.e., a second-order norm). We examined whether meta-norms about peer punishment vary across cultures by having students in eight countries judge animations in which an agent who over-harvested a common resource was punished either by a single peer or by the entire peer group. Whether the punishment was retributive or restorative varied between two studies, and findings were largely consistent across these two types of punishment. Across all countries, punishment was judged as more appropriate when implemented by the entire peer group than by an individual. Differences between countries were revealed in judgments of punishers vs. non-punishers. Specifically, appraisals of punishers were relatively negative in three Western countries and Japan, and more neutral in Pakistan, UAE, Russia, and China, consistent with the influence of individualism, power distance, and/or indulgence. Our studies constitute a first step in mapping how meta-norms vary around the globe, demonstrating both cultural universals and cultural differences.

Given the importance of religion for most countries and the large number of religious people in the world, the beneficial effects of religions have received increasing research interest. To date, a large body of literature supports the religious prosociality hypothesis, but there are still controversies. Drawing on worldwide databases from World Values Surveys (WVS) and World Giving Index (WGI), this study conducted national-level analyses to throw new light on these controversies. Results showed that: (a) national religiosity was not related to WGI and time volunteering, but was positively related to helping a stranger and negatively related to donating money. (b) Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita moderated the relationship between national religiosity and WGI, donation money, volunteering time, and helping a stranger. In less affluent countries, religion functioned efficiently in promoting prosocial behavior. However, in economically developed countries its function may have been substituted by other factors related to social development and civilization. This study suggests that economic factors may be the solution of the religion engagement paradox.

Drawing upon self-categorization theory, the present research investigated the attitudes of omnivores and vegetarians toward five dietary groups, including omnivores, conscientious omnivores, semi-vegetarians, vegetarians, and vegans. When they had high (vs. low) meat rationalization, omnivore participants had fewer negative attitudes toward and more positive evaluations of the omnivore groups but more negative attitudes toward and fewer positive evaluations of the vegetarian groups. Vegetarian participants had the most negative attitudes toward the omnivore group, followed by the conscientious omnivore group, the semi-vegetarian group, the vegetarian group, and the vegan group; the vegetarian participants with high meat rationalization (vs. those with low meat rationalization) had more positive evaluations of the omnivore groups. Such findings suggested that high levels of meat-eating rationalization predicted more favorable attitudes toward omnivores among both omnivore and vegetarian participants.

As people become more and more concerned with health, environmental protection and animal welfare, vegetarianism is emerging and has drawn increasing attention from psychologists. Psychological research on vegetarianism is still at an early stage. Psychological processes regarding vegetarianism involve cognitive, emotional, motivational aspects and vegetarian identity. Individual differences, stereotype, and macro factors also influence vegetarianism. Future research could further explore how socio-cultural factors influence vegetarian food choice, social representations about vegetarianism in China, the embodied cognition effect of vegetarian food, as well as the dynamic development of vegetarianism as a subculture. Implications can be drawn for developing effective interventions on healthy and pro-environmental dietary patterns.

Piazza and Loughnan found that the high intelligence information about animals leads to higher moral standing judgment except for self-relevant animals. We replicated the original three studies in China. Study 1 finds that the intelligence information about a fictional animal does not affect moral standing judgment or hunting decisions, inconsistent with the original study. By manipulating the intelligence of animals in one’s culture (pig) versus in other cultures (tapir or trablan), Study 2 consistently finds that intelligence information does not influence moral standing judgment only for pigs. Study 3 reveals that participants have higher moral standing judgment for pigs from another’s perspective but not from one’s own perspective, regardless of the intelligence information. These findings partly replicate the original findings, indicating inconsistency in how people apply mind information in judging the moral standing of animals. When animals become self-relevant, intelligence information no longer increases the moral standing of animals.

Trauma has a profound impact on overgeneral autobiographical memory (OGM), which is a risk factor for depression. Violent earthquakes can cause tremendous trauma in survivors. We examined the relationship between earthquake trauma, OGM and depression in adolescent survivors of the Wenchuan earthquake in this study. OGM was assessed using the autobiographical memory test in a sample of adolescent participants who experienced the violent earthquakes in Wenchuan, China, in 2008 and control participants who had never experienced a destructive earthquake. Depression was measured using the Beck Depression Inventory-II in all participants. The results showed that compared with the adolescents with no earthquake trauma, the adolescents with earthquake trauma reported significantly more depression (d = 0.49) and overgeneral autobiographical memories (d = 0.55). Moreover, when they experienced earthquake trauma, the adolescents with low OGM did not experience more depression, but the adolescents with average and high OGM experienced more depression than the adolescents with no earthquake trauma. This finding indicated that in a non-Western cultural context, adolescents’ propensity toward OGM made them vulnerable to depression after experiencing an earthquake trauma.

Drawing on the distinction in mind perception between agency and experience, this research examined whether and how culture‐based religion affects mind attribution to gods and Christians in a religious priming paradigm. When attributing mind to gods in Study 1, participants in the religious priming condition attributed more agency to gods than those in the neutral condition. When attributing mind to human religious targets in Study 2, religious participants in the religious priming condition attributed more experience to a Christian target than those in the neutral condition, while atheist participants in the religious priming condition attributed less experience to a Christian target than those in the neutral condition. In addition, religious participants in the religious priming condition attributed more experience to an atheist target than those in the neutral condition. Taken together, mind attribution to religious targets varied on agency and experience, and showed its own cultural features in China.