Scale (CADS):A new tool for the cross-cultural study of morality. Journal of CrossCultural Psychology.
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AbstractMoral rules are an important aspect of culture. Yet, to date no published scale exists to measure the endorsement of different moral codes. We report the development of the CADS (Community, Autonomy and Divinity Scale), based on Shweder's (2003a) moral codes, as a means to measure cross-cultural, sub-cultural, and individual differences in the contents of morality. Scale development, confirmatory factor analysis, convergent and discriminant validity are reported in Studies 1 and 2, as well as analysis for structural invariance and meaningful differences across British and Brazilian cultural contexts. We find the CADS to be a reliable and valid scale, thereby enabling the cross-cultural quantitative study of similarities and differences in endorsement of moral codes.3
Honor concerns are considered an important part of one's self-image, and strongly associated to cultural values. However, there is a lack of research studies that explore these concerns in more than two cultural communities. Across eight countries (Brazil, Israel, Japan, Macedonia, New Zealand, Spain, United Kingdom, and United States), participants (total N = 1098) answered the Honor Scale and the Community, Autonomy, and Divinity Scale. Individualistic cultures, such as the USA, were predominantly concerned with integrity honor, while Israel, Macedonia and Japan (i.e., honor cultures) rated family honor closer to integrity in importance. Subscales measuring masculine and feminine honor showed gender differences, but not in all cultures; "masculine" honor items were often endorsed by both men and women alike. Regarding honor associations to moral codes, family concerns were closely related to community, integrity concerns were related to autonomy, and feminine concerns were related to divinity.
Background/Objective
This study examined the role of different psychological coping mechanisms in mental and physical health during the initial phases of the COVID-19 crisis with an emphasis on meaning-centered coping.
Method
A total of 11,227 people from 30 countries across all continents participated in the study and completed measures of psychological distress (depression, stress, and anxiety), loneliness, well-being, and physical health, together with measures of problem-focused and emotion-focused coping, and a measure called the Meaning-centered Coping Scale (MCCS) that was developed in the present study. Validation analyses of the MCCS were performed in all countries, and data were assessed by multilevel modeling (MLM).
Results
The MCCS showed a robust one-factor structure in 30 countries with good test-retest, concurrent and divergent validity results. MLM analyses showed mixed results regarding emotion and problem-focused coping strategies. However, the MCCS was the strongest positive predictor of physical and mental health among all coping strategies, independently of demographic characteristics and country-level variables.
Conclusions
The findings suggest that the MCCS is a valid measure to assess meaning-centered coping. The results also call for policies promoting effective coping to mitigate collective suffering during the pandemic.
Despite theoretical associations, there is a lack of empirical studies on the axiological basis of sexual liberalism-conservatism. Two studies demonstrated important associations between these constructs for young adults. In Study 1, participants were 353 undergraduate students with a mean age of 20.13 (SD = 1.84), who completed the Sexual Liberalism-Conservatism Scale and the Basic Values Survey. In Study 2, participants were 269 undergraduate students, with a mean age of 20.3 (SD = 1.82), who completed a social desirability scale in addition to Study 1 instruments. Results showed how values can predict sexual liberalism-conservatism after controlling for social desirability. Attitudes towards one's own sexual behavior were more conservative whereas attitudes towards other's sexual behavior were more liberal. Gender was not a significant predictor of sexual attitudes whereas previous sexual experience showed a significant association to this construct. In general, results corroborated previous findings, showing that participants with a tendency to present socially desirable answers also tended to present themselves as sexually conservative.
Three studies establish the relations between cultural values and coping using multicultural samples of international students. Study 1 established the cross-cultural measurement invariance of subscales of the Cope inventory Carver, Scheier, & Weintraub, 1989) used in the article. The cultural value dimensions of embeddedness versus autonomy and hierarchy versus egalitarianism predicted how international students from 28 (Study 2) and 38 (Study 3) countries coped with adapting to living in a new country. Cultural values predicted coping by religion, and this relation was only partly mediated by personally valuing tradition, cultural norms, and perceived difficulty of adapting. Cultural values predicted emotion-focused/avoidant coping beyond neuroticism and seeking social support beyond extraversion. Mediators to the relations between cultural values and these coping strategies were also found. The results demonstrate the power of cultural values to predict coping and bring to the forefront the use of multicultural samples as an important method in cross-cultural research.
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