Neither Eastern nor Western: Patterns of Independence and Interdependence in Mediterranean Societies

Abstract

Social science research has highlighted ‘honor’ as a central value driving social behavior in Mediterranean societies, which requires individuals to develop and protect a sense of their personal self-worth and their social reputation, through assertiveness, competitiveness, and retaliation in the face of threats. We predicted that members of Mediterranean societies may exhibit a distinctive combination of independent and interdependent social orientation, self-construal, and cognitive style, compared to more commonly studied East Asian and Anglo-Western cultural groups. We compared participants from eight Mediterranean societies (Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus [Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities], Lebanon, Egypt) to participants from East Asian (Korea, Japan) and Anglo-Western (UK, US) societies, using six implicit social orientation indicators, an eight-dimensional self-construal scale, and four cognitive style indicators. Compared with both East Asian and Anglo-Western samples, samples from Mediterranean societies distinctively emphasized several forms of independence (relative intensity of disengaging [vs. engaging] emotions, happiness based on disengaging [vs. engaging] emotions, dispositional [vs. situational] attribution style, self-construal as different from others, self-directed, self-reliant, self-expressive, and consistent) and interdependence (closeness to ingroup [vs. outgroup] members, self-construal as connected and committed to close others). Our findings extend previous insights into patterns of cultural orientation beyond commonly examined East-West comparisons to an understudied world region.

Double trouble: How sectarian and national narcissism relate differently to collective violence beliefs in Lebanon

“…This pattern, however, might not be exclusive to Lebanon; several countries with comparable social structures, particularly those that emerged after World War I and the division of the Ottoman Empire, exhibit similar characteristics. These countries, which are often overlooked in research, share commonalities, and are distinguished by their non‐Western and non‐Eastern identities, according to recent research (Uskul et al, 2023).…”

Cross-societal variation in norm enforcement systems

“…[54]27 provinces in ChinaX X Xsubsistence typeUskul et al . [55]12 sites in 11 countries across 3 world regionsX X XhonourWang & Leung [56]4 countriesX X Xn.a.Yamagishi [57]2 countriesX X Xtrust…”

“…Some theoretical perspectives emphasize the role of socio-ecological factors, such as community and population size [32,33], pathogen prevalence [26,65,66] or ecological threats and demands [65,67], in shaping norms and institutions that regulate social behaviour. Other perspectives have rather focused on cultural sources that can affect the prevalence and forms of punishment across societies [25,27,39,40,55]. Below, we provide an overview of prior research on the socio-ecological and cultural factors proposed to underlie cross-societal variation in norm enforcement (figure 1).…”

“…Influential research in anthropology and social psychology has proposed that some societies are characterized by a culture of honour, that is, by values and norms that emphasize protecting one's sense of self-worth and reputation (as well as the reputation of family and close allies) via negative reciprocity and revenge in response to threats [36,55,76,79]. In §4a, we described evidence from cross-societal research showing that reliance on herding for subsistence is associated with a stronger cultural emphasis on honour and on punishment and negative reciprocity in response to threats.…”

“…In a study among participants with different backgrounds (Dutch, Moroccan Dutch and Turkish Dutch), who showed different levels of honour-related concerns, Rodriguez Mosquera et al [52] observed no group differences in endorsements of punishment, verbal attack and disapproval, and withdrawal responses to threats. More recently, Uskul et al [55] conducted a comprehensive investigation of tendencies to punish on behalf of friends versus strangers, across 12 sites in three world regions including the Mediterranean. Across regions, individuals were more willing to punish dishonest strangers than dishonest friends, and this tendency did not differ across samples.…”