Relationship between global identity and pro-environmental behavior and environmental concern: a systematic review.

Global issues such as environmental problems and climate change, require collective efforts. Global identity has been linked to the promotion of pro-environmental behavior by international and environmental organizations. In environment-related research, this all-inclusive social identity has been consistently related to pro-environmental behavior and environmental concern, but the underlying mechanisms are not well understood. This current systematic review seeks to examine past studies across disciplines that have reported findings on the relationship between global identity and the constructs of pro-environmental behavior and environmental concern and to synthesize findings on the potential pathways behind this relationship. Thirty articles were identified through a systematic search. We found that most studies reported a positive correlation, and the effect of global identity on pro-environmental behavior and environmental concern was stable across studies. Only nine of the studies empirically examined the underlying mechanisms of this relationship. Three major themes of these underlying mechanisms emerged: obligation, responsibility, and relevance. These mediators highlight the role of global identity in pro-environmental behavior and environmental concern via how individuals relate to other humans and how they appraise environmental problems. We also observed a heterogeneity in measurements of global identity and environment-related outcomes. As a topic of interest in multiple disciplines, a variety of global identity labels have been adopted, such as global identity, global social identity, humanity identity, Identification With All Humanity, global/world citizen, connectedness to humanity, global belonging, and psychological sense of global community. Self-report measures of behavior were common, but observations of actual behavior were rare. Knowledge gaps are identified, and future directions are suggested.

Nature in virtual reality improves mood and reduces stress: evidence from young adults and senior citizens.

Large populations worldwide have been deprived from nature experiences due to mass quarantines and lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, and face a looming mental health crisis. Virtual reality offers a safe and practical solution to increase nature exposure. This research examined the effects of virtual nature using a within-subject design with young adults (Study 1) and senior citizens (Study 2). Results from the young adult sample showed that walking in a virtual forest reduced negative affect due to enhanced nature connectedness, and reduced stress measured by heart rate. Consistently, the senior citizen sample reported improved positive affect due to enhanced nature connectedness after the virtual nature walk. Our findings unveil the underlying mechanism of how virtual nature may improve psychological well-being and demonstrated how virtual nature can be used as an intervention to promote mental health. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10055-021-00604-4.

Age differences in personal values: Universal or cultural specific?

Prior studies on value development across adulthood have generally shown that as people age, they espouse communal values more strongly and agentic values less strongly. Two studies investigated whether these age differences in personal values might differ according to cultural values. Study 1 examined whether these age differences in personal values, and their associations with subjective well-being, showed the same pattern across countries that differed in individualism-collectivism. Study 2 compared age differences in personal values in the Canadian culture that emphasized agentic values more and the Chinese culture that emphasized communal values more. Personal and cultural values of each individual were directly measured, and their congruence were calculated and compared across age and cultures. Findings revealed that across cultures, older people had lower endorsement of agentic personal values and higher endorsement of communal personal values than did younger people. These age differences, and their associations with subjective well-being, were generally not influenced by cultural values. (PsycINFO Database Record

Are anthropomorphic persuasive appeals effective? The role of the recipient's motivations.

Anthropomorphic persuasive appeals are prevalent. However, their effectiveness has not been well studied. The present research addresses this issue with two experiments in the context of environmental persuasion. It shows that anthropomorphic messages, relative to non-anthropomorphic ones, appear to motivate more conservation behaviour and elicit more favourable message responses only among recipients who have a strong need for effectance or social connection. Among recipients whose such need is weak, anthropomorphic appeals seem to backfire. These findings extend the research on motivation and persuasion and add evidence to the motivational bases of anthropomorphism. In addition, joining some recent studies, the present research highlights the implications of anthropomorphism of nature for environmental conservation efforts, and offers some practical suggestions for environmental persuasion.

Attitudes toward cosmetic surgery patients: the role of culture and social contact.

Cosmetic surgery is increasingly popular globally, but how cosmetic surgery patients are socially evaluated is largely unknown. The present research documents attitudes toward these patients in multiple cultures (Hong Kong, Japan, and the United States). Across these cultures, attitudes toward cosmetic surgery patients were predominantly negative: Participants ascribed more negative attributes to cosmetic surgery patients and found cosmetic surgery not acceptable. Also, participants in Hong Kong and Japan were not willing to form social relationships, particularly intimate ones, with these patients. These attitudes were less negative in the United States than in Hong Kong and Japan, partly because social contact, which reduced negativity in attitudes toward cosmetic surgery patients, was more prevalent in the United States. These findings bear important implications for the subjective well-being of cosmetic surgery patients, who very often expect improvement in their social relationships through the surgery.

Intersubjective model of value transmission: parents using perceived norms as reference when socializing children.

What values do parents want to transmit to children? The intersubjective model of value transmission posits that parents want to transmit not only the values they personally endorse but also the values they perceive to be normatively important in the society. The present research shows support to this premise. Furthermore, Studies 1 and 2 revealed that the use of perceived norms is moderated by families' social contexts and parents' personality: It was particularly pronounced among parents who were immigrants, who had a stronger need for closure, and who were more conforming. In addition, Studies 3 and 4 demonstrated that parents' perceived norms can explain actual value transmission: Values parents perceived to be normatively important were to some extent internalized by children. The intersubjective model paves some new directions for value transmission research, contributes to the understanding of cultural transmission and cultural change, and extends the intersubjective approach to culture.

Standing in the glory or shadow of the past self: cultures differ in how much the past self affects current subjective well-being.

Research in the past 2 decades has made great strides in understanding cross-cultural differences in the correlates and causes of subjective well-being. On the basis of past findings on the cross-cultural differences in temporal perspectives of the self, the present research examined a cross-cultural difference in individuals' subjective well-being as a function of how positively they viewed their present and past selves. Study 1 showed that both European and Asian Americans had higher subjective well-being when they viewed their present selves more positively. However, positive evaluations of the past self were accompanied by higher subjective well-being only among Asian Americans. Study 2 showed that when induced to think positively (vs. negatively) of the present self, both European and Asian Americans judged their current lives more favorably. However, when led to view the past self positively (vs. negatively), only Asian Americans made more favorable judgments about their current lives.

Culture as common sense: perceived consensus versus personal beliefs as mechanisms of cultural influence.

The authors propose that culture affects people through their perceptions of what is consensually believed. Whereas past research has examined whether cultural differences in social judgment are mediated by differences in individuals' personal values and beliefs, this article investigates whether they are mediated by differences in individuals' perceptions of the views of people around them. The authors propose that individuals who perceive that traditional views are culturally consensual (e.g., Chinese participants who believe that most of their fellows hold collectivistic values) will themselves behave and think in culturally typical ways. Four studies of previously well-established cultural differences found that cultural differences were mediated by participants' perceived consensus as much as by participants' personal views. This held true for cultural differences in the bases of compliance (Study 1), attributional foci (Study 2), and counterfactual thinking styles (Study 3). To tease apart the effect of consensus perception from other possibly associated individual differences, in Study 4, the authors experimentally manipulated which of 2 cultures was salient to bicultural participants and found that judgments were guided by participants' perception of the consensual view of the salient culture.

Perceived cultural importance and actual self-importance of values in cultural identification.

Cross-cultural psychologists assume that core cultural values define to a large extent what a culture is. Typically, core values are identified through an actual self-importance approach, in which core values are those that members of the culture as a group strongly endorse. In this article, the authors propose a perceived cultural importance approach to identifying core values, in which core values are values that members of the culture as a group generally believe to be important in the culture. In 5 studies, the authors examine the utility of the perceived cultural importance approach. Results consistently showed that, compared with values of high actual self-importance, values of high perceived cultural importance play a more important role in cultural identification. These findings have important implications for conceptualizing and measuring cultures.

Biases in the perceived prevalence and motives of severe acute respiratory syndrome prevention behaviors among Chinese high school students in Hong Kong.

In two studies conducted in Hong Kong during and immediately after the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), participants displayed several social cognitive biases when they estimated the prevalence of and inferred the motives underlying SARS preventive behaviors. First, participants who practiced preventive behaviors (practicers) consistently estimated that more people practiced such behaviors than did non-practicers (false consensus bias). Second, for some preventive behaviors, participants believed that their own behaviors were more motivated by prosocial concerns (relative to self-interest) than were other practicers (pluralistic ignorance). Finally, non-practicers underestimated the importance of prosocial concerns underlying some preventive behaviors (actor-observer bias). We discussed the relevance of these social cognitive biases to health education and to Hong Kong people's psychological reactions to SARS.