Cultural Models
How the relationship between education and antisemitism varies between countries
Brendan Nyhan, Shun Yamaya & Thomas Zeitzoff
Research & Politics, June 2024
Abstract:
We investigate the relationship between education and antisemitism using unique individual-level survey data on antisemitism from more than 100 countries. Our findings show that education is associated with greater favorability toward Jews, but the relationship between education and endorsement of antisemitic stereotypes and conspiracy theories varies between countries. In countries that actively supported recent statements condemning Holocaust denial and antisemitism at the United Nations -- which we use as a proxy for country-level opposition to antisemitism in education and politics -- greater education is associated with reduced endorsement of antisemitic stereotypes. By contrast, more educated people are more likely to endorse antisemitic stereotypes than less educated people in countries that declined to endorse those statements. These descriptive findings provide new evidence about the association between education and intolerance.
Wind of Change? Cultural Determinants of Maternal Labor Supply
Barbara Boelmann, Anna Raute & Uta Schönberg
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We investigate the role of cultural norms in shaping women’s labor supply decisions after childbirth. Specifically, we are interested in the interplay between childhood socialization and adulthood environment. To that end, we leverage the setting of the German reunification when East Germany’s gender egalitarian culture induced by socialism and West Germany’s more traditional culture were brought together. We find that East German gender norms are persistent whereas West German ones are not. West German mothers adjust their behavior to that of their East German peers not only when immersed in East German environment but even after returning to the West.
Coupling and decoupling of ancestral linkages and current cross-border economic activities: Genetics and policy
Suparna Chakraborty, Miao Grace Wang & M.C. Sunny Wong
Economics & Human Biology, August 2024
Abstract:
This paper studies the potential link between the biological evolution of populations and present-day economic interactions by estimating the correlation of shared ancestry among populations with cross-border capital and human flows. To this end, we employ the new concept of genetic distance, based on (dis)similarity of neutral gene alleles, to quantify shared ancestry. We then incorporate the genetic distance measure into an augmented gravity model, traditionally used to analyze the effect of geographical distance on bilateral exchange. Our analysis focuses on bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI) and migration across 135 countries and we use both linear regression techniques as well as the Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood Estimator to account for any non-linearities in the model. Our results show that a 1% increase in genetic distance reduces FDI flows by 0.08% while controlling for other distance constructs and factors associated with global capital and human movement. Genetic distance also has a negative effect on migration, where a 1% increase in genetic distance reduces migration flows by 0.22%, with all other things remaining constant. Our study, therefore, links shared ancestry with economic behavior, showing how historical connections are associated with current economic exchanges among nations. Additionally, recognizing that ancestral ties are outside human control, we examine policy measures that help nations overcome such distance barriers. Our findings show that strengthening a nation’s institutional quality and adherence to the rule of law can effectively mitigate any negative correlation of distance constructs with economic exchanges. These insights suggest that prudent policies to foster a stable business environment are essential for any nation to attract FDI and human capital, even from geographically or genetically distant nations.
Interdependent versus independent inconsistency: Cultural differences in how East Asian and Western people attribute hypocrisy
Minjae Seo et al.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
Humans worldwide have long deplored hypocrisy, a concept that has been mentioned in texts dating back 100–1,000 years (e.g., the Analects of Confucius, the Tao Te Ching, the Bible, and the Qur’an). However, what influences the extent of hypocrisy attribution or counts as hypocrisy may differ as a function of culture. Previous studies have shown that Westerners attribute greater hypocrisy for within-person attitude–behavior inconsistency than East Asians. Building on this, we predict that East Asians’ (vs. Westerners’) hypocrisy attribution is more heavily influenced by social relationships. Consistent with past research, this can lead to greater leniency. However, as we show, this can also result in the novel finding we present that attributions of mild-to-moderate hypocrisy are made even when no explicit within-person attitude–behavior inconsistency is present. Across six experiments, we found that Koreans (vs. participants from the United States) attributed more hypocrisy to attitude-contradicting behavior when the person enacting the behavior was not the person who stated the attitude but was someone who shared social bonds with that person (i.e., cross-person, within-relationship attitude–behavior inconsistency; “relational hypocrisy”). Specifically, Koreans attributed more hypocrisy than Americans when a child’s behavior contradicted their parent’s views (Experiments 1a and 1b) or when attitude-contradicting behavior was enacted by the child of a close friend (Experiment 2). Experiments 3–5 replicated the findings from Experiments 1–2 using additional social contexts (e.g., a spousal relationship). Supplementary analyses showed that differences in hypocrisy attribution between Americans and Koreans were mediated by cultural differences in their perceptions of shared responsibility within relationships.
Econsummation: Rational Choice of Bedding Rituals
Jordan Hillman
Texas Tech University Working Paper, February 2024
Abstract:
For centuries during the medieval era in England, Scandinavia and many parts of Western Europe, couples on their wedding night would have witnesses to their consummation, otherwise known as a bedding ceremony. I argue that the tradition of bedding ceremonies was an important institutional response to the landscape of property rights shared commonly in medieval Western and Central Europe, Scandinavia, and Germanic regions. The institution of guardianship enabled a landscape of property rights which precluded wards from making decisions about their future, inheriting property, and made guardians the beneficiaries of the ward’s marriage. Using rational choice theory and qualitative data from Nordic, Icelandic, and other Western European legal systems and literary sources I argue that the practice of guardianship and the reflection of it in the legal system were the leading factors to the institution of bearing witness to consummation or bedding rituals. Since concubines were common and males were entitled to both concubines and a legitimate wife, illegitimate children posed a threat to guardian’s inheritance claims. Guardians were the decision makers for their wards and employed bedding ceremonies to mitigate risk and ensure the proper lines of succession along with peaceful inheritance of their property was successful. When guardians ceased needing to concern themselves with inheritance and succession, bedding rituals became more private until they disappeared altogether.
Multiple evolutionary pressures shape identical consonant avoidance in the world’s languages
Chundra Cathcart
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2 July 2024
Abstract:
Languages disfavor word forms containing sequences of similar or identical consonants, due to the biomechanical and cognitive difficulties posed by patterns of this sort. However, the specific evolutionary processes responsible for this phenomenon are not fully understood. Words containing sequences of identical consonants may be more likely to arise than those without; processes of word form mutation may be more likely to remove than create sequences of identical consonants in word forms; finally, words containing identical consonants may die out more frequently than those without. Phylogenetic analyses of the evolution of homologous word forms indicate that words with identical consonants arise less frequently than those without. However, words with identical consonants do not die out more frequently than those without. Further analyses reveal that forms with identical consonants are replaced in basic meaning functions more frequently than words without. Taken together, results suggest that the underrepresentation of sequences of identical consonants is overwhelmingly a by-product of constraints on word form coinage, though processes related to word usage also serve to ensure that such patterns are infrequent in more salient vocabulary items. These findings clarify aspects of processes of lexical evolution and competition that take place during language change, optimizing communicative systems.