The Figure Independence Scale (FIS) assesses people's preference for abstract figures that represent uniqueness. As psychological manifestations of cultural values cohere among each other within a cultural system, the authors argue that preference for uniqueness, as a psychological manifestation of the value for independence, can be used as an indirect measure of this value. Four studies examin...

Memory and mystery 2 Abstract We hypothesize that cultural narratives such as myths and folktales are more likely to achieve cultural stability if they correspond to a minimally counterintuitive cognitive template that includes mostly intuitive concepts combined with a minority of counterintuitive ones. Two studies tested this hypothesis, examining whether this template produces a memory advant...

abstraCt The implementation of Online Synchronous Learning (OSL) poses many challenges to existing instruction technology theory because of the complexity of the digital age. Although many studies have been carried out for an OSL, there is little evidence of OSL for teaching language learning. This is especially so when it involves multiple cultural perspectives. This chapter describes the impl...

1 ABSTRACT The study aims at demonstrating cultural differences between American and Chinese in terms of customer's perceptions and satisfaction of crowded environment within the context of restaurant setting. It has been noted that culture has a substantial impact on customer's affection and judgment, and crowding in service environments is a critical antecedent of customer's satisfaction. Con...

Received: 13 August 2003 Revised: 20 December 2004 Accepted: 25 February 2005 Online publication date: 2 June 2005 Abstract The paper provides a state-of-the-art review of several innovative advances in culture and international business (IB) to stimulate new avenues for future research. We first review the issues surrounding cultural convergence and divergence, and the processes underlying cul...

Decades of cross-cultural research have shown that self-concepts vary across cultural contexts. However, it is unclear whether individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), who have impairments in selfand other-understanding, will acquire the relevant cultural patterns regarding selfand other-concepts; or whether their social impairments will extend to broader cultural impairments. Here we p...

This paper endeavors to prise open the theoretical closure of the conceptualization of culture in contemporary human geography. Foucault’s later work on government provides the basis for a useable definition of culture as an object of analysis which avoids problems inherent in abstract, generalizing and expansive notions of culture. The emergence of this Foucauldian approach in cultural studies...

Past research suggests that concrete ad stimuli generate more imagery than abstract stimuli. However, this finding may not be culturally universal. Our research suggests that East Asians tend to generate more imagery than Westerners when exposed to abstract advertising messages, but these differences in imagery generation tend to subside when both cultural groups are exposed to concrete stimuli...

Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. For more information on Open Research Online's data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policies page. One of Georg Simmel's more contentious claims at the turn of the nineteenth century was that the abstract workings of a mature money economy were mirrored ...