December, 15 — Regular Seminar

Topic: “Comparative Culturology and Cross-Cultural Psychology: How Comparing Societal Cultures Differs from Comparing Individuals' Minds Across Cultures”
Speaker: Michael Minkov (Varna University of Management, Bulgaria; University of Tartu, Estonia; LCSR HSE, Russia)
Co-authors: Vivian L. Vignoles (University of Sussex, UK) Christian Welzel (Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany), Plamen Akaliyski (University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain), Michael Harris Bond (Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong), Anneli Kaasa (University of Tartu, Estonia), Peter B. Smith (University of Sussex, UK)

The Laboratory for Comparative Social Research announces the next regular seminar, which will be held as a zoom session on December, 15 at 02:30 p.m. CET (04:30 p.m. Moscow time). Michael Minkov (Varna University of Management, Bulgaria; University of Tartu, Estonia; LCSR HSE, Russia) will deliver a report "Comparative Culturology and Cross-Cultural Psychology: How Comparing Societal Cultures Differs from Comparing Individuals' Minds Across Cultures".

Co-authors of the research are Vivian L. Vignoles (University of Sussex, UK) Christian Welzel (Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany), Plamen Akaliyski (University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain), Michael Harris Bond (Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong), Anneli Kaasa (University of Tartu, Estonia), & Peter B. Smith (University of Sussex, UK).

Cross-cultural research in social and behavioral sciences has expanded hugely over the past 50 years, but progress is being hampered by a lack of appreciation of the profound differences in the principles and goals of two distinct traditions. The first is the default variant of cross-cultural psychology (CCP), focusing on how culture shapes individual psychological functioning. The second, pioneered by Hofstede, which we call "comparative culturology" (CC), studies societal differences. We explain how these two paradigms differ. CCP is grounded in psychology and typically looks for latent individual-level constructs, which supposedly exist independently of their measurement, in order to provide understanding of individual differences as affected by culture. CC is an interdisciplinary field whose roots and impact span sociology, anthropology, political science, business studies, psychology, and beyond. CC focuses on group-level constructs created by researchers, which are best understood as ecological manifolds: conglomerates of conceptually or statistically associated variables, not necessarily held together by a latent factor, that collectively explain national (and other group) differences. Appreciating these paradigmatic distinctions should aid recognition that the two fields need not, and cannot, use the same validation methods. They should co-exist and collaborate based on mutual appreciation of their differences, without attempts by either field to impose its idiosyncratic concerns on the other.

Everyone interested is invited!

Working language is English.