In exploring aging societies around the world, psychological scientists find significant variability in social relationships and family structures, individuals’ needs and expectations, and potential solutions for maintaining quality of life. Declining fertility rates and each country’s unique situational context point to the need for flexibility with regard to policy development related to aging. More
A sample of research on language style and social networks, the cultural differences that affect the relationship between aging and well-being, and how infant and adult brains interact while they communicate. More
In wealthy societies we’ve become increasingly picky about what we eat. The “wrong” fruits and vegetables, the “wrong” animal parts, and the “wrong” animals inspire varying degrees of “yuck”. … The disgust system tends to be “conservative” – rejecting valid sources of possible nutrition that have characteristics implying they might More
While collectivist societies are often viewed as caring and cooperative, new research techniques reveal that the tight social ties of these cultures may also foster tension and distrust, behavioral scientist Thomas Talhelm explains. More
In the past decade, psychologists have made a welcome leap, expanding beyond a narrow focus on the North America, Europe and Australia in their research to include people from all over the world. One benefit has been greater insight on global distribution of cultural features—the society-level differences in psychological phenomena such as More
Q: Societies have norms which you’ve described as tight or loose—what does it mean for norms to be tight or loose, and how is that put into practice? Today more than ever, we need to understand cultural differences. A lot of times, we think about our differences in terms of rather More
