Culture-Level Dimensions of Social Axioms and Their Correlates across 41 Cultures

TLDR

Leung and colleagues identified a five‑dimensional structure of social axioms across individuals from five cultural groups, and the present study discusses how these national‑level factors relate to individual‑level beliefs derived from the same data set. The present research was designed to reveal the culture‑level factor structure of social axioms and its correlates across 41 nations. An ecological factor analysis on the 60 items of the Social Axioms Survey extracted two factors: Dynamic Externality correlates with value measures tapping collectivism, hierarchy, and conservatism and with national indices indicative of lower social development. Societal Cynicism is less strongly and broadly correlated with prior value measures or national indices, defining a novel cultural syndrome that taps the cognitive component of maleficence and reflects a general mistrust of social systems and other people.

Abstract

Leung and colleagues have revealed a five-dimensional structure of social axioms across individuals from five cultural groups. The present research was designed to reveal the culture level factor structure of social axioms and its correlates across 41 nations. An ecological factor analysis on the 60 items of the Social Axioms Survey extracted two factors: Dynamic Externality correlates with value measures tapping collectivism, hierarchy, and conservatism and with national indices indicative of lower social development. Societal Cynicism is less strongly and broadly correlated with previous values measures or other national indices and seems to define a novel cultural syndrome. Its national correlates suggest that it taps the cognitive component of a cultural constellation labeled maleficence, a cultural syndrome associated with a general mistrust of social systems and other people. Discussion focused on the meaning of these national level factors of beliefs and on their relationships with individual level factors of belief derived from the same data set.