Social Axioms

TLDR

The study aims to identify pancultural dimensions of social axioms across five cultures to broaden the conceptual framework for cultural differences. The authors developed a Social Axioms Survey drawing on prior European/North American research and qualitative work from Hong Kong and Venezuela. Factor analyses revealed a pancultural five‑factor structure—cynicism, social complexity, reward for application, spirituality, and fate control—replicated across multiple cultures, suggesting a universal framework for individual social beliefs.

Abstract

To broaden our conceptual framework for understanding cultural differences, the present article reports two studies that examined whether pancultural dimensions based on general beliefs, or social axioms, can be identified in persons from five cultures. A Social Axioms Survey was constructed, based on both previous psychological research primarily in Europe and North America on beliefs and qualitative research conducted in Hong Kong and Venezuela. Factor analyses of these beliefs from student as well as adult samples revealed a pancultural, five-factor structure, with dimensions labeled as: cynicism, social complexity, reward for application, spirituality, and fate control. In the second study, this five-factor structure, with the possible exception of fate control, was replicated with college students from Japan, the United States, and Germany. The potential implications of a universal, five-factor structure of individual social beliefs were discussed, along with the relation of this structure to indigenous belief systems and to culture-level analyses.