Clashes of civilizations: critical conditions for evocation of hostile attitude toward foreign intrusion of cultural space

Facing the increasingly intensified interactions between cultures, why do people sometimes react to foreign cultural influence in a negative way? Three critical conditions were proposed to account for people’s negative reactions toward intrusion of a foreign element into the sacred space of the local community. These three conditions are (a) perceptions of the foreign element as a symbol of the culture it belongs to; (b) the foreign element is perceived to have intruded into the physical space of the local community; and (c) the local space is widely regarded by the local community with reverence and respect. Experiments 1 to 3 tested this proposed framework in different intercultural contexts: Chinese’s responses to the opening of a new McDonald’s shop at the Great Wall of China (Experiment 1); Americans’ responses to an image of Mao Zedong superimposed on that of the Statue of Liberty (Experiment 2); and Americans’ responses to the construction of a Muslim Mosque near Ground Zero in New York City (Experiment 3). The results from these three experiments supported the proposed model. Two additional experiments (Experiments 4 and 5) explored other bases of resistance to spatial intrusions of a foreign element. Results from these additional experiments showed that when cultural intrusions occur in a foreign country or in a competitive political outgroup, individuals may be motivated by culture preservation values, or by political ideology to resist or welcome these intrusions. I close with a discussion on the implications of the results for managing intercultural relations and future research.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2012

Author dc:creator

• Yang, Yung-Jui

Contributors dc:contributor

• Chiu, Chi-Yue
• Wyer, Robert S., Jr.
• Cohen, Dov
• Vargas, Patrick T.

• intercultural relations
• cultural symbolism
• spatial intrusion

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2011 Yung-Jui Yang

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/29633

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/29633