Intersubjective Culture: A Further Examination of the Role of Cultural Value Importance in Cultural Identification

In the intersubjective consensus approach to culture, culture can be defined from cultural member's shared representations of what the culture is like. Past research has found that core cultural values identified through this approach play an important role in people's cultural identification. The more that people endorse the intersubjectively identified core values of their culture, the more they identify with the culture. Four studies were conducted to examine the causal direction of this relationship. The value-as-antecedent hypothesis predicted that endorsement of the intersubjectively represented core values of a culture would lead to strong identification with the culture. The identification-as-antecedent hypothesis predicted that strong identification with a culture would lead to the endorsement of the intersubjectively represented core values of the culture. Study 1 was a longitudinal study on new members of a university's student culture. It showed that endorsement of intersubjectively represented core values leads to cultural identification but not the reverse. Studies 2 and 3 demonstrated how the personal importance of core American values could influence American identification. Study 4 provided further evidence suggesting that the causal direction of the relationship between core cultural value endorsement and cultural identification goes from value endorsement to identification instead of the reverse. Results of the studies have important implications on the conceptualization of culture and the understanding of cultural identification processes.

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

2015

Author dc:creator

• Wan, Ching

Contributors dc:contributor

• Chiu, Chi-Yue

• Psychology, Social

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3199166

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/82101