Blog Category

When individuals live actively with two cultures (in families, organizations or society at large) they, partly unconsciously, partly deliberately, may change towards acquiring a ‘bicultural mind’. I will discuss here whether these individuals are capable of spontaneously producing appropriate...

In my last blog, I argued that Madonna’s lyric of ‘music makes the people come together’ has a scientific basis. There are scientific studies that support the claim that music indeed increases cooperation and, thus, brings people together. But, as you might remember, the second line in the chorus of...

As a world without colors would be extremely boring, we are luckily able to perceive various different colors that enrich our environment. Recently, Keiko Ishii and colleagues found that the colors we prefer and use for our paintings vary systematically across cultures. But that doesn’t mean that...

Heroes and villains don’t only exist in comic books. The real world is full of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ guys (and girls). Being an exceptional scientist or humanitarian will most likely land you on the heroic side of history. Obviously, dictators who have oppressed millions of people are more likely to be...

Shameless self-promotion on Facebook. Love it or hate it, there’s always someone doing it. And many of us are guilty of it. But why do we do it? Comparing Facebook users in the US and Japan, I suggest it’s the power of the social context that may determine who struts their stuff, and why. The...

Belonging to several cultural groups at the same time can be associated with complex feelings of group membership. In this post, I will provide an explanation for the phenomenon whereby many immigrants marginalize—feel detached from the mainstream culture they live in and the heritage culture they...

In this blog post, I share a recent report which says that Americans are less fervent about their country now than they’ve been in the recent past. However, I also review some political psychology research on different styles of patriotism which suggests that this particular type of decrease might...

In this post, I recount part of my journey into the nitty-gritty of cross-cultural differences in behavior. More specifically, I discuss the link between skateboarding across the USA, attractive Japanese women in tights, and the paradoxical nuances in conformity between cultures. I’m from New...

Although a popular belief (and a heartwarming children’s song) hold that we all laugh in the same language, recent research has found that people are remarkably adapt at detecting local accents in the way that emotions are expressed. In this blog, I will review research that suggests that the long...

Parents in societies around the world have big ambitions for their children. At the same time, those societies have become more competitive. In order to become a successful lawyer, you need a degree from an ‘excellent’ university. To get into that excellent university, you need to have outperformed...