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The mental health continuum-short form: The structure and application for cross-cultural studies-A 38 nation study

Żemojtel-Piotrowska M, Piotrowski JP, Osin EN, Cieciuch J, Adams BG, Ardi R, et al.

J Clin Psychol, 2018 06;74(6):1034-1052.
PMID: 29380877 DOI: 10.1002/jclp.22570

OBJECTIVE: The Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF) is a brief scale measuring positive human functioning. The study aimed to examine the factor structure and to explore the cross-cultural utility of the MHC-SF using bifactor models and exploratory structural equation modelling.
METHOD: Using multigroup confirmatory analysis (MGCFA) we examined the measurement invariance of the MHC-SF in 38 countries (university students, N = 8,066; 61.73% women, mean age 21.55 years).
RESULTS: MGCFA supported the cross-cultural replicability of a bifactor structure and a metric level of invariance between student samples. The average proportion of variance explained by the general factor was high (ECV = .66), suggesting that the three aspects of mental health (emotional, social, and psychological well-being) can be treated as a single dimension of well-being.
CONCLUSION: The metric level of invariance offers the possibility of comparing correlates and predictors of positive mental functioning across countries; however, the comparison of the levels of mental health across countries is not possible due to lack of scalar invariance. Our study has preliminary character and could serve as an initial assessment of the structure of the MHC-SF across different cultural settings. Further studies on general populations are required for extending our findings.
Changes in social norms during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic across 43 countries

Andrighetto G, Szekely A, Guido A, Gelfand M, Abernathy J, Arikan G, et al.

Nat Commun, 2024 Feb 16;15(1):1436.
PMID: 38365869 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-44999-5

The emergence of COVID-19 dramatically changed social behavior across societies and contexts. Here we study whether social norms also changed. Specifically, we study this question for cultural tightness (the degree to which societies generally have strong norms), specific social norms (e.g. stealing, hand washing), and norms about enforcement, using survey data from 30,431 respondents in 43 countries recorded before and in the early stages following the emergence of COVID-19. Using variation in disease intensity, we shed light on the mechanisms predicting changes in social norm measures. We find evidence that, after the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, hand washing norms increased while tightness and punishing frequency slightly decreased but observe no evidence for a robust change in most other norms. Thus, at least in the short term, our findings suggest that cultures are largely stable to pandemic threats except in those norms, hand washing in this case, that are perceived to be directly relevant to dealing with the collective threat.
Fulltext Author Correction: Perceptions of the appropriate response to norm violation in 57 societies

Eriksson K, Strimling P, Gelfand M, Wu J, Abernathy J, Akotia CS, et al.

Nat Commun, 2021 Apr 26;12(1):2483.
PMID: 33903599 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-22955-x
Fulltext Perceptions of the appropriate response to norm violation in 57 societies

Eriksson K, Strimling P, Gelfand M, Wu J, Abernathy J, Akotia CS, et al.

Nat Commun, 2021 03 05;12(1):1481.
PMID: 33674587 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-21602-9

Norm enforcement may be important for resolving conflicts and promoting cooperation. However, little is known about how preferred responses to norm violations vary across cultures and across domains. In a preregistered study of 57 countries (using convenience samples of 22,863 students and non-students), we measured perceptions of the appropriateness of various responses to a violation of a cooperative norm and to atypical social behaviors. Our findings highlight both cultural universals and cultural variation. We find a universal negative relation between appropriateness ratings of norm violations and appropriateness ratings of responses in the form of confrontation, social ostracism and gossip. Moreover, we find the country variation in the appropriateness of sanctions to be consistent across different norm violations but not across different sanctions. Specifically, in those countries where use of physical confrontation and social ostracism is rated as less appropriate, gossip is rated as more appropriate.