Social Structure, Infectious Diseases, Disasters, Secularism, and Cultural Change in America

Abstract

Why do cultures change? The present work examined cultural change in eight cultural-level markers, or correlates, of individualism in the United States, all of which increased over the course of the 20th century: frequency of individualist themes in books, preference for uniqueness in baby naming, frequency of single-child relative to multichild families, frequency of single-generation relative to multigeneration households, percentage of adults and percentage of older adults living alone, small family size, and divorce rates (relative to marriage rates). We tested five key hypotheses regarding cultural change in individualism-collectivism. As predicted by previous theories, changes in socioeconomic structure, pathogen prevalence, and secularism accompanied changes in individualism averaged across all measures. The relationship with changes in individualism was less robust for urbanization. Contrary to previous theories, changes in individualism were positively (as opposed to negatively) related to the frequency of disasters. Time-lagged analyses suggested that only socioeconomic structure had a robust effect on individualism; changes in socioeconomic structure preceded changes in individualism. Implications for anthropology, psychology, and sociology are discussed.

Global Increases in Individualism

“…Consistent with the latter view, increases in individualistic practices were preceded by increases in disaster frequency in the US (Grossmann & Varnum, 2015).…”

“…While many of these studies have examined the correlations between historical pathogen prevalence and contemporary data on IC-related variables, only one US-based study has investigated this relationship over time (Grossmann & Varnum, 2015).…”

The Change in Self-Esteem among Middle School Students in Japan, 1989-2002

“…However, it was unclear whether such decreases occurred during other periods of time. It is important to examine long-term cultural/social changes (e.g., Grossmann & Varnum, 2015;Mesoudi, 2011). Therefore, we analyzed large-sample time-series data collected in 1989 and 2002.…”

“…Because of the importance of examining long-term cultural/social changes (e.g., Grossmann & Varnum, 2015;Mesoudi, 2011), these findings are valuable. Given that Japanese culture has become more individualistic in some respects (Hamamura, 2012;Ogihara, 2016b;Ogihara, Fujita et al, 2015;Ogihara, Uchida, & Kusumi, 2015), findings that indicate concurrent decreases in self-esteem are important additions to the literature.…”

“…To comprehensively understand cultural changes, it is desirable to examine long-term cultural changes (e.g., Grossmann & Varnum, 2015;Mesoudi, 2011).…”