Social Axioms Project

Value dimensions have been the dominant construct used to guide cross-cultural research (e.g. Hofstede, 1980; Schwartz, 1994; Smith, Dugan, & Trompenaars, 1986). This monolithic focus has led to important progress, but it is also clear that we need to search for additional constructs to conceptualize cultural dimensions and to explain cultural differences. These new constructs will serve at least two purposes: They may yield information about cultural variations that cannot be detected by the value perspective and/or they may provide needed triangulation for well-known results based on values. An obvious choice for a complementary framework is beliefs, which are known to relate to a variety of social behaviors.

What are social axioms?

Our current position is that social axioms are general, context-free beliefs that people hold as a result of their socialization experiences. These beliefs are central to people's cognitive functioning. Following the work done in the attitude area, we adopt a functionalist approach and assume that they are related to human survival and functioning (Katz, 1960; Kruglanski, 1980). Like attitudes, social axioms serve four major functions; they facilitate the attainment of important goals (instrumental), help people protect their self-worth (ego-defensive), serve as a manifestation of one's values (value-expressive), and help people understand the world (knowledge).

Social axioms are assumed to be pan-cultural because of their functionality and because of the universal problems that humans have to tackle for survival (for reference, see Schwartz, 1992).

Definition of social axioms

Based on the previous definitions of beliefs (e.g. Katz, 1960; Bem, 1970; Bar-Tal, 1990), a working definition of social axioms is proposed as follows:

“Social axioms are generalized beliefs about people, social groups, social institutions, the physical environment, or the spiritual world as well as about events and phenomena in the social world. These generalized beliefs are encoded in the form of an assertion about the relationship between two entities or concepts”.

A typical axiom has the structure "A is related to B". A and B can be any entities and the relationship can be causal or correlational. For instance, "Good things will happen to good people" represents a typical structure of an axiom. Values are different because they are of the form "A is Good/desirable/important". A is a value or a goal. In fact, many researchers regard a value as an evaluative belief. When an evaluative belief becomes more specific, it becomes an axiom. For instance, "Wars are bad" and "health is good" are evaluative statements, and we would classify them as values rather than axioms. On the other hand, "Wars will lead to the destruction of civilization" and "Health leads to success in work" are regarded as axioms because each statement spells out the relationship of two concrete entities.

The Five Individual Level Dimensions of Social Axioms

Based on an initial study involving Hong Kong, Venezuela, Japan, Germany, and the US, and a subsequent round-the-world-study with both college students and adults across over 40 cultural groups, five individual-level axiom dimensions have been identified.

1. Social cynicism

It represents a negative view of human nature, especially as it is easily corrupted by power; a biased view against some groups of people; a mistrust of social institutions; and a disregard of ethical means for achieving an end. An example item is “Kind-hearted people usually suffer losses.”

2. Social complexity

It suggests that there are no rigid rules, but rather multiple ways of achieving a given outcome, and that apparent inconsistency in human behavior is common. An example item is “People may have opposite behaviors on different occasions.”

3. Reward for application

It represents a general belief that effort, knowledge, careful planning and the investment of other resources (Foa, 1971) will lead to positive results and help avoid negative outcomes. An example item is “Hard working people will achieve more in the end.”

4. Religiosity

It asserts the existence of supernatural forces and the beneficial functions of religious belief. An example item is “There is a supreme being controlling the universe.”

5. Fate control

It represents a belief that life events are pre-determined and that there are some ways for people to influence these outcomes. It is interesting to note that lay people accept the logical contradiction between pre-determination and their ability to alter pre-determined events. In fact, practices for avoiding bad luck are commonplace in many cultures, and the contradiction involved in the simultaneous belief in pre-determination and possibilities for altering one’s fate may be widespread in every day life. An example item is “Fate determines one’s successes and failures.”

Current Projects

The validity and usefulness of the five-dimensional structure of social axioms have been established by identifying meaningful correlations between citizen profiles across these dimensions for each cultural group with societal characteristics. In addition, several within-culture and cross-cultural studies also provide support for the meanings of these axioms. However, because the items constituting these scales were derived empirically, three of the five dimensions show only marginal reliability, namely, reward for application, social complexity, and fate control. The number of items for these three scales is small (6 to 9), and some items may be sub-optimal in tapping the target construct. The first objective of the present research is to develop more and better items to measure these five axiom dimensions in a diverse range of cultural groups. The second objective is that because the establishment of the nomological network of these five dimensions of belief about the world is only in an initial stage, the present research will attempt to evaluate the convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of the axiom dimensions.

Citizen Scores of Social Axioms

Citizen (Individual Level) Axiom Scores of 40 Countries (Leung & Bond, 2004, Table 3)

Citizen	Social Cynicism	Social Complexity	Reward for Application	Religiosity	Fate Control
American (Caucasian)	2.65	4.10	3.66	3.18	2.46
Belgian	2.97	4.03	3.36	2.58	2.58
Brazilian	2.81	3.98	3.54	3.39	2.49
British	2.75	4.11	3.46	2.81	2.35
Canadian	2.63	4.20	3.74	3.10	2.43
Chinese	3.03	4.08	3.74	2.92	2.90
Czech	2.77	4.10	3.29	3.10	2.62
Dutchman	2.62	4.18	3.18	2.73	2.56
Estonian	3.16	4.11	3.81	2.70	2.81
Filipino	2.84	4.09	4.03	3.52	2.60
Finn	2.76	4.08	3.59	3.07	2.54
French	3.05	4.08	3.56	2.60	2.62
Georgian	3.37	3.88	3.69	3.65	3.00
German	3.32	4.33	3.76	2.93	2.77
Greek	3.32	4.02	3.73	3.13	2.37
Hong Kong Chinese	3.13	4.08	3.70	3.44	2.69
Hungarian	2.96	4.13	3.40	2.99	2.67
Indian	3.04	3.92	4.19	3.37	2.97
Indonesian	2.72	3.96	4.14	4.22	2.91
Iranian	2.89	3.79	4.12	4.15	2.85
Israeli	2.76	4.16	3.60	2.60	2.53
Italian	2.74	4.01	3.28	2.72	2.29
Japanese	3.16	4.04	3.50	2.65	2.59
Korean	3.16	3.98	3.85	3.10	2.98
Latvian	3.05	4.02	3.58	3.10	2.77
Lebanese	3.05	4.11	3.77	3.10	2.47
Malaysian	2.88	3.93	4.29	4.30	2.96
New Zealander	2.77	4.14	3.59	2.83	2.34
Nigerian	2.98	3.89	4.04	3.67	3.08
Norwegian	2.66	4.37	3.53	2.55	2.01
Pakistani	3.29	3.77	4.15	4.40	3.15
Peruvian	3.29	3.67	3.88	3.21	2.48
Portuguese	2.87	3.90	3.61	3.09	2.43
Romanian	3.23	3.72	3.74	3.29	2.55
Russian	3.09	3.86	3.82	3.12	2.97
Singaporean	2.93	4.14	3.78	3.24	2.52
Spaniard	2.89	4.14	3.48	2.40	2.27
Taiwanese	3.30	4.22	3.87	3.22	3.01
Thai	3.22	3.80	3.98	3.43	3.14
Turk	2.94	4.14	3.97	3.48	2.68

Correlates of Social Axioms (Individual Level) with Socio-Economic-Political Indicators, Controlling for Wealth (Leung & Bond, 2004, Table 6)

Variable	Source	N	Social Cynicism	Social Complexity	Reward for Application	Religiosity	Fate Control
GDP per capita 2000 (PPP US$)	Human Development Report 2002, UN; The World Fact Book 2002	40	-.39	.62*	-.62*	-.62*	-.60*
Average daytime temperature	National Geographic Atlas of the World 1990, as cited in Van de Vliert, Schwartz, Huismans, Hofstede, and Daan (1999)	37			.45*	.41
Life expectancy at birth	Human Development Report 2001, UN	39			-.39	-.37	-.42*
Population growth rate 2000-05	Statistical Division, UN	36			.55*	.49*
Number of persons per room 2001	Statistical Division, UN	23			.56*	.50
Urbanism 2000	Statistical Division, UN	39					-.40
Percent of GDP on education	Human Development Report 2001, UN	39				-.33
Percent of GDP on health	Human Development Report 2001, UN	32		.41	-.56*	-.67*	-.36
Environmental sustainability index 2002	World Economic Forum	36					-.37
Human development index 1999	Human Development Report 2001, UN	39			-.47*	-.48*	-.43*
Human rights	Humana (1992)	35			-.56*	-.43	-.44*
Political rights and civil liberties 1992/93-2001/02	Freedom House	39			-.48*	-.49*
Women status	Population Crisis Committee (1988)	35			-.50*	-.53*	-.42
Voter turnout at latest elections	Human Development Report 2000, UN	32		.38			-.45
Working hours per week	International Labour Organization	28			.51*	.49*
Heart disease death rate