Publications

How does collectivism affect social interactions? A test of two competing accounts.

Liu, S. S., Shteynberg, G., Morris, M. W., Yang, Q., Galinsky, A. D. (In press) Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Link (new!).

One-sentence summary: In daily life, people in individualistic cultures (e.g., U.S.) actually have better social interactions with their peers than people in collectivistic cultures (e.g., China), a phenomenon predicted by relational mobility but not by collectivistic values.

Ingroup vigilance in collectivistic cultures.

Liu S. S., Michael W. Morris, Thomas Talhelm, & Qian Yang (2019). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(29), 14538-14546.

PDF. Data and materials. Slides .

One-sentence summary: Contrary to the view of harmony, people in collectivistic cultures anticipate more unethical competition and sabotage from their peers than people in individualistic cultures.

A world of blame to go around: Cross-cultural determinants of responsibility and punishment judgments.

Feinberg, M., Fang, R., Liu, S., & Peng, K. (2019) . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 45(4), 634-651.
One-sentence summary: Individualists judge responsibility by actors' freewill; Collectivists judge responsibility by the severity of outcome.

Interpreting suffering from illness: The role of culture and repressive suffering construal.

Yang, Q., Liu, S., Sullivan, D., & Pan, S. (2016). Social Science & Medicine, 160, 67-74.
One-sentence summary: Collectivists tend to interpret patients' suffering from illness as a punishment for their past wrongs.

Exploring repressive suffering construal as a function of collectivism and social morality.

Sullivan, D., Stewart, S. A., Landau, M. J., Liu, S., Yang, Q., & Diefendorf, J. (2016). Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 47(7), 903-917.

"What's past is prologue." -- Shakespear