Culture on spontaneous associations and how they are networked

Work, Friendships and the Self

Ongewenste intimiteit op het werk psa
In the Netherlands, ‘undesired intimacy’ at workplace is illegal (1989 ) In EU since 2000.

Does culture influence the spontaneous associations people make as response to cues in the environment? We have asked individuals with different cultural background to report their spontaneous associations on certain words presented to them in their own language.

In total more than 400 individuals participated. From the Dutch sample we have extracted  typical ‘Dutch’ associations related to  values at a working context (clarity, effectivity). As expected, in South European cultures (Greece ) the same primes (words) elicited a relational-to-others meaning (e.g.,loyalty, respect for parents).

The goal was however to study how individuals who constantly deal with more cultures e.g., at multicultural organisations, or internationals would behave when moved from one cultural context to another in their interpersonal or intergroup situations.  The findings, of strong contemporary societies relevance, are published and pinpoint to the importance of individual dynamics.

Project staff

Katerina Pouliasi & Maykel Verkuyten
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ercomer

Organization: ERCOMER, Universirty of Utrecht

Output:

Our current workshops: We enrich our workshops with our scientific findings and set up a variety of situations  so that participants can to test and train their potential multi-cultural competence in various domains


Findings of our research have been published in our scientific publications

and presented in international conferences or discussed in other organisations and universities.


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