Semester 2, 2024-2025
Type of courseTheory-oriented Workshops
DateMarch 26 and March 27, 2025
LocationLeiden University
2 days
Maximum number of participants25
ECTS1 EC will be appointed for participation in the complete course
StaffAngelo Romano (LEI), Shuxian Jin (University of Sussex)
Content, learning goals
Understanding human behavior and psychology across societies and diverse cultural settings is crucial for the development of global social science theories. Recent advances in cross-societal behavioral experiments and surveys revealed important insights on cross-societal differences and similarities in the mechanisms and functions of human decision-making.
In this course, we discuss the key aspects of designing and conducting cross-cultural studies across societies. The course will include a) a primer on economic games as models for studying social behavior around the globe, b) a brief overview of the main cross-cultural perspectives and the factors that have been found to affect social behavior, c) key design and methodological considerations when conducting cross-cultural research (e.g., strategic selection of societies, materials preparation aiming for understandable paradigms and precise translation) d) ethical considerations and open science practices in multi-society research, as well as e) discussions on the cultural sensitivity in data collection, analysis, and dissemination processes.
After this workshop, you can:
a) formalize social situations as 'games', using the language of game theory;
b) describe the social, ecological, institutional factors that could potentially explain cross-cultural variations in social behavior, norms, beliefs, and attitudes;
c) identify challenges to cross-cultural research; and
d) develop methodologically rigorous and culturally informed experiments for cross-cultural research
In the first day of the workshop, the first part will be devoted to an overview of economic games as models of social behavior as well as of the main theoretical and methodological aspects to be considered in cross-cultural research. In the second part, you will work in groups to develop research projects that incorporate reflections on behavior and culture. The second day (half day), you will present your projects and receive feedback from the other students and the teachers.
After the first day of the workshop there will be a (voluntary) dinner with the participants and the teachers for which you can register in advance. Dinner is at your own expense.
Literature (recommended)
Van Dijk, E., & De Dreu, C. K. (2021). Experimental games and social decision making. Annual Review of Psychology, 72(1), 415-438.
Thielmann, I., Böhm, R., Ott, M., & Hilbig, B. E. (2021). Economic games: An introduction and guide for research. Collabra: Psychology, 7(1), 19004.
Spadaro, G., Graf, C., Jin, S., Arai, S., Inoue, Y., Lieberman, E., ... & Balliet, D. (2022). Cross-cultural variation in cooperation: A meta-analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 123(5), 1024-1088.
Oishi, S. (2014). Socioecological psychology. Annual review of psychology, 65(1), 581-609.
Thomson, R., Yuki, M., Talhelm, T., Schug, J., Kito, M., Ayanian, A. H., ... & Visserman, M. L. (2018). Relational mobility predicts social behaviors in 39 countries and is tied to historical farming and threat. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(29), 7521-7526.
Harrington, J. R., & Gelfand, M. J. (2014). Tightness–looseness across the 50 united states. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(22), 7990-7995.
Hruschka, D. J., & Henrich, J. (2013). Economic and evolutionary hypotheses for cross-population variation in parochialism. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 7, 559.
If there are more PhDs interested in participating than available places, distribution will be based on seniority for this course. This means that we look at how long someone has been a KLI member.