A Longitudinal Study of Cultural Consonance, Personal Agency, and Psychological Distress in Urban Brazil.

The relationship between culture, as a set of norms that structure human social practice, and agency, as the human capacity to act, has been debated for decades. Achieving clarity in how these constructs intersect has been hampered by difficulty in measuring either one, and theory has not suggested how a model linking culture and agency might be specified. We present a model in which culture is measured as cultural consonance, or the degree to which individuals actually incorporate prototypes for behavior encoded in cultural models into their own behavior.

The Domestication of Machismo in Brazil: Motivations, Reflexivity, and Consonance of Religious Male Gender Roles.

The relationship between culture and the individual is a central focus of social scientific research. This paper examines motivations that mediate between shared culture norms and individual actions. Inspired by the works of Leon Festinger and Melford Spiro, we posit that social network conformation (the perceived adherence of one's social network with norms) and internalization of cultural norms (incorporation of cultural models with the self-schema) will differentially shape behavior (cultural consonance) depending on the domain and individual characteristics.

Distance from a cultural model of substance use risk, internalization, and self-stigma in urban Brazil.

Introduction: A cognitive theory of culture as socially distributed cultural models has proven useful in research. Cultural models exist in two forms: the model shared by individuals in a social group, and individual versions of that model modified by personal experience. In previous research we documented a shared cultural model of substance use risk among a general population sample in urban Brazil.

Correction: Andrews et al. Age at Arrival and Depression among Mexican Immigrant Women in Alabama: The Moderating Role of Culture. 2022, , 5342.

Several errors were introduced after proofreading, and the authors hence wish to make the following corrections to this paper [...

Cultural consonance, body image, and disordered eating among young South Korean men.

Eating disorders are serious mental illnesses, but little research explores non-Western men's cultural experiences of body image and what affects their risks of disordered eating. Drawing on data collected over 17 months (August 2019 to January 2021) of fieldwork in Seoul, South Korea, the lens of intersectionality is employed alongside multiple regression and moderation analysis to understand how two axes of identity which emerged as important from the ethnography-sexual identity and university prestige-shape the ways in which young Korean men's cultural consonance with their local model of the ideal male body, influenced heavily by the kkonminam (flower boy), relates to risk for developing an eating disorder. Among young Korean men, intersections of university prestige and sexual identity frame embodiment of cultural models of male body image as a strategy for the making and maintenance of social relations and the advancement of social status in a precarious neoliberal economy.

Time in the United States and diabetes among Mexican immigrant women: The moderating role of culture.

Mexican immigrants in the U.S. show high incidence of type 2 diabetes, and increased risk is associated with longer duration of residency.

Age at Arrival and Depression among Mexican Immigrant Women in Alabama: The Moderating Role of Culture.

Mexican-born women in the U.S. are at high risk of depression.

Cultural Consonance in Food Consumption and Nutrient Intake in Southern Brazil.

Culture influences food consumption and nutrient intake. In this paper we present a new approach in research, examining how knowledge and understanding of food is encoded in cultural models. The degree to which individuals match these shared models in their own consumption patterns is then measured, using the concept of cultural consonance.

Indigenous knowledge and the shackles of wilderness.

The environmental crises currently gripping the Earth have been codified in a new proposed geological epoch: the Anthropocene. This epoch, according to the Anthropocene Working Group, began in the mid-20th century and reflects the "great acceleration" that began with industrialization in Europe [J. Zalasiewicz et al.

Flower boys and muscled men: comparing South Korean and American male body ideals using cultural domain analysis.

Body image disturbance and eating disorders are rising all over the world. However, little is known about experiences of body image in men across cultural groups, and measurement tools often fail to account for the profound ways in which culture and gender can affect these data. An American cultural model of the ideal male body was compared with that of South Koreans using cultural domain analysis and residual agreement analysis.

Not Participation: The Rise of the Eco-Precariat in the Green Economy.

Despite recent attention to "frontier" green economies and the governance of emerging ecosystem services, the specific division of labour in these economies has been little studied. As many such initiatives are in the global South, labour's marginality potentially contributes to the existing precariousness of those who are more often identified as "participants". This article examines the roles and vulnerabilities of these actors: the carbon counters, species identifiers, GIS mappers, tree planters and others operating in the shadows.

The construction of the cultural niche: A biocultural model.

Objectives: Objective of the study is to develop a more precise model of culture as an evolutionary niche for the human species. Culture is encoded in cultural models and can be decomposed into three basic components: shared knowledge and understanding, referred to as cultural competence; alternate configurations of shared understanding, referred to as residual agreement; and social practice, referred to as cultural consonance. Individuals are thus located in a cultural Euclidean space of shared understanding, patterned divergence from that understanding, and social practice.

Vocabulary as a Central Link between Phonological Working Memory and Narrative Competence: Evidence from Monolingual and Bilingual Four-Year-Olds from Different Socioeconomic Backgrounds.

Phonological working memory capacity, vocabulary size, and narrative competence are important skills in children's L1 and L2 acquisition, which may vary as a function of their language background and socioeconomic status (SES). We investigated test data of 56 typically developing 4-year-old kindergarten children from two SES and two language backgrounds: 29 children (15 higher SES, 14 lower SES) were monolingual German-speaking, and 27 children (14 higher SES, 13 lower SES) were successive Turkish-German bilinguals. The tests comprised a non-word repetition task testing phonological working memory, receptive vocabulary tests (in L1 and L2), and a narrative task.

What You Know, What You Do, and How You Feel: Cultural Competence, Cultural Consonance, and Psychological Distress.

Describing the link between culture (as a phenomenon pertaining to social aggregates) and the beliefs and behaviors of individuals has eluded satisfactory resolution; however, contemporary cognitive culture theory offers hope. In this theory, culture is conceptualized as cognitive models describing specific domains of life that are shared by members of a social group. It is sharing that gives culture its aggregate properties.

Medical Disease or Moral Defect? Stigma Attribution and Cultural Models of Addiction Causality in a University Population.

This study examines the knowledge individuals use to make judgments about persons with substance use disorder. First, we show that there is a cultural model of addiction causality that is both shared and contested. Second, we examine how individuals' understanding of that model is associated with stigma attribution.

Socio-ecological costs of Amazon nut and timber production at community household forests in the Bolivian Amazon.

The Bolivian Amazon holds a complex configuration of people and forested landscapes in which communities hold secure tenure rights over a rich ecosystem offering a range of livelihood income opportunities. A large share of this income is derived from Amazon nut (Bertholletia excelsa). Many communities also have long-standing experience with community timber management plans.

The impact of swidden decline on livelihoods and ecosystem services in Southeast Asia: A review of the evidence from 1990 to 2015.

Global economic change and policy interventions are driving transitions from long-fallow swidden (LFS) systems to alternative land uses in Southeast Asia's uplands. This study presents a systematic review of how these transitions impact upon livelihoods and ecosystem services in the region. Over 17 000 studies published between 1950 and 2015 were narrowed, based on relevance and quality, to 93 studies for further analysis.

Culture: The missing link in health research.

Culture is essential for humans to exist. Yet surprisingly little attention has been paid to identifying how culture works or developing standards to guide the application of this concept in health research. This paper describes a multidisciplinary effort to find consensus on essential elements of a definition of culture to guide researchers in studying how cultural processes influence health and health behaviors.

Culture as a mediator of gene-environment interaction: Cultural consonance, childhood adversity, a 2A serotonin receptor polymorphism, and depression in urban Brazil.

Research on gene-environment interaction was facilitated by breakthroughs in molecular biology in the late 20th century, especially in the study of mental health. There is a reliable interaction between candidate genes for depression and childhood adversity in relation to mental health outcomes. The aim of this paper is to explore the role of culture in this process in an urban community in Brazil.

The interaction of cultural consonance and a polymorphism in the 2A serotonin receptor in relation to depression in Brazil: failure to replicate previous findings.

Objectives: To replicate a previously identified gene-environment interaction between a genetic polymorphism in the serotonin 2A receptor and cultural consonance in family life in relation to depressive symptoms (Dressler et al., 2009).

Methods: A sample of 402 individuals in a sample drawn from four different economic strata in Ribeirão Preto, Brazil was interviewed and genotyped.

Eating Disorders: Cultural Model and Consensus Regarding Food.

The cultural model of food was applied to 112 adult patients with eating disorders (PG) and 36 healthy adult women (CG) of similar age. The Free List and Ranking of Foods was used to group foods and verify consensus and cultural aspects. Calories, health, and taste were the dimensions used by the participants to group the foods, and strong consensus was achieved in regard to calories and health.

Culture and the Immune System: Cultural Consonance in Social Support and C-reactive Protein in Urban Brazil.

In this article, we examine the distribution of a marker of immune system stimulation-C-reactive protein-in urban Brazil. Social relationships are associated with immunostimulation, and we argue that cultural dimensions of social support, assessed by cultural consonance, are important in this process. Cultural consonance is the degree to which individuals, in their own beliefs and behaviors, approximate shared cultural models.

Carbon outcomes of major land-cover transitions in SE Asia: great uncertainties and REDD+ policy implications.

Policy makers across the tropics propose that carbon finance could provide incentives for forest frontier communities to transition away from swidden agriculture (slash-and-burn or shifting cultivation) to other systems that potentially reduce emissions and/or increase carbon sequestration. However, there is little certainty regarding the carbon outcomes of many key land-use transitions at the center of current policy debates. Our meta-analysis of over 250 studies reporting above- and below-ground carbon estimates for different land-use types indicates great uncertainty in the net total ecosystem carbon changes that can be expected from many transitions, including the replacement of various types of swidden agriculture with oil palm, rubber, or some other types of agroforestry systems.