Browsing by Author "Akello, Grace"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5

Citation - WoS: 94
Citation - Scopus: 103
Affective Interpersonal Touch in Close Relationships: a Cross-Cultural Perspective
(Sage Publications Inc, 2021) Sorokowska, Agnieszka; Saluja, Supreet; Sorokowski, Piotr; Frackowiak, Tomasz; Karwowski, Maciej; Aavik, Toivo; Akello, Grace; Can, Seda; Croy, Ilona
Interpersonal touch behavior differs across cultures, yet no study to date has systematically tested for cultural variation in affective touch, nor examined the factors that might account for this variability. Here, over 14,000 individuals from 45 countries were asked whether they embraced, stroked, kissed, or hugged their partner, friends, and youngest child during the week preceding the study. We then examined a range of hypothesized individual-level factors (sex, age, parasitic history, conservatism, religiosity, and preferred interpersonal distance) and cultural-level factors (regional temperature, parasite stress, regional conservatism, collectivism, and religiosity) in predicting these affective-touching behaviors. Our results indicate that affective touch was most prevalent in relationships with partners and children, and its diversity was relatively higher in warmer, less conservative, and religious countries, and among younger, female, and liberal people. This research allows for a broad and integrated view of the bases of cross-cultural variability in affective touch.
Citation - WoS: 2
Citation - Scopus: 3
Conservatism Negatively Predicts Creativity: a Study Across 28 Countries
(Sage Publications Inc, 2024) Groyecka-Bernard, Agata; Sorokowski, Piotr; Karwowski, Maciej; Roberts, S. Craig; Aavik, Toivo; Akello, Grace; Alm, Charlotte; Dural, Seda; Sorokowska, Agnieszka
Previous studies have found a negative relationship between creativity and conservatism. However, as these studies were mostly conducted on samples of homogeneous nationality, the generalizability of the effect across different cultures is unknown. We addressed this gap by conducting a study in 28 countries. Based on the notion that attitudes can be shaped by both environmental and ecological factors, we hypothesized that parasite stress can also affect creativity and thus, its potential effects should be controlled for. The results of multilevel analyses showed that, as expected, conservatism was a significant predictor of lower creativity, adjusting for economic status, age, sex, education level, subjective susceptibility to disease, and country-level parasite stress. In addition, most of the variability in creativity was due to individual rather than country-level variance. Our study provides evidence for a weak but significant negative link between conservatism and creativity at the individual level (beta = -0.08, p < .001) and no such effect when country-level conservatism was considered. We present our hypotheses considering previous findings on the behavioral immune system in humans.
Citation - WoS: 36
Citation - Scopus: 48
Contrasting Computational Models of Mate Preference Integration Across 45 Countries
(Nature Publishing Group, 2019) Conroy-Beam, Daniel; Buss, David M.; Asao, Kelly; Sorokowska, Agnieszka; Sorokowski, Piotr; Aavik, Toivo; Akello, Grace; Dural, Seda; Zupančič, Maja
Humans express a wide array of ideal mate preferences. Around the world, people desire romantic partners who are intelligent, healthy, kind, physically attractive, wealthy, and more. In order for these ideal preferences to guide the choice of actual romantic partners, human mating psychology must possess a means to integrate information across these many preference dimensions into summaries of the overall mate value of their potential mates. Here we explore the computational design of this mate preference integration process using a large sample of n = 14,487 people from 45 countries around the world. We combine this large cross-cultural sample with agent-based models to compare eight hypothesized models of human mating markets. Across cultures, people higher in mate value appear to experience greater power of choice on the mating market in that they set higher ideal standards, better fulfill their preferences in choice, and pair with higher mate value partners. Furthermore, we find that this cross-culturally universal pattern of mate choice is most consistent with a Euclidean model of mate preference integration.
Citation - WoS: 6
Citation - Scopus: 7
Covid-19 and Social Distancing: a Cross-Cultural Study of Interpersonal Distance Preferences and Touch Behaviors Before and During the Pandemic
(Sage Publications Inc, 2023) Croy, Ilona; Heller, Carina; Akello, Grace; Anjum, Afifa; Atama, Chiemezie; Avsec, Andreja; Bizumic, Boris; Dural, Seda; Sorokowska, Agnieszka
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the introduction of unprecedented safety measures, one of them being physical distancing recommendations. Here, we assessed whether the pandemic has led to long-term effects on two important physical distancing aspects, namely interpersonal distance preferences and interpersonal touch behaviors. We analyzed nearly 14,000 individual cases from two large, cross-cultural surveys - the first conducted 2 years prior to the pandemic and the second during a relatively stable period of a decreased infection rate in May-June 2021. Preferred interpersonal distances increased by 54% globally during the COVID-19 pandemic. This increase was observable across all types of relationships, all countries, and was more pronounced in individuals with higher self-reported vulnerability to diseases. Unexpectedly, participants reported a higher incidence of interpersonal touch behaviors during than before the pandemic. We discuss our results in the context of prosocial and self-protection motivations that potentially promote different social behaviors.
Citation - WoS: 28
Citation - Scopus: 30
Modernization, Collectivism, and Gender Equality Predict Love Experiences in 45 Countries
(Nature Research, 2023) Sorokowski P.; Kowal M.; Sternberg R.J.; Aavik T.; Akello G.; Alhabahba M.M.; Alm C.; Dural, Seda; Aavik, Toivo; Kowal, Marta; Sorokowska, Agnieszka; Sternberg, Robert J.; Akello, Grace; Alhabahba, Mohammad Madallh; Sorokowski, Piotr
Recent cross-cultural and neuro-hormonal investigations have suggested that love is a near universal phenomenon that has a biological background. Therefore, the remaining important question is not whether love exists worldwide but which cultural, social, or environmental factors influence experiences and expressions of love. In the present study, we explored whether countries’ modernization indexes are related to love experiences measured by three subscales (passion, intimacy, commitment) of the Triangular Love Scale. Analyzing data from 9474 individuals from 45 countries, we tested for relationships with country-level predictors, namely, modernization proxies (i.e., Human Development Index, World Modernization Index, Gender Inequality Index), collectivism, and average annual temperatures. We found that mean levels of love (especially intimacy) were higher in countries with higher modernization proxies, collectivism, and average annual temperatures. In conclusion, our results grant some support to the hypothesis that modernization processes might influence love experiences. © 2023, The Author(s).