Kim‐pong Tam
Biographic Data
| ID | 2749979 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kim‐pong Tam |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kim‐pong |
| FAMILY NAME | Tam |
| SIGNATURE | TAM K P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Hong Kong University of Science and Technology |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1485-1343 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 42 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 355 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 42 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
From identity to caring
Previous research suggests that people who identify with global communities tend to show greater concern for global challenges. Using student samples from 44 countries across different cultural clusters ( N = 13,055), we examined whether (1) three forms of dispositional global social identification (GSI, with all humanity, citizens of the world, and people all over the world) are related to concern for global issues, (2) situational activation of…
Energy insecurity and air conditioning in urban environments
Beyond Weird societies
In an increasingly globalized world challenged by multiple social problems, global social identifications (GSIs, e.g., with all humanity) are concepts of growing interest. Although such identifications can be affected by the cultural contexts in which they are manifested, research on them remains largely confined to Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Using data collected in 45 countries ( N = 9807, preregistere…
Psychological symptoms and their correlates in pneumoconiosis patients
Purpose: Pneumoconiosis remains a global occupational and public health problem. This scoping review is aimed to identify the psychological symptoms and their correlates among pneumoconiosis patients. Methods: We conducted a bilingual scoping review following the PRISMA-ScR guidelines. Studies published between 2000 and 2025 were identified through searches of English-language (PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, ScienceDirect) and Chinese-language (…
Affective relationships as non-material capital assets in building resilience within the rice-terraced cultural landscapes of the Philippine Cordillera
Advancing the interface between research and practice in sustainable development
This multi-journal special issue project stands as a heartfelt tribute to our late colleague and friend, Professor James H. Liu. James was deeply concerned about the pressing challenges our world faces—such as poverty, inequality, human rights violations, political instability, pandemics and climate change. He believed that the academic silos we often inhabit are a luxury we can no longer afford. For psychology, he envisioned a future where inter…
Heritage governance in Bali and Ifugao ricescapes
This article examines the impact of informal intermediaries on heritage governance within Southeast Asia’s indigenous rice-farming communities. By conducting a comparative study of Bali and Ifugao, we analyze how local heritage leaders navigate the interplay between heritage preservation, economic development, and the challenges of modernization, particularly those arising from agricultural heritage tourism. Our findings reveal the intricate natu…
Crisis in the Cup
The burgeoning market for Philippine coffee presents significant opportunities; however, persistent and emerging stressors threaten its sustainability. This paper examines the hazards, vulnerabilities, and risks (HVRs) impacting the coffee supply chain in the Philippines' leading coffee‐producing regions, emphasizing the intricate interplay of climatic, biological, economic, and social factors. Through qualitative methods, the study reveals that …
Beyond the Hoax Narratives
Despite the scientific consensus on human‐caused climate change, conspiracy narratives suggesting that it is a hoax created to mislead people still exist. While research studies and public opinion polls have shown that belief in this hoax conspiracy is not uncommon, they often overlook that climate change conspiracy narratives can extend beyond just this simple “hoax” accusation. Given that conspiracy narratives can evolve from geopolitical confl…
Sampling and processing of climate change information and disinformation across three diverse countries
In the media, accurate climate information and climate disinformation often coexist and present competing narratives about climate change. Whereas previous research documented detrimental effects of disinformation on climate beliefs, little is known about how people seek climate‐related content and how this varies between cross‐cultural contexts. In a preregistered experiment, we studied how individuals sequentially sample and process Pro‐ and An…
Rice, resilience, and relationships
Social psychology of climate change in the Asian context
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Acceptance of group‐based dominance and climate change denial
Despite the importance of overcoming the persistent delay in climate action, almost no research has investigated the psychological underpinnings of climate change denial in Asian countries. Addressing this research gap, our study compares results obtained in Hong Kong with those of samples from New Zealand and Sweden regarding correlations of climate change denial with acceptance of dominance between social groups (Social Dominance Orientation), …
The new normal of social psychology in the face of the Covid‐19 pandemic
The authors have no conflict of interest to declare
Statement from the new Editor‐in‐Chief
I am deeply honoured and delighted to write this statement as the new Editor-in-Chief of the Asian Journal of Social Psychology. I always feel a strong sense of connection to the journal. My history with it began in 2004 when I published the very first research article in my career, which was a piece about social perception biases during the SARS outbreak, in the April issue. Three years later, I managed to publish my M.Phil. dissertation study i…
Research on climate change in social psychology publications
There is a strong scientific consensus that anthropogenic climate change is happening and that its impacts can put both ecological and human systems in jeopardy. Social psychology, the scientific study of human behaviours in their social and cultural settings, is an important tool for understanding how humans interpret and respond to climate change. In this article, we offered a systematic review of the social psychological literature of climate …
Exploring the association between climate change concern and mitigation behaviour between societies
Despite the global scale of climate change, research comparing people’s behavioural expression of their concern for the problem across societies is lacking. The present investigation adopts a person‐context interaction approach to provide such a comparison and demonstrates the influences of societal‐level factors. We propose that some sociocultural contexts tend to be more agentic, allowing people to express their internal attributes, including c…
Towards cross-cultural environmental psychology
Environmental psychology is a field concerned with transactions between humans and their environments. Since human–environment interactions are culture-bound, a fuller understanding of such interactions requires sensitivity to the role of culture in the ways researchers theorize human behavior, conduct empirical studies, and interpret observed findings. In this article, we aim to advance the development of a culturally informed understanding of h…
Environmental concern has a weaker association with pro-environmental behavior in some societies than others
Generalized trust narrows the gap between environmental concern and pro-environmental behavior
I Am Dumber When I Look Dumb in Front of Many (vs. Few) Others
People from all cultures are averse to looking dumb in front of others, especially if there is a large audience. However, there could be a difference between Face and Dignity cultures in the extent to which their members see themselves as dumb when they perform poorly before a large versus small audience. In the present study, Chinese and Americans were asked to imagine themselves performing poorly on tasks either in front of 10 others or one oth…
Understanding the Lack of Parent-Child Value Similarity
The parent-child value similarity is typically far from perfect. In this research, we propose that this phenomenon is attributable to the very first step in value socialization-parents' selection of socialization values. The premise of this account is that parents consider not only values they personally endorse but also values they perceive to be normative in relevant societies when socializing children. Accordingly, parent-child similarity is n…
Mind Attribution to Nature and Proenvironmental Behavior
Nature is often portrayed in the environmental discourse as a mindful agent that has intentions, emotions, and other mental capacities. Built upon recent research on mind perception and mind attribution, the present research examines if this representation of nature bears any implications for environmental conservation. Studies 1 and 2 showed that participants who attributed a mind to nature exhibited more self-report and actual proenvironmental …
A Conclusion, Yet an Opening to Enriching the Normative Approach of Culture
We compile in this article the target article authors' thoughtful responses to the commentaries. Their responses identify some common threads across the rich contents of the commentary pieces, interlink the observation and theoretical propositions in the commentaries with broader streams of research, present new perspectives inspired by the commentary contributors, and pose provocative questions to further ignite research efforts on the normative…
Understanding Intergenerational Cultural Transmission Through the Role of Perceived Norms
Intergenerational cultural transmission refers to the transmission of cultural ideas (e.g., values, beliefs, knowledge, practices) from one generation to the next generation. Among all available cultural ideas, which ones do parents select for transmission? As the recent normative approaches in cultural psychology highlight, cultural members do not just passively act out their internalized characteristics; they also strategically use their unders…
Culture as common sense
The authors propose that culture affects people through their perceptions of what is consensually believed. Whereas past research has examined whether cultural differences in social judgment are mediated by differences in individuals' personal values and beliefs, this article investigates whether they are mediated by differences in individuals' perceptions of the views of people around them. The authors propose that individuals who perceive that …
Concepts and measures related to connection to nature
Perceived cultural importance and actual self-importance of values in cultural identification
Cross-cultural psychologists assume that core cultural values define to a large extent what a culture is. Typically, core values are identified through an actual self-importance approach, in which core values are those that members of the culture as a group strongly endorse. In this article, the authors propose a perceived cultural importance approach to identifying core values, in which core values are values that members of the culture as a gro…
Saving Mr. Nature
Exclusionary Reactions to Foreign Cultures
In globalized economies, people often encounter symbols of dissimilar cultures simultaneously. Research on the psychological effects of simultaneous exposure to dissimilar cultures is therefore strategically located at the intersection of globalization, culture, and psychology. In seven experiments, we showed that exposure to a commercial product that embodies symbols of two dissimilar cultures can enhance perceptibility of cultural differences (…
Generalized trust narrows the gap between environmental concern and pro-environmental behavior
Measuring Cultures through Intersubjective Cultural Norms
Core values of a culture may refer to values endorsed by most members of the culture or to values members of the culture generally believe to be widely shared in the culture. The authors propose an intersubjective consensus approach to identifying core cultural values based on the latter definition. In three studies, they illustrated the utility of the intersubjective consensus approach for identifying the cultural values that differentiate two o…
Understanding Intergenerational Cultural Transmission Through the Role of Perceived Norms
Intergenerational cultural transmission refers to the transmission of cultural ideas (e.g., values, beliefs, knowledge, practices) from one generation to the next generation. Among all available cultural ideas, which ones do parents select for transmission? As the recent normative approaches in cultural psychology highlight, cultural members do not just passively act out their internalized characteristics; they also strategically use their unders…
Lay Psychology of Globalization and Its Social Impact
As a first step to establish social psychology of globalization as a new area of investigation, we carried out two cross‐regional studies to examine lay people's perception of globalization and its related concepts, as well as lay people's appraisal of the social impacts of globalization. The participants were undergraduates from regions with markedly different experiences with globalization (the United States, Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Ko…
What Values Do Parents Want to Socialize in Their Children? The Role of Perceived Normative Values
This study concerns what values parents prefer in their children. Documenting similarity between the value profiles of parents and children, past studies implicitly assumed that parents want their children to acquire a direct, full copy of their personal values. Incorporating social psychology research on social norms, the authors obtained initial evidence from a study of 80 Singaporean mothers that, apart from referencing what they personally va…
Parents as Cultural Middlemen
As the world is increasingly globalized, more and more families now reside in a society culturally differing from their ethnic origin and thus face a bicultural environment. Ethnic minority families exemplify this situation. What values do parents from these families prefer when they socialize their children? To answer this question, the present research examines an extension of the intersubjective model of value transmission. In two studies cond…
On Being a Mindful Authoritarian
Previous research shows that the motivation to be mindful is associated with less intolerance toward deviant and stigmatized groups. The present research examines authoritarianism as a possible moderator of this seemingly robust finding. We obtained consistent evidence from two studies that authoritarianism (right‐wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation) moderates the relationship between need for cognition and punitiveness. Among low…
Culture and Subjective Well-Being
Adopting the dynamic constructivist approach, the present research tested the hypothesis that bicultural people's subjective well-being (SWB) is more contingent on satisfaction with relationship-related domains and less contingent on satisfaction with self-related domains when Chinese cultural ideas are activated than when American ideas are activated. Two studies on Hong Kong undergraduates with different activation procedures (exposure to cultu…
The Better-Than-Average Effect in Hong Kong and the United States
People tend to make self-aggrandizing social comparisons on traits that are important to the self. However, existing research on the better-than-average effect (BTAE) and trait importance does not distinguish between personal trait importance (participants' ratings of the importance of certain traits to themselves) and cultural trait importance (participants' perceptions of the importance of the traits to the cultural group to which they belong).…
A Conclusion, Yet an Opening to Enriching the Normative Approach of Culture
We compile in this article the target article authors' thoughtful responses to the commentaries. Their responses identify some common threads across the rich contents of the commentary pieces, interlink the observation and theoretical propositions in the commentaries with broader streams of research, present new perspectives inspired by the commentary contributors, and pose provocative questions to further ignite research efforts on the normative…
Attributionally more complex people show less punitiveness and racism
Understanding the Lack of Parent-Child Value Similarity
The parent-child value similarity is typically far from perfect. In this research, we propose that this phenomenon is attributable to the very first step in value socialization-parents' selection of socialization values. The premise of this account is that parents consider not only values they personally endorse but also values they perceive to be normative in relevant societies when socializing children. Accordingly, parent-child similarity is n…
Culture and Counterfactuals
Past research, with its emphasis on affective regulatory processes, has failed to find cross-cultural differences in counterfactual thoughts. In the current study, the authors examine the tendency to generate additive counterfactuals (those that focus on the addition of new aspects that were not in fact present) and subtractive counterfactuals (those that focus on subtraction of factual aspects) among Mainland Chinese and European American univer…
Beyond the Hoax Narratives
Despite the scientific consensus on human‐caused climate change, conspiracy narratives suggesting that it is a hoax created to mislead people still exist. While research studies and public opinion polls have shown that belief in this hoax conspiracy is not uncommon, they often overlook that climate change conspiracy narratives can extend beyond just this simple “hoax” accusation. Given that conspiracy narratives can evolve from geopolitical confl…
Cultural Construction of Success and Epistemic Motives Moderate American-Chinese Differences in Reward Allocation Biases
When the relative contribution of the self and the group to a group success is unclear, Americans tend to exhibit a self-serving bias (rewarding the self more than what the self deserves), whereas the Chinese tend to exhibit an other-serving bias (rewarding the group more than the group deserves). In a study comparing the reward allocation biases of Americans and Chinese in different group outcome conditions, the authors showed that the abovement…
Culture and Counterfactuals
Past research, with its emphasis on affective regulatory processes, has failed to find cross-cultural differences in counterfactual thoughts. In the current study, the authors examine the tendency to generate additive counterfactuals (those that focus on the addition of new aspects that were not in fact present) and subtractive counterfactuals (those that focus on subtraction of factual aspects) among Mainland Chinese and European American univer…
Perceived cultural importance and actual self-importance of values in cultural identification
Cross-cultural psychologists assume that core cultural values define to a large extent what a culture is. Typically, core values are identified through an actual self-importance approach, in which core values are those that members of the culture as a group strongly endorse. In this article, the authors propose a perceived cultural importance approach to identifying core values, in which core values are values that members of the culture as a gro…
Measuring Cultures through Intersubjective Cultural Norms
Core values of a culture may refer to values endorsed by most members of the culture or to values members of the culture generally believe to be widely shared in the culture. The authors propose an intersubjective consensus approach to identifying core cultural values based on the latter definition. In three studies, they illustrated the utility of the intersubjective consensus approach for identifying the cultural values that differentiate two o…
Attributionally more complex people show less punitiveness and racism
On Being a Mindful Authoritarian
Previous research shows that the motivation to be mindful is associated with less intolerance toward deviant and stigmatized groups. The present research examines authoritarianism as a possible moderator of this seemingly robust finding. We obtained consistent evidence from two studies that authoritarianism (right‐wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation) moderates the relationship between need for cognition and punitiveness. Among low…
Culture as common sense
The authors propose that culture affects people through their perceptions of what is consensually believed. Whereas past research has examined whether cultural differences in social judgment are mediated by differences in individuals' personal values and beliefs, this article investigates whether they are mediated by differences in individuals' perceptions of the views of people around them. The authors propose that individuals who perceive that …
What Values Do Parents Want to Socialize in Their Children? The Role of Perceived Normative Values
This study concerns what values parents prefer in their children. Documenting similarity between the value profiles of parents and children, past studies implicitly assumed that parents want their children to acquire a direct, full copy of their personal values. Incorporating social psychology research on social norms, the authors obtained initial evidence from a study of 80 Singaporean mothers that, apart from referencing what they personally va…
Lay Psychology of Globalization and Its Social Impact
As a first step to establish social psychology of globalization as a new area of investigation, we carried out two cross‐regional studies to examine lay people's perception of globalization and its related concepts, as well as lay people's appraisal of the social impacts of globalization. The participants were undergraduates from regions with markedly different experiences with globalization (the United States, Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Ko…
Exclusionary Reactions to Foreign Cultures
In globalized economies, people often encounter symbols of dissimilar cultures simultaneously. Research on the psychological effects of simultaneous exposure to dissimilar cultures is therefore strategically located at the intersection of globalization, culture, and psychology. In seven experiments, we showed that exposure to a commercial product that embodies symbols of two dissimilar cultures can enhance perceptibility of cultural differences (…
Standing in the glory or shadow of the past self
Research in the past 2 decades has made great strides in understanding cross-cultural differences in the correlates and causes of subjective well-being. On the basis of past findings on the cross-cultural differences in temporal perspectives of the self, the present research examined a cross-cultural difference in individuals' subjective well-being as a function of how positively they viewed their present and past selves. Study 1 showed that both…
The Better-Than-Average Effect in Hong Kong and the United States
People tend to make self-aggrandizing social comparisons on traits that are important to the self. However, existing research on the better-than-average effect (BTAE) and trait importance does not distinguish between personal trait importance (participants' ratings of the importance of certain traits to themselves) and cultural trait importance (participants' perceptions of the importance of the traits to the cultural group to which they belong).…
Cultural Construction of Success and Epistemic Motives Moderate American-Chinese Differences in Reward Allocation Biases
When the relative contribution of the self and the group to a group success is unclear, Americans tend to exhibit a self-serving bias (rewarding the self more than what the self deserves), whereas the Chinese tend to exhibit an other-serving bias (rewarding the group more than the group deserves). In a study comparing the reward allocation biases of Americans and Chinese in different group outcome conditions, the authors showed that the abovement…
Culture and Subjective Well-Being
Adopting the dynamic constructivist approach, the present research tested the hypothesis that bicultural people's subjective well-being (SWB) is more contingent on satisfaction with relationship-related domains and less contingent on satisfaction with self-related domains when Chinese cultural ideas are activated than when American ideas are activated. Two studies on Hong Kong undergraduates with different activation procedures (exposure to cultu…
Dispositional empathy with nature
Saving Mr. Nature
Concepts and measures related to connection to nature
Mind Attribution to Nature and Proenvironmental Behavior
Nature is often portrayed in the environmental discourse as a mindful agent that has intentions, emotions, and other mental capacities. Built upon recent research on mind perception and mind attribution, the present research examines if this representation of nature bears any implications for environmental conservation. Studies 1 and 2 showed that participants who attributed a mind to nature exhibited more self-report and actual proenvironmental …
A Conclusion, Yet an Opening to Enriching the Normative Approach of Culture
We compile in this article the target article authors' thoughtful responses to the commentaries. Their responses identify some common threads across the rich contents of the commentary pieces, interlink the observation and theoretical propositions in the commentaries with broader streams of research, present new perspectives inspired by the commentary contributors, and pose provocative questions to further ignite research efforts on the normative…
Understanding Intergenerational Cultural Transmission Through the Role of Perceived Norms
Intergenerational cultural transmission refers to the transmission of cultural ideas (e.g., values, beliefs, knowledge, practices) from one generation to the next generation. Among all available cultural ideas, which ones do parents select for transmission? As the recent normative approaches in cultural psychology highlight, cultural members do not just passively act out their internalized characteristics; they also strategically use their unders…
Parents as Cultural Middlemen
As the world is increasingly globalized, more and more families now reside in a society culturally differing from their ethnic origin and thus face a bicultural environment. Ethnic minority families exemplify this situation. What values do parents from these families prefer when they socialize their children? To answer this question, the present research examines an extension of the intersubjective model of value transmission. In two studies cond…
I Am Dumber When I Look Dumb in Front of Many (vs. Few) Others
People from all cultures are averse to looking dumb in front of others, especially if there is a large audience. However, there could be a difference between Face and Dignity cultures in the extent to which their members see themselves as dumb when they perform poorly before a large versus small audience. In the present study, Chinese and Americans were asked to imagine themselves performing poorly on tasks either in front of 10 others or one oth…
Understanding the Lack of Parent-Child Value Similarity
The parent-child value similarity is typically far from perfect. In this research, we propose that this phenomenon is attributable to the very first step in value socialization-parents' selection of socialization values. The premise of this account is that parents consider not only values they personally endorse but also values they perceive to be normative in relevant societies when socializing children. Accordingly, parent-child similarity is n…
Environmental concern has a weaker association with pro-environmental behavior in some societies than others
Generalized trust narrows the gap between environmental concern and pro-environmental behavior
Towards cross-cultural environmental psychology
Environmental psychology is a field concerned with transactions between humans and their environments. Since human–environment interactions are culture-bound, a fuller understanding of such interactions requires sensitivity to the role of culture in the ways researchers theorize human behavior, conduct empirical studies, and interpret observed findings. In this article, we aim to advance the development of a culturally informed understanding of h…
Psychology (29 works) · Social Psychology (24 works) · Sociology (21 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (19 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (19 works) · Social Psychology (16 works) · Political science (14 works) · Environmental Education and Sustainability (11 works) · Behavioral Health and Interventions (8 works) · Epistemology (7 works)