Beate Schwarz
Biographic Data
| ID | 3621154 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Beate Schwarz |
| GIVEN NAMES | Beate |
| FAMILY NAME | Schwarz |
| SIGNATURE | SCHWARZ B |
| AFFILIATIONS | ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3230-1153 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 127 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1995 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Is Societal Progress Muting the Expressivity of Negative Emotions? Evidence from Two Cross-national Studies
Contemporary theories of emotion emphasize the dual role of emotions as both personal experiences and communicative signals during social interactions. However, the impact of macro-level societal structures on emotional expression remains underexplored. This study investigates the expression-experience discrepancy for self-reported emotions across nations, focusing on how societal development relates to this discrepancy, which captures expressivi…
Happiness Maximization Is a Weird Way of Living
Psychological science tends to treat subjective well-being and happiness synonymously. We start from the assumption that subjective well-being is more than being happy to ask the fundamental question: What is the ideal level of happiness? From a cross-cultural perspective, we propose that the idealization of attaining maximum levels of happiness may be especially characteristic of Western, educated, industrial, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) societ…
Love beyond east and west: How cultural models of selfhood predict frequency of being in love
Cultural religiosity moderates the relationship between being in love and subjective well-being
The Role of Cultural Heterogeneity in Strengthening the Link Between Family Relationships and Life Satisfaction in 50 Societies
We argue that the importance of family relationships for individual well-being varies across societies as a function of a society’s degree of cultural heterogeneity. To examine the role of family relationships, we analyzed the responses from 13,009 participants in 50 societies on their life satisfaction across societies varying in their levels of historical and contemporary cultural heterogeneity. Such heterogeneity creates differences in the fre…
The Association of Acculturation and Well-Being: Second-Generation Immigrants in Switzerland
In recent decades, there has been a rapid increase in immigration rates throughout Europe, and many immigrants remained permanently. As a result, a substantial part of society are second-generation immigrants. Despite an increase in research related to this population, predominantly from the US, it remains unknown, whether growing up and living in two cultures fosters immigrants’ subjective well-being. The present study investigated the associati…
Introduction to a Culturally Sensitive Measure of Well-Being: Combining Life Satisfaction and Interdependent Happiness Across 49 Different Cultures
How can one conclude that well-being is higher in country A than country B, when well-being is being measured according to the way people in country A think about well-being? We address this issue by proposing a new culturally sensitive method to comparing societal levels of well-being. We support our reasoning with data on life satisfaction and interdependent happiness focusing on individual and family, collected mostly from students, across for…
Unpackaging the link between economic inequality and self-construal
Past research has shown that economic inequality shapes individuals' self-construals. However, it has been unclear which dimensions of self-construal are associated with and affected by economic inequality. A correlational (Study 1: N = 264) and an experimental study (Study 2: N = 532) provided converging evidence linking perceived economic inequality with two forms of independent (vs. interdependent) self-construal: Difference from Others and Se…
Self-construals predict personal life satisfaction with different strengths across societal contexts differing in national wealth and religious heritage
We explore to what extent previously observed pan-cultural association between dimensions of self-construal and personal life satisfaction (PLS) may be moderated by three national-contextual variables: national wealth, economic inequality, and religious heritage. The results showed that Self-reliance (vs. dependence on others) predicted PLS positively in poorer countries but negatively in richer countries. Connectedness to others (vs. self-contai…
Family First: Evidence of Consistency and Variation in the Value of Family Versus Personal Happiness Across 49 Different Cultures
People care about their own well-being and about the well-being of their families. It is currently, however, unknown how much people tend to value their own versus their family’s well-being. A recent study documented that people value family happiness over personal happiness across four cultures. In this study, we sought to replicate this finding across a larger sample size ( N = 12,819) and a greater number of countries ( N = 49). We found that …
Personal Life Satisfaction as a Measure of Societal Happiness is an Individualistic Presumption: Evidence from Fifty Countries
Numerous studies document that societal happiness is correlated with individualism, but the nature of this phenomenon remains understudied. In the current paper, we address this gap and test the reasoning that individualism correlates with societal happiness because the most common measure of societal happiness (i.e., country-level aggregates of personal life satisfaction) is individualism-themed. With the data collected from 13,009 participants …
The Development of Self-Representations During the Transition to Early Adolescence: The Role of Gender, Puberty, and School Transition
The present study investigated the development of global and domain-specific self-representations in the transition from late childhood to early adolescence and tested whether gender, puberty, and school transition help explain individual differences in change. The study was based on three measurement occasions over 2 years and included 248 adolescents (average age at T1 = 10.6 years). Findings indicated both stability and change over time. Indiv…
Intergenerational relations: European perspectives in family and society
Marital Conflict and Early Adolescents’ Self-Evaluation: The Role of Parenting Quality and Early Adolescents’ Appraisals
Perceived Interparental Conflict and Early Adolescents’ Friendships: The Role of Attachment Security and Emotion Regulation
Does the Importance of Parent and Peer Relationships for Adolescents’ Life Satisfaction Vary Across Cultures
This study investigated whether the associations between (a) the quality of the parent-child relationship and peer acceptance and (b) early adolescents’ life satisfaction differed depending on the importance of family values in the respective culture. As part of the Value of Children Study, data from a subsample of N = 1,034 adolescents (58% female, M age = 13.62 years, SD = 0.60 years) from 11 cultures was analyzed. Multilevel analyses revealed …
Spouses' demand and withdrawal during marital conflict in relation to their subjective well-being
This study investigated the link between spouses' demanding and withdrawing behavior during conflict and their subjective well-being (SWB) in a community sample of 126 couples. Demand and withdrawal were analyzed in combination in the demand/ withdraw pattern, as well as individually. Results showed that the model with the individual conflict behavior provided a better representation of the data than the demand/withdraw pattern model. Women's, as…
Reciprocity in Intergenerational Support: A Comparison of Chinese and German Adult Daughters
This study investigates how Chinese and German adult daughters evaluate the norm of reciprocity and the unbalanced exchange of support in relation to their aging parents. Women from rural and urban China ( n = 292) and from Germany ( n = 264) have participated in this study. Results show that for the German daughters, differently from rural Chinese daughters, perception of imbalance is strongly related to their intention to support their elderly …
Intergenerational Support and Life Satisfaction: A Comparison of Chinese, Indonesian, and German Elderly Mothers
The exchange of support between generations is a fundamental feature of intergenerational relationships. Although most studies have concentrated on the impact of social support on the receiver, effects on subjective well-being of the provider of support have been studied less often. Given cultural differences in the norms and values of intergenerational relationships, the present study compared samples from rural and urban China, Indonesia, and G…
The 'Intergenerational Stake Hypothesis' in Indonesia and Germany: Adult Daughters' and their Mothers' Perception of their Relationship
The aim of this study is to test the general hypothesis that parents and their children systematically differ with respect to the perception of their relationship as described by the literature on the 'intergenerational stake'. To this end, the study compared 100 dyads of adult daughters and elderly mothers from Indonesia and Germany. Mothers and daughters were interviewed with respect to their value orientations and their evaluation of the prese…
Adult Daughters' Family Structure and the Association Between Reciprocity and Relationship Quality
The study explores whether family structure is a moderator of the associations between help exchange, reciprocity of this exchange, and the quality of the mother and adult daughter relationship. A total of 183 daughters (mean age = 42.13; SD = 4.91) are either in first marriage ( n = 87), living with a new partner after divorce ( n = 77), or unmarried or divorced in a single-parent household ( n = 99). The analyses are based on the daughters' sel…
Intergenerational Support: Psychological and Cultural Analyses of Korean and German Women
In this study, adult daughters from an East Asian culture (South Korea: N = 398) and a western culture (Germany: N = 313) were compared with respect to the extent and the direction of intergenerational support, the associations between value orientations, relationship quality and intergenerational support, and with respect to the meaning of perceived reciprocity within these processes. Results showed a more extensive exchange of support in the Ko…
Parental Separation and Adolescents' Felt Insecurity with Mothers: Effects of Financial Hardship, Interparental Conflict, and Maternal Parenting in East and West Germany
This study investigates effects of living in nuclear, separated single mother, or stepfather families on adolescents' relationship to their mothers. Focusing on adolescents' felt insecurity toward mother, effects of family type are expected to be mediated by economic pressure and impaired family dynamics. Subsamples from East (n= 220) and West Germany (n= 273) allow a comparison of relevant processes according to contextual conditions. Although n…
Culture and Human Development: The Importance of Cross-Cultural Research for the Social Sciences
Culture can be understood as a phenomenon of human creation that keeps strong relations with the imaginary, with ideals and with the different forms of expression of feelings and emotions, among which art and literature stand out.This article approaches in particular the latter aspect.Here, it is claimed that the access to cultural assets is one of the main tools for human transformation and approximation among people, permitting the acknowledgem…
Adolescents' Individuation in East and West Germany: Effects of Family Structure, Financial Hardship, and Family Processes
This study investigates whether parental separation and living with a stepfather affects children's and adolescents' individuation in relation to their mothers differently in East and West Germany. Effects of family type are assumed to be mediated through financial hardship and impaired family dynamics. A comparison of path models for youth (ages 9 to 19) from East ( n = 220) and West Germany ( n = 273) evidences only a few differences between bo…
Does the Importance of Parent and Peer Relationships for Adolescents’ Life Satisfaction Vary Across Cultures
This study investigated whether the associations between (a) the quality of the parent-child relationship and peer acceptance and (b) early adolescents’ life satisfaction differed depending on the importance of family values in the respective culture. As part of the Value of Children Study, data from a subsample of N = 1,034 adolescents (58% female, M age = 13.62 years, SD = 0.60 years) from 11 cultures was analyzed. Multilevel analyses revealed …
Culture and Human Development: The Importance of Cross-Cultural Research for the Social Sciences
Culture can be understood as a phenomenon of human creation that keeps strong relations with the imaginary, with ideals and with the different forms of expression of feelings and emotions, among which art and literature stand out.This article approaches in particular the latter aspect.Here, it is claimed that the access to cultural assets is one of the main tools for human transformation and approximation among people, permitting the acknowledgem…
Reciprocity in Intergenerational Support: A Comparison of Chinese and German Adult Daughters
This study investigates how Chinese and German adult daughters evaluate the norm of reciprocity and the unbalanced exchange of support in relation to their aging parents. Women from rural and urban China ( n = 292) and from Germany ( n = 264) have participated in this study. Results show that for the German daughters, differently from rural Chinese daughters, perception of imbalance is strongly related to their intention to support their elderly …
Marital Conflict and Early Adolescents’ Self-Evaluation: The Role of Parenting Quality and Early Adolescents’ Appraisals
Perceived Interparental Conflict and Early Adolescents’ Friendships: The Role of Attachment Security and Emotion Regulation
Spouses' demand and withdrawal during marital conflict in relation to their subjective well-being
This study investigated the link between spouses' demanding and withdrawing behavior during conflict and their subjective well-being (SWB) in a community sample of 126 couples. Demand and withdrawal were analyzed in combination in the demand/ withdraw pattern, as well as individually. Results showed that the model with the individual conflict behavior provided a better representation of the data than the demand/withdraw pattern model. Women's, as…
Intergenerational Support and Life Satisfaction: A Comparison of Chinese, Indonesian, and German Elderly Mothers
The exchange of support between generations is a fundamental feature of intergenerational relationships. Although most studies have concentrated on the impact of social support on the receiver, effects on subjective well-being of the provider of support have been studied less often. Given cultural differences in the norms and values of intergenerational relationships, the present study compared samples from rural and urban China, Indonesia, and G…
Intergenerational Support: Psychological and Cultural Analyses of Korean and German Women
In this study, adult daughters from an East Asian culture (South Korea: N = 398) and a western culture (Germany: N = 313) were compared with respect to the extent and the direction of intergenerational support, the associations between value orientations, relationship quality and intergenerational support, and with respect to the meaning of perceived reciprocity within these processes. Results showed a more extensive exchange of support in the Ko…
Adult Daughters' Family Structure and the Association Between Reciprocity and Relationship Quality
The study explores whether family structure is a moderator of the associations between help exchange, reciprocity of this exchange, and the quality of the mother and adult daughter relationship. A total of 183 daughters (mean age = 42.13; SD = 4.91) are either in first marriage ( n = 87), living with a new partner after divorce ( n = 77), or unmarried or divorced in a single-parent household ( n = 99). The analyses are based on the daughters' sel…
The 'Intergenerational Stake Hypothesis' in Indonesia and Germany: Adult Daughters' and their Mothers' Perception of their Relationship
The aim of this study is to test the general hypothesis that parents and their children systematically differ with respect to the perception of their relationship as described by the literature on the 'intergenerational stake'. To this end, the study compared 100 dyads of adult daughters and elderly mothers from Indonesia and Germany. Mothers and daughters were interviewed with respect to their value orientations and their evaluation of the prese…
The Development of Self-Representations During the Transition to Early Adolescence: The Role of Gender, Puberty, and School Transition
The present study investigated the development of global and domain-specific self-representations in the transition from late childhood to early adolescence and tested whether gender, puberty, and school transition help explain individual differences in change. The study was based on three measurement occasions over 2 years and included 248 adolescents (average age at T1 = 10.6 years). Findings indicated both stability and change over time. Indiv…
Family First: Evidence of Consistency and Variation in the Value of Family Versus Personal Happiness Across 49 Different Cultures
People care about their own well-being and about the well-being of their families. It is currently, however, unknown how much people tend to value their own versus their family’s well-being. A recent study documented that people value family happiness over personal happiness across four cultures. In this study, we sought to replicate this finding across a larger sample size ( N = 12,819) and a greater number of countries ( N = 49). We found that …
Parental Separation and Adolescents' Felt Insecurity with Mothers: Effects of Financial Hardship, Interparental Conflict, and Maternal Parenting in East and West Germany
This study investigates effects of living in nuclear, separated single mother, or stepfather families on adolescents' relationship to their mothers. Focusing on adolescents' felt insecurity toward mother, effects of family type are expected to be mediated by economic pressure and impaired family dynamics. Subsamples from East (n= 220) and West Germany (n= 273) allow a comparison of relevant processes according to contextual conditions. Although n…
Love beyond east and west: How cultural models of selfhood predict frequency of being in love
Adolescents' Individuation in East and West Germany: Effects of Family Structure, Financial Hardship, and Family Processes
This study investigates whether parental separation and living with a stepfather affects children's and adolescents' individuation in relation to their mothers differently in East and West Germany. Effects of family type are assumed to be mediated through financial hardship and impaired family dynamics. A comparison of path models for youth (ages 9 to 19) from East ( n = 220) and West Germany ( n = 273) evidences only a few differences between bo…
The timing of psychosocial transitions in adolescence: Commonalities and differences in Unified Germany
This chapter reports East-West differences in the timing of life events and similarities in the effects of adversity on timing
Leaving the parental home: Predictors for young adults raised in former East and West Germany
Results are presented on predictors of the timing of leaving the parental home, comparing samples of young adults from the former East and West Germany
Adolescents' Individuation in East and West Germany: Effects of Family Structure, Financial Hardship, and Family Processes
This study investigates whether parental separation and living with a stepfather affects children's and adolescents' individuation in relation to their mothers differently in East and West Germany. Effects of family type are assumed to be mediated through financial hardship and impaired family dynamics. A comparison of path models for youth (ages 9 to 19) from East ( n = 220) and West Germany ( n = 273) evidences only a few differences between bo…
Parental Separation and Adolescents' Felt Insecurity with Mothers: Effects of Financial Hardship, Interparental Conflict, and Maternal Parenting in East and West Germany
This study investigates effects of living in nuclear, separated single mother, or stepfather families on adolescents' relationship to their mothers. Focusing on adolescents' felt insecurity toward mother, effects of family type are expected to be mediated by economic pressure and impaired family dynamics. Subsamples from East (n= 220) and West Germany (n= 273) allow a comparison of relevant processes according to contextual conditions. Although n…
Culture and Human Development: The Importance of Cross-Cultural Research for the Social Sciences
Culture can be understood as a phenomenon of human creation that keeps strong relations with the imaginary, with ideals and with the different forms of expression of feelings and emotions, among which art and literature stand out.This article approaches in particular the latter aspect.Here, it is claimed that the access to cultural assets is one of the main tools for human transformation and approximation among people, permitting the acknowledgem…
Adult Daughters' Family Structure and the Association Between Reciprocity and Relationship Quality
The study explores whether family structure is a moderator of the associations between help exchange, reciprocity of this exchange, and the quality of the mother and adult daughter relationship. A total of 183 daughters (mean age = 42.13; SD = 4.91) are either in first marriage ( n = 87), living with a new partner after divorce ( n = 77), or unmarried or divorced in a single-parent household ( n = 99). The analyses are based on the daughters' sel…
Intergenerational Support: Psychological and Cultural Analyses of Korean and German Women
In this study, adult daughters from an East Asian culture (South Korea: N = 398) and a western culture (Germany: N = 313) were compared with respect to the extent and the direction of intergenerational support, the associations between value orientations, relationship quality and intergenerational support, and with respect to the meaning of perceived reciprocity within these processes. Results showed a more extensive exchange of support in the Ko…
The 'Intergenerational Stake Hypothesis' in Indonesia and Germany: Adult Daughters' and their Mothers' Perception of their Relationship
The aim of this study is to test the general hypothesis that parents and their children systematically differ with respect to the perception of their relationship as described by the literature on the 'intergenerational stake'. To this end, the study compared 100 dyads of adult daughters and elderly mothers from Indonesia and Germany. Mothers and daughters were interviewed with respect to their value orientations and their evaluation of the prese…
Reciprocity in Intergenerational Support: A Comparison of Chinese and German Adult Daughters
This study investigates how Chinese and German adult daughters evaluate the norm of reciprocity and the unbalanced exchange of support in relation to their aging parents. Women from rural and urban China ( n = 292) and from Germany ( n = 264) have participated in this study. Results show that for the German daughters, differently from rural Chinese daughters, perception of imbalance is strongly related to their intention to support their elderly …
Intergenerational Support and Life Satisfaction: A Comparison of Chinese, Indonesian, and German Elderly Mothers
The exchange of support between generations is a fundamental feature of intergenerational relationships. Although most studies have concentrated on the impact of social support on the receiver, effects on subjective well-being of the provider of support have been studied less often. Given cultural differences in the norms and values of intergenerational relationships, the present study compared samples from rural and urban China, Indonesia, and G…
Does the Importance of Parent and Peer Relationships for Adolescents’ Life Satisfaction Vary Across Cultures
This study investigated whether the associations between (a) the quality of the parent-child relationship and peer acceptance and (b) early adolescents’ life satisfaction differed depending on the importance of family values in the respective culture. As part of the Value of Children Study, data from a subsample of N = 1,034 adolescents (58% female, M age = 13.62 years, SD = 0.60 years) from 11 cultures was analyzed. Multilevel analyses revealed …
Spouses' demand and withdrawal during marital conflict in relation to their subjective well-being
This study investigated the link between spouses' demanding and withdrawing behavior during conflict and their subjective well-being (SWB) in a community sample of 126 couples. Demand and withdrawal were analyzed in combination in the demand/ withdraw pattern, as well as individually. Results showed that the model with the individual conflict behavior provided a better representation of the data than the demand/withdraw pattern model. Women's, as…
Marital Conflict and Early Adolescents’ Self-Evaluation: The Role of Parenting Quality and Early Adolescents’ Appraisals
Perceived Interparental Conflict and Early Adolescents’ Friendships: The Role of Attachment Security and Emotion Regulation
Intergenerational relations: European perspectives in family and society
The Development of Self-Representations During the Transition to Early Adolescence: The Role of Gender, Puberty, and School Transition
The present study investigated the development of global and domain-specific self-representations in the transition from late childhood to early adolescence and tested whether gender, puberty, and school transition help explain individual differences in change. The study was based on three measurement occasions over 2 years and included 248 adolescents (average age at T1 = 10.6 years). Findings indicated both stability and change over time. Indiv…
Personal Life Satisfaction as a Measure of Societal Happiness is an Individualistic Presumption: Evidence from Fifty Countries
Numerous studies document that societal happiness is correlated with individualism, but the nature of this phenomenon remains understudied. In the current paper, we address this gap and test the reasoning that individualism correlates with societal happiness because the most common measure of societal happiness (i.e., country-level aggregates of personal life satisfaction) is individualism-themed. With the data collected from 13,009 participants …
Introduction to a Culturally Sensitive Measure of Well-Being: Combining Life Satisfaction and Interdependent Happiness Across 49 Different Cultures
How can one conclude that well-being is higher in country A than country B, when well-being is being measured according to the way people in country A think about well-being? We address this issue by proposing a new culturally sensitive method to comparing societal levels of well-being. We support our reasoning with data on life satisfaction and interdependent happiness focusing on individual and family, collected mostly from students, across for…
Unpackaging the link between economic inequality and self-construal
Past research has shown that economic inequality shapes individuals' self-construals. However, it has been unclear which dimensions of self-construal are associated with and affected by economic inequality. A correlational (Study 1: N = 264) and an experimental study (Study 2: N = 532) provided converging evidence linking perceived economic inequality with two forms of independent (vs. interdependent) self-construal: Difference from Others and Se…
Self-construals predict personal life satisfaction with different strengths across societal contexts differing in national wealth and religious heritage
We explore to what extent previously observed pan-cultural association between dimensions of self-construal and personal life satisfaction (PLS) may be moderated by three national-contextual variables: national wealth, economic inequality, and religious heritage. The results showed that Self-reliance (vs. dependence on others) predicted PLS positively in poorer countries but negatively in richer countries. Connectedness to others (vs. self-contai…
Family First: Evidence of Consistency and Variation in the Value of Family Versus Personal Happiness Across 49 Different Cultures
People care about their own well-being and about the well-being of their families. It is currently, however, unknown how much people tend to value their own versus their family’s well-being. A recent study documented that people value family happiness over personal happiness across four cultures. In this study, we sought to replicate this finding across a larger sample size ( N = 12,819) and a greater number of countries ( N = 49). We found that …
The Role of Cultural Heterogeneity in Strengthening the Link Between Family Relationships and Life Satisfaction in 50 Societies
We argue that the importance of family relationships for individual well-being varies across societies as a function of a society’s degree of cultural heterogeneity. To examine the role of family relationships, we analyzed the responses from 13,009 participants in 50 societies on their life satisfaction across societies varying in their levels of historical and contemporary cultural heterogeneity. Such heterogeneity creates differences in the fre…
The Association of Acculturation and Well-Being: Second-Generation Immigrants in Switzerland
In recent decades, there has been a rapid increase in immigration rates throughout Europe, and many immigrants remained permanently. As a result, a substantial part of society are second-generation immigrants. Despite an increase in research related to this population, predominantly from the US, it remains unknown, whether growing up and living in two cultures fosters immigrants’ subjective well-being. The present study investigated the associati…
Happiness Maximization Is a Weird Way of Living
Psychological science tends to treat subjective well-being and happiness synonymously. We start from the assumption that subjective well-being is more than being happy to ask the fundamental question: What is the ideal level of happiness? From a cross-cultural perspective, we propose that the idealization of attaining maximum levels of happiness may be especially characteristic of Western, educated, industrial, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) societ…
Love beyond east and west: How cultural models of selfhood predict frequency of being in love
Psychology (25 works) · Social Psychology (18 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Developmental psychology (14 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (13 works) · Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction (12 works) · Family Dynamics and Relationships (9 works) · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving (9 works) · Social Psychology (9 works) · Political science (8 works)