Joan G Miller
Biographic Data
| ID | 75135 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Joan G Miller |
| GIVEN NAMES | Joan G |
| FAMILY NAME | Miller |
| SIGNATURE | MILLER J G |
| AFFILIATIONS | New School |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6458-4402 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 38 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 416 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 38 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1984 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Advice Across Cultures: How Autonomy, Dialecticism, and Responsibility Differentially Shape Advice Giving in the United States, China, and India
Advice-giving is a key form of social support, yet little is known about how its style varies across cultural contexts. Across three studies, we examined how Americans, Chinese, and Indians give, evaluate, and culturally transmit advice, drawing on the cultural logics of idiocentrism, dialecticism, and allocentrism. In Study 1, open-ended data revealed culturally distinct styles: autonomous advice among Americans, contingent advice among Chinese,…
Mapping Human Morality: Human Universals and Cultural Differences
Beliefs in inevitable justice curb revenge behaviours: Cultural perspectives on karma
Across cultures, people believe that moral actions have ‘karmic’ consequences. Do cultures share assumptions about how karma operates? Four studies ( N = 1114) assessed cultural differences in perceptions of inevitability associated with karmic justice and whether perceiving karma as inevitable curbs antisocial behaviours, such as revenge. Study 1 found that Indians perceived karmic justice as more inevitable than Americans and reported lower rev…
Gratitude endures while indebtedness persuades: Investigating the unique influences of gratitude and indebtedness in helping
What is the temporal course of gratitude and indebtedness and how do these feelings influence helping in the context of reciprocity? In an online-game tapping real-life behaviour, Study 1 (N = 106) finds that while gratitude towards a benefactor remains elevated after an opportunity to reciprocate, indebtedness declines along with helping. Yet, indebtedness rather than gratitude better predicts real-life helping of a benefactor. Using a vignette-…
Toward greater cultural sensitivity in developmental psychology
With the increased attention given to culture in recent years in developmental psychology, there remains a need to overcome limitations of certain existing approaches. Such limitations include tendencies to adopt approaches to culture that are overly global, ignore its symbolic aspects, and that reduce culture to an individual difference variable that can be assessed by conventional psychological scale measures. In the present article, we focus o…
Knowing minds: Culture and perceptions of mental state access
How does culture influence the ways in which individuals reflect upon their knowledge of others’ mental states? We addressed this question in a two‐study cross‐cultural investigation examining perceptions of mental state access in the United States and Japan. Study 1 ( n = 100) revealed that American participants reported greater mental state access than did Japanese participants. Study 2 ( n = 146) showed that both Americans and Japanese perceiv…
Cost and Family Obligation in Everyday Sacrifice to Parents Among European American and Chinese Emerging Adults
Cultural studies on sacrifices made by emerging adults have given limited attention to the cost involved. We addressed this issue in studies among U.S. and Chinese emerging adults. Assessing real-life instances of sacrifice, Study 1 ( N = 130) showed that Chinese sacrifice for their parents in a higher cost way than do European Americans. In a vignette-based experiment, Study 2 ( N = 254) demonstrated that family obligation motivates high-cost sa…
Norm-based spontaneous categorization: Cultural norms shape meaning and memory
We highlight the role that culture-specific norms play in cognitively predisposing individuals to organize information in the environment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)
Culture and the development of views of agency: Perspectives from storybooks, parents, and children
The present three-study investigation examined cultural influences on the internalization of social expectations. Testing the claim of self-determination theory that lesser internalization of social expectations is linked to socialization practices that portray social expectations as in conflict with autonomy, in Study 1 we undertook a content analysis of the views of social expectations portrayed in American and Indian storybooks. Results indica…
Contributions and challenges of cultural research on the development of social cognition
The Importance of Timing in Reciprocity: An Investigation of Reciprocity Norms Among Indians and Americans
After receiving help, individuals tend to experience an immediate increase in obligation to be responsive to the helper. Cross-cultural research has shown that whereas this sense of obligation dissipates for Americans after reciprocation, it remains unchanged after reciprocation for Indians. Is this decrease in obligation felt by Americans temporary, or can it endure over years such that it provides immunity from responding to the helper? And is …
Cultural variation in communal versus exchange norms: Implications for social support
Whereas an interdependent cultural view of self has been linked to communal norms and to socially supportive behavior, its relationship to social support has been called into question in research suggesting that discomfort in social support is associated with an interdependent cultural view of self (e.g., Taylor et al., 2004). These contrasting claims were addressed in 2 studies conducted among Japanese, Indian, and American adults. Assessing eve…
Culture and the Self: Implications for Psychological Theory
Culture and the role of exchange vs. communal norms in friendship
Culture and Social Psychology
The chapter presents a theoretical and empirical overview of social psychological research in cultural psychology. Consideration is given to the processes that have contributed to minimizing the significance of culture both in mainstream social psychology and in early traditions of cross-cultural research. Work in cultural psychology challenges the prevailing neglect of culture in psychology and to offer new understandings of the essential role o…
Culture and the role of choice in agency
Three cross-cultural studies conducted among U.S. and Indian adults compared perceptions of helping friends in strongly versus weakly expected cases, views of helping family versus strangers, and responses to a self-determination motivation scale. Expectations to help family and friends were positively correlated with satisfaction and choice only among Indians and not among Americans. Also, whereas U.S. respondents associated lesser satisfaction …
Contents, Vol. 40, 1997
Understanding the Role of Worldviews in Morality
Commentaries| January 21 2010 Understanding the Role of Worldviews in Morality Subject Area: Psychiatry and Psychology , Women's and Children's Health Joan G. Miller Joan G. Miller University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich., USA Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Human Development (1997) 40 (6): 350–354. https://doi.org/10.1159/000278739 Article history Published Online: January 21 2010 Content Tools Views Ico…
Including Deontic Reasoning as Fundamental to Theory of Mind
While recognizing major contributions of the contemporary theory-of-mind framework, we identify conceptual and cultural gaps with respect to its inattention to deontic considerations. The framework has tended to portray behavior as purely self-directed, thereby neglecting everyday reasoners’ understanding of behavior as normatively based. However, in everyday reasoning, belief-desire (theory of mind) and obligation-permission (deontic) concerns i…
The Moral Emotions of Guilt and Satisfaction: A Cross-Cultural Perspective
Major psychological theories of morality and motivation make the assumption that an inverse relationship exists between guilt and satisfaction. To the extent that feelings of guilt are linked to a particular motivational or moral stance, it is assume
Developing Conceptions of Responsive Intentional Agents
We argue that folk psychology and folk morality both develop from the same core conception of persons, namely a concept of a responsive intentional agent. Key features of this conception are evident in infancy and develop universally in the preschool years across cultures and languages. Even these early understandings develop, shaped and specified via processes of cognitive construction intertwined with cultural constructs of persons provided wit…
Parent–Adolescent Relationships in the Context of Interpersonal Disagreements: View from a Collectivist Culture
The paper is based on a study that aims to understand adolescent–parent relationships in the context of interpersonal disagreements. The issue of disagreements or disputes between parents and adolescents is of interest because of its relevance to understanding universal versus culturally variable features of adolescent development and parent–adolescent relationships. The study focused on understanding the dynamics of dispute resolution in Indian …
Between Culture and Biology: Perspectives on Ontogenetic Development
Between Culture and Biology breaks away from the traditional nature/nurture dialectic and brings together biological, psychological and cultural perspectives on development. In this thought-provoking book, the argument is put forward that the biological bases of behaviour and cultural context should be approached in an integrated fashion to properly understand ontogenetic development and that both the cultural and biological demain provide constr…
Bringing culture to basic psychological theory--Beyond individualism and collectivism: Comment on Oyserman et al. (2002)
D. Oyserman, H. M. Coon, and M. Kemmelmeir (2002) offered a comprehensive literature review on individualism and collectivism that forwards valuable suggestions for ways to enhance future research conducted within this framework. The author argues that although their criticisms of much contemporary social psychological research on individualism and collectivism are valid, even more fundamental problems need to be recognized as characterizing work…
Limiting the Scope of Moral Obligations to Help: A Cross-Cultural Investigation
Two studies compared the judgments of U.S. and Indian students regarding the obligation to save someone's life by donating bone marrow. Indians were more likely to consider donation to be morally required, even when the needy person was a stranger "on the other side of the world." Both groups limited obligations to help out-group members, but Americans also limited obligations to help in-group members from the same town. Indians regarded donating…
Culture and the development of everyday social explanation
Perceptions of social responsibilities in India and in the United States: Moral imperatives or personal decisions
Cultural Diversity in the Morality of Caring: Individually Oriented Versus Duty-Based Interpersonal Moral Codes
This article argues that there exists not one universal morality of caring contrasting with the morality of justice but, rather, alternative types of interpersonal moralities that reflect the meaning systems emphasized in different cultural groups. Both the superogatory view of interpersonal morality held by Lawrence Kohlberg and the morality-of-caring framework developed by Carol Gilligan are shown to be culturally bound. Research conducted amon…
Culture and moral judgment: How are conflicts between justice and interpersonal responsibilities resolved
A 2-session study examined Indian and American adults' and children's (N = 140) reasoning about moral dilemmas involving conflicts between interpersonal and justice expectations. Most Indians gave priority to the interpersonal expectations, whereas most Americans gave priority to the justice expectations. Indians tended to categorize their conflict resolutions in moral terms. In contrast, when Americans gave priority to the interpersonal alternat…
Bringing culture to basic psychological theory--Beyond individualism and collectivism: Comment on Oyserman et al. (2002)
D. Oyserman, H. M. Coon, and M. Kemmelmeir (2002) offered a comprehensive literature review on individualism and collectivism that forwards valuable suggestions for ways to enhance future research conducted within this framework. The author argues that although their criticisms of much contemporary social psychological research on individualism and collectivism are valid, even more fundamental problems need to be recognized as characterizing work…
The Role of Liking in Perceptions of the Moral Responsibility to Help: A Cultural Perspective
Culture and the role of choice in agency
Three cross-cultural studies conducted among U.S. and Indian adults compared perceptions of helping friends in strongly versus weakly expected cases, views of helping family versus strangers, and responses to a self-determination motivation scale. Expectations to help family and friends were positively correlated with satisfaction and choice only among Indians and not among Americans. Also, whereas U.S. respondents associated lesser satisfaction …
Culture, context, and the development of moral accountability judgments
This study examined the impact of contextual factors on Indian and American adults'and children's (N= 180) tendencies to hold agents morally accountable for justice breaches. Results revealed that Indians more frequently absolved agents of moral accountability for breaches performed under emotional duress or by young children than did Americans. Breaches were less frequently categorized in moral terms when moral reasoning and accountability judgm…
Early cross-cultural commonalities in social explanation
Limiting the Scope of Moral Obligations to Help: A Cross-Cultural Investigation
Two studies compared the judgments of U.S. and Indian students regarding the obligation to save someone's life by donating bone marrow. Indians were more likely to consider donation to be morally required, even when the needy person was a stranger "on the other side of the world." Both groups limited obligations to help out-group members, but Americans also limited obligations to help in-group members from the same town. Indians regarded donating…
Cultural variation in communal versus exchange norms: Implications for social support
Whereas an interdependent cultural view of self has been linked to communal norms and to socially supportive behavior, its relationship to social support has been called into question in research suggesting that discomfort in social support is associated with an interdependent cultural view of self (e.g., Taylor et al., 2004). These contrasting claims were addressed in 2 studies conducted among Japanese, Indian, and American adults. Assessing eve…
Culture and the role of exchange vs. communal norms in friendship
The Interdependence of Interpretive Ethnographic and Quantitative Psychological Methodologies in Cultural Psychology
Arguments are made in this commentary for the importance of integrating quantitative psychological and interpretive ethnographic methodologies in cultural psychology, and for overcoming the present insularity related to disciplinary affiliation of work within this tradition. Theoretical attention centers on the importance of cultural sensitivity, the compatibility of alternative empirical methodologies, and the pragmatic nature of explanation
Beliefs in inevitable justice curb revenge behaviours: Cultural perspectives on karma
Across cultures, people believe that moral actions have ‘karmic’ consequences. Do cultures share assumptions about how karma operates? Four studies ( N = 1114) assessed cultural differences in perceptions of inevitability associated with karmic justice and whether perceiving karma as inevitable curbs antisocial behaviours, such as revenge. Study 1 found that Indians perceived karmic justice as more inevitable than Americans and reported lower rev…
Norm-based spontaneous categorization: Cultural norms shape meaning and memory
We highlight the role that culture-specific norms play in cognitively predisposing individuals to organize information in the environment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)
Cost and Family Obligation in Everyday Sacrifice to Parents Among European American and Chinese Emerging Adults
Cultural studies on sacrifices made by emerging adults have given limited attention to the cost involved. We addressed this issue in studies among U.S. and Chinese emerging adults. Assessing real-life instances of sacrifice, Study 1 ( N = 130) showed that Chinese sacrifice for their parents in a higher cost way than do European Americans. In a vignette-based experiment, Study 2 ( N = 254) demonstrated that family obligation motivates high-cost sa…
Culture and the development of views of agency: Perspectives from storybooks, parents, and children
The present three-study investigation examined cultural influences on the internalization of social expectations. Testing the claim of self-determination theory that lesser internalization of social expectations is linked to socialization practices that portray social expectations as in conflict with autonomy, in Study 1 we undertook a content analysis of the views of social expectations portrayed in American and Indian storybooks. Results indica…
The Importance of Timing in Reciprocity: An Investigation of Reciprocity Norms Among Indians and Americans
After receiving help, individuals tend to experience an immediate increase in obligation to be responsive to the helper. Cross-cultural research has shown that whereas this sense of obligation dissipates for Americans after reciprocation, it remains unchanged after reciprocation for Indians. Is this decrease in obligation felt by Americans temporary, or can it endure over years such that it provides immunity from responding to the helper? And is …
Developing Conceptions of Responsive Intentional Agents
We argue that folk psychology and folk morality both develop from the same core conception of persons, namely a concept of a responsive intentional agent. Key features of this conception are evident in infancy and develop universally in the preschool years across cultures and languages. Even these early understandings develop, shaped and specified via processes of cognitive construction intertwined with cultural constructs of persons provided wit…
Culture in Conversation: A Commentary on Pontecorvo and Fasulo’s ‘Planning a Typical Italian Meal’
This commentary identifies respects in which the theories of culture adopted in the culture and self and sociocultural traditions of cultural psychology are each constrained, in part, by their psychologically grounded research agendas. While tapping non-rational and thematic aspects of culture, research on culture and the self provides only limited insight into its dynamic and heterogeneous nature and into processes of enculturation. In turn, whi…
Culture and the development of everyday social explanation
Early cross-cultural commonalities in social explanation
When do American children and adults reason in social conventional terms
Perceptions of social responsibilities in India and in the United States: Moral imperatives or personal decisions
Culture and moral judgment: How are conflicts between justice and interpersonal responsibilities resolved
A 2-session study examined Indian and American adults' and children's (N = 140) reasoning about moral dilemmas involving conflicts between interpersonal and justice expectations. Most Indians gave priority to the interpersonal expectations, whereas most Americans gave priority to the justice expectations. Indians tended to categorize their conflict resolutions in moral terms. In contrast, when Americans gave priority to the interpersonal alternat…
Culture, context, and the development of moral accountability judgments
This study examined the impact of contextual factors on Indian and American adults'and children's (N= 180) tendencies to hold agents morally accountable for justice breaches. Results revealed that Indians more frequently absolved agents of moral accountability for breaches performed under emotional duress or by young children than did Americans. Breaches were less frequently categorized in moral terms when moral reasoning and accountability judgm…
Cultural Diversity in the Morality of Caring: Individually Oriented Versus Duty-Based Interpersonal Moral Codes
This article argues that there exists not one universal morality of caring contrasting with the morality of justice but, rather, alternative types of interpersonal moralities that reflect the meaning systems emphasized in different cultural groups. Both the superogatory view of interpersonal morality held by Lawrence Kohlberg and the morality-of-caring framework developed by Carol Gilligan are shown to be culturally bound. Research conducted amon…
Psychology as a Cultural Discipline that has Strayed from its Past
Agency and context in cultural psychology: Implications for moral theory
This commentary examines the previous chapters and argues that a challenge for work on morality is to retain a concern with both context sensitivity and agency, while giving weight to the impact of culture on the development of self
Taking Culture into Account in Social Cognitive Development
Cultural explanations have often been ignored in developmental psychology. The reasons for rejecting them are discussed and it is maintained that theories of development need to be culturally dependent. These reasons include the belief in the redundancy of collective and individual information, the argu ment that cultural learning is a passive and deterministic process and that cultural explanations do not predict and are unable to account for co…
The Interdependence of Interpretive Ethnographic and Quantitative Psychological Methodologies in Cultural Psychology
Arguments are made in this commentary for the importance of integrating quantitative psychological and interpretive ethnographic methodologies in cultural psychology, and for overcoming the present insularity related to disciplinary affiliation of work within this tradition. Theoretical attention centers on the importance of cultural sensitivity, the compatibility of alternative empirical methodologies, and the pragmatic nature of explanation
The Role of Liking in Perceptions of the Moral Responsibility to Help: A Cultural Perspective
Culture in Conversation: A Commentary on Pontecorvo and Fasulo’s ‘Planning a Typical Italian Meal’
This commentary identifies respects in which the theories of culture adopted in the culture and self and sociocultural traditions of cultural psychology are each constrained, in part, by their psychologically grounded research agendas. While tapping non-rational and thematic aspects of culture, research on culture and the self provides only limited insight into its dynamic and heterogeneous nature and into processes of enculturation. In turn, whi…
Limiting the Scope of Moral Obligations to Help: A Cross-Cultural Investigation
Two studies compared the judgments of U.S. and Indian students regarding the obligation to save someone's life by donating bone marrow. Indians were more likely to consider donation to be morally required, even when the needy person was a stranger "on the other side of the world." Both groups limited obligations to help out-group members, but Americans also limited obligations to help in-group members from the same town. Indians regarded donating…
Between Culture and Biology: Perspectives on Ontogenetic Development
Between Culture and Biology breaks away from the traditional nature/nurture dialectic and brings together biological, psychological and cultural perspectives on development. In this thought-provoking book, the argument is put forward that the biological bases of behaviour and cultural context should be approached in an integrated fashion to properly understand ontogenetic development and that both the cultural and biological demain provide constr…
Bringing culture to basic psychological theory--Beyond individualism and collectivism: Comment on Oyserman et al. (2002)
D. Oyserman, H. M. Coon, and M. Kemmelmeir (2002) offered a comprehensive literature review on individualism and collectivism that forwards valuable suggestions for ways to enhance future research conducted within this framework. The author argues that although their criticisms of much contemporary social psychological research on individualism and collectivism are valid, even more fundamental problems need to be recognized as characterizing work…
Parent–Adolescent Relationships in the Context of Interpersonal Disagreements: View from a Collectivist Culture
The paper is based on a study that aims to understand adolescent–parent relationships in the context of interpersonal disagreements. The issue of disagreements or disputes between parents and adolescents is of interest because of its relevance to understanding universal versus culturally variable features of adolescent development and parent–adolescent relationships. The study focused on understanding the dynamics of dispute resolution in Indian …
Developing Conceptions of Responsive Intentional Agents
We argue that folk psychology and folk morality both develop from the same core conception of persons, namely a concept of a responsive intentional agent. Key features of this conception are evident in infancy and develop universally in the preschool years across cultures and languages. Even these early understandings develop, shaped and specified via processes of cognitive construction intertwined with cultural constructs of persons provided wit…
Including Deontic Reasoning as Fundamental to Theory of Mind
While recognizing major contributions of the contemporary theory-of-mind framework, we identify conceptual and cultural gaps with respect to its inattention to deontic considerations. The framework has tended to portray behavior as purely self-directed, thereby neglecting everyday reasoners’ understanding of behavior as normatively based. However, in everyday reasoning, belief-desire (theory of mind) and obligation-permission (deontic) concerns i…
The Moral Emotions of Guilt and Satisfaction: A Cross-Cultural Perspective
Major psychological theories of morality and motivation make the assumption that an inverse relationship exists between guilt and satisfaction. To the extent that feelings of guilt are linked to a particular motivational or moral stance, it is assume
Contents, Vol. 40, 1997
Understanding the Role of Worldviews in Morality
Commentaries| January 21 2010 Understanding the Role of Worldviews in Morality Subject Area: Psychiatry and Psychology , Women's and Children's Health Joan G. Miller Joan G. Miller University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich., USA Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Human Development (1997) 40 (6): 350–354. https://doi.org/10.1159/000278739 Article history Published Online: January 21 2010 Content Tools Views Ico…
Culture and the role of choice in agency
Three cross-cultural studies conducted among U.S. and Indian adults compared perceptions of helping friends in strongly versus weakly expected cases, views of helping family versus strangers, and responses to a self-determination motivation scale. Expectations to help family and friends were positively correlated with satisfaction and choice only among Indians and not among Americans. Also, whereas U.S. respondents associated lesser satisfaction …
Culture and Social Psychology
The chapter presents a theoretical and empirical overview of social psychological research in cultural psychology. Consideration is given to the processes that have contributed to minimizing the significance of culture both in mainstream social psychology and in early traditions of cross-cultural research. Work in cultural psychology challenges the prevailing neglect of culture in psychology and to offer new understandings of the essential role o…
Culture and the role of exchange vs. communal norms in friendship
Psychology (34 works) · Social Psychology (31 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (28 works) · Sociology (21 works) · Social Psychology (18 works) · Epistemology (17 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (14 works) · Political science (10 works) · Developmental psychology (9 works) · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (9 works)