Volume 84, Issue 4 pp. 493-509
Original Article

The World at 7:00: Comparing the Experience of Situations Across 20 Countries

Esther Guillaume

Esther Guillaume

University of California, Riverside

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Erica Baranski

Erica Baranski

University of California, Riverside

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Elysia Todd

Elysia Todd

University of California, Riverside

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Brock Bastian

Brock Bastian

University of Queensland

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Igor Bronin

Igor Bronin

Ural Federal University

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Christina Ivanova

Christina Ivanova

Ural Federal University

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Joey T. Cheng

Joey T. Cheng

University of California, Berkeley

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François S. de Kock

François S. de Kock

University of Cape Town

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Jaap J. A. Denissen

Jaap J. A. Denissen

Tilburg University

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David Gallardo-Pujol

David Gallardo-Pujol

University of Barcelona

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Peter Halama

Peter Halama

Slovak Academy of Sciences

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Gyuseog Q. Han

Gyuseog Q. Han

Chonnam National University

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Jaechang Bae

Jaechang Bae

Chonnam National University

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Jungsoon Moon

Jungsoon Moon

Chonnam National University

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Ryan Y. Hong

Ryan Y. Hong

National University of Singapore

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Martina Hřebíčková

Martina Hřebíčková

Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic

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Sylvie Graf

Sylvie Graf

Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic

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Paweł Izdebski

Paweł Izdebski

Kazimierz Wielki University

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Lars Lundmann

Lars Lundmann

University of Copenhagen

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Lars Penke

Lars Penke

Georg August University, Göttingen

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Marco Perugini

Marco Perugini

University of Milan

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Giulio Costantini

Giulio Costantini

University of Milan

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John Rauthmann

John Rauthmann

Humboldt University, Berlin

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Matthias Ziegler

Matthias Ziegler

Humboldt University, Berlin

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Anu Realo

Anu Realo

University of Tartu

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Liisalotte Elme

Liisalotte Elme

University of Tartu

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Tatsuya Sato

Tatsuya Sato

Ritsumeikan University

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Shizuka Kawamoto

Shizuka Kawamoto

Ritsumeikan University

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Piotr Szarota

Piotr Szarota

Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences

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Jessica L. Tracy

Jessica L. Tracy

University of British Columbia

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Marcel A. G. van Aken

Marcel A. G. van Aken

University of Utrecht

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Yu Yang

Yu Yang

China Europe International Business School

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David C. Funder

Corresponding Author

David C. Funder

University of California, Riverside

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to David Funder, Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521 USA. Email: [email protected].Search for more papers by this author
First published: 21 March 2015
Citations: 33

Author affiliations are listed in the Appendix.

Data gathering was assisted by Joanne Fullerton, Danique van den Hanenberg, Sakiko Kumagai, and Elizabet Orekhova. Portions of the U.S. and Japanese data were utilized in an earlier paper (Funder, Guillaume, Kumagi, Kawamoto, & Sato, 2012), but all of the analyses reported here are new.

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to quantitatively compare everyday situational experience around the world.

Local collaborators recruited 5,447 members of college communities in 20 countries, who provided data via a Web site in 14 languages. Using the 89 items of the Riverside Situational Q-sort (RSQ), participants described the situation they experienced the previous evening at 7:00 p.m.

Correlations among the average situational profiles of each country ranged from r = .73 to r = .95; the typical situation was described as largely pleasant. Most similar were the United States/Canada; least similar were South Korea/Denmark. Japan had the most homogenous situational experience; South Korea, the least. The 15 RSQ items varying the most across countries described relatively negative aspects of situational experience; the 15 least varying items were more positive. Further analyses correlated RSQ items with national scores on six value dimensions, the Big Five traits, economic output, and population. Individualism, Neuroticism, Openness, and Gross Domestic Product yielded more significant correlations than expected by chance.

Psychological research traditionally has paid more attention to the assessment of persons than of situations, a discrepancy that extends to cross-cultural psychology. The present study demonstrates how cultures vary in situational experience in psychologically meaningful ways.

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