Continuities and discontinuities in the cultural evolution of global consciousness

Global consciousness (GC), encompassing cosmopolitan orientation, global orientations (i.e. openness to multicultural experiences) and identification with all humanity, is a relatively stable individual difference that is strongly associated with pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours, less ingroup favouritism and prejudice, and greater pandemic prevention safety behaviours. Little is known about how it is socialized in everyday life. Using stratified samples from six societies, socializing institution factors correlating positively with GC were education, white collar work (and its higher income) and religiosity. However, GC also decreased with increasing age, contradicting a 'wisdom of elders' transmission of social learning, and not replicating typical findings that general prosociality increases with age. Longitudinal findings were that empathy-building, network-enhancing elements like getting married or welcoming a new infant, increased GC the most across a three-month interval. Instrumental gains like receiving a promotion (or getting a better job) also showed positive effects. Less intuitively, death of a close-other enhanced rather than reduced GC. Perhaps this was achieved through the ritualized management of meaning where a sense of the smallness of self is associated with growth of empathy for the human condition, as a more discontinuous or opportunistic form of culture-based learning. This article is part of the theme issue 'Evolution and sustainability: gathering the strands for an Anthropocene synthesis'.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2024

Erschienen:

2024

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:379

Enthalten in:

Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences - 379(2024), 1893 vom: 11. Jan., Seite 20220263

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Zhang, Robert Jiqi [VerfasserIn]
Liu, James H [VerfasserIn]
Lee, Michelle [VerfasserIn]
Lin, Mei-Hua [VerfasserIn]
Xie, Tian [VerfasserIn]
Chen, Sylvia Xiaohua [VerfasserIn]
Leung, Angela K-Y [VerfasserIn]
Lee, I-Ching [VerfasserIn]
Hodgetts, Darrin [VerfasserIn]
Valdes, Evan A [VerfasserIn]
Choi, Sarah Y [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Cosmopolitanism
Cultural evolution
Death
Global consciousness
Identification with all humanity
Journal Article
Social learning

Anmerkungen:

Date Completed 14.11.2023

Date Revised 10.01.2024

published: Print-Electronic

Citation Status MEDLINE

doi:

10.1098/rstb.2022.0263

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM364442697