Li-Jun Ji

In Western contexts, self-disclosure is commonly considered beneficial, while nondisclosure is often viewed as dysfunctional. The current research challenges the universality of this assumption about nondisclosure by examining the tendencies, mechanisms, and psychological consequences of self-disclosure from young adults to their parents across three distinct cultural contexts: Euro-Canadian (independent), Chinese (self-effacing interdependent), and Mexican (expressive interdependent) cultures. We found that self-disclosure is generally more essential in the independent culture, as evidenced by members’ higher disclosure tendencies, higher consideration of personal benefits in disclosure decision-making, and greater psychological benefits from disclosure. In contrast, nondisclosure, especially of negative events, may serve more relationship-protective functions in the self-effacing interdependent culture than in the independent culture. People from the expressive interdependent culture appear to use disclosure and nondisclosure situationally to balance personal needs with group responsibilities. These empirical findings support our proposed culturally situated self-(non)disclosure model (PRISM), which synthesizes the functions of self-(non)disclosure into four categories: personal benefit, relational promotion, individuality protection, and social safeguarding. According to this model, different cultural backgrounds shape unique (non)disclosure considerations, decisions, and consequences through individual, familial, and cultural factors. Conceptualizing self-(non)disclosure under this new framework advances theoretical understanding of disclosure behaviors across cultures and offers crucial insights into the unique features of different types of cultures.

This research comprehensively examined regional variations in individualism and collectivism within China and the explanatory power of 20 potential factors derived from the existing cultural psychological theories, including socioecological (e.g., climates, subsistence activities, and modernization) and population (e.g., ethnicity, genetic and linguistic features) ones. Three large-scale studies were conducted. In Study 1 ( N = 18,606), we assessed 11 markers of individualism-collectivism. In Studies 2 and 3, we evaluated whether the main findings of Study 1 could be replicated in two large community samples ( N = 8,167 and 20,590, respectively) when perceived cultures of individualism and collectivism were considered and when the pandemic of COVID-19 was going on, respectively. Three studies consistently showed that (1) systematic East-West differences in individualism and collectivism existed, with higher individualism and lower collectivism in Eastern China than in Western China; meanwhile, there was some suggestive evidence of North-South differences, with higher individualism and lower collectivism in Southern China than in Northern China; (2) among the predictive socioecological (e.g., pathogen prevalence, modernization) and population factors (e.g., ethnicity, genetic and linguistic relatedness), modernization was the most potent and robust predictor of individualism and collectivism; (3) regional cultural variations often arose from the combined influences of multiple factors; and (4) the evidence supported most existing theories about the sources of cultural variation, with a few exceptions (e.g., the rice theory). These findings provide novel insights into regional cultural variations and the applicability of many relevant theories within China, and also shed light on cross-cultural psychology in general.

Across five studies, we reveal consistent cultural differences in how humor is perceived, created and appreciated: compared to Americans, Chinese individuals were more likely to produce, appreciate, and associate humor with more profound meaning. Study 1 ( N = 298) used a free association paradigm and found a stronger tendency among Chinese than American participants to associate humor with meaningfulness. Study 2 ( N = 222) showed that humor generated by Chinese participants contained more depth and meaning than that of American participants. Study 3 ( N = 200) compared short humorous videos from Chinese ( Douyin ) and American ( TikTok ) social media platforms and found that videos on Douyin contained more meaning than those on TikTok . Finally, Study 4 ( N = 611) used a cultural sampling method to examine how participants’ cultural background and origin of humor influence people’s liking of meaningful humor. The results indicated that Chinese participants liked meaningful humor more than nonmeaningful humor to a greater extent than American participants. Study 5 ( N = 500) extended these findings to a more naturalistic context. The research highlights a new dimension of humor (meaningfulness) that has never been studied before and contributes significantly to the literature on culture and humor.

We hypothesized and tested in six studies that cultural tightness-strong social norms and low tolerance for deviance in a culture-would influence people's sense of humor, particularly humor production. Studies 1 (N = 279) and 2 (N = 278) demonstrated that participants from a tight culture (China) scored lower on humor production compared with participants from a loose culture (the United States). Study 3 (N = 441) generalized the results to a broader sample involving three tight and two loose countries. Study 4 (N = 199) replicated the effect while examining a tight (but individualist) culture with a loose (but collectivist) culture. A mini meta-analysis showed that humor production is negatively related to cultural tightness but unrelated to collectivism. Studies 5a (N = 233) and 5b (N = 246) with priming found that cultural tightness hindered humor production. Drawing on cross-cultural evidence, the research unpacks culture and presents the first causal evidence of how cultural tightness influences humor. The findings have important implications for cultural understandings of humor and intercultural communication. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Holistic and global cognition are often treated as interchangeable terms in psychological science to describe broad-scope cognitive styles. However, this conflation obscures important theoretical and methodological distinctions between the two constructs. In this review, we disentangle holistic and global cognition by tracing their conceptual foundations, measurement approaches, and empirical correlates. We argue that while both involve attending to “the big picture”, they are grounded in fundamentally different mechanisms: holistic cognition emphasizes sensitivity to context, relational reasoning, and causality, whereas global cognition reflects a tendency to prioritize higher-level, abstract, or gestalt features over local details. Drawing on cognitive, behavioral, and cross-cultural evidence, we synthesize findings that illustrate both the dissociation between these constructs, their underlying mechanisms, and their differential associations with other variables, as well as areas where they overlap. By mapping where these constructs diverge and converge, we provide a clearer conceptual and methodological distinction that reconciles past inconsistencies. We argue that such clarity is crucial for avoiding misinterpretation of findings and misalignment of measures. To this end, we offer concrete guidelines for defining, operationalizing, and studying these constructs, and call for more rigorous theoretical precision in future work.

The present research examines cultural variations in how individuals perceive and infer others in relationships. In three studies, we compared Chinese and Euro-Canadian participants’ descriptions and judgements of close friends and acquaintances. In Study 1, when describing others, Chinese participants used more semantically dissimilar descriptions for close friends than for acquaintances, whereas Euro-Canadians showed no difference across the targets. In Studies 2 and 3, participants were presented with person descriptions and asked to judge whether a close friend or an acquaintance wrote the description. Chinese participants were more likely to infer relational closeness from dissimilar descriptions, whereas Euro-Canadians were more likely to infer closeness from similar descriptions. These findings suggest that culture plays a significant role in how people perceive and describe relationships, highlighting the importance of considering cultural context in understanding relationships and social perception.

Research shows that perceived naturalness can bias beliefs about the positivity of items such as food, human talent, and vaccines. Yet, this research focuses on self-reports, which leaves open the implications it has for behavior. In four studies ( N = 492), we tested if perceived naturalness impacts trivial and meaningful behaviors. Participants were asked to consume a purported natural/synthetic performance drink (Study 1), test a purported natural/synthetic drug that would be injected (Study 2), eat chocolate containing a purported natural/synthetic cocoa described as causing stomach discomfort (Study 3), or choose a sticker purportedly made with natural/synthetic ink (Study 4). A significant majority of participants (66%–84%) chose and followed through with the natural versus synthetic option. Perceived naturalness guided behavior in contexts involving little (sticker choice) to substantial (drug injection) potential consequences. Self-reports can weakly predict behaviors, but the results revealed that perceived naturalness biases self-reports and behaviors in a similar fashion.