Psychological Aspects of Social Axioms

Humans are surrounded by trillions of stimuli. Their eyes, for instance, can discriminate 7,500,000 colors. But, there is a severe limitation in the number of discriminably different stimuli that they can process at one time. George Miller argued that they can handle no more than seven, plus or minus two independent pieces of information at any given time. Thus, necessarily they must develop ways to simplify the task of processing the information that exists in their environment. They do this in many ways. One way is to select the stimuli that are most imp- tant in their lives, what are often called values. Another way is to chunk stimuli by linking them to each other, so they form bundles of stimuli that can be processed as if they are one entity. Generalized expectancies of what is linked with what are beliefs, and these beliefs are structured into bundles (see Triandis, 1972).

Kwok Leung is professor and Head of Management at City University of Hong Kong. He received his doctorate in social and organizational psychology at the University of Illinois. He is Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Journal of International Business Studies and senior editor of Management and Organization Review. His research areas include justice and conflict, cross-cultural psychology and research methods, and international business.

Michael Harris Bond is Professor of Psychology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He graduated from Stanford University, where he began his study of person perception, subsequently broadened to include research into the areas of justice, aggression, and impression management.

Integrative Reviews and Basic Issues.- The Mileage from Social Axioms: Learning from the Past and Looking Forward.- Social Axioms and Organizational Behavior.- Structural Equivalence and Differential Item Functioning in the Social Axioms Survey.- Exploring Ethnic Group and Geographic Differences in Social Axioms in the USA.- Social Axioms among Malay, Chinese, and Kadazan Students in Sabah, Malaysia: Differences in Gender and Ethnic Groups.- Transmission of Social Axioms.- Are Parents Decisive? The Intergenerational Transmission of Social Axioms Under Conditions of Rapid Social Change.- Processes of Transmission and Change of Social Axioms and their Behavioral Influence in Spanish Culture.- Nomological Network of Social Axioms.- Linking Social Axioms with Behavioral Indicators and Personality in Romania.- Exploring the Links between Social Axioms and the Epistemological Beliefs about Learning held by Filipino Students.- An Examination of Proactive Coping and Social Beliefs among Christians and Muslims.- Social Axioms in Greece: Etic and Emic Dimensions and their Relationships with Locus of Control.- Do General Beliefs Predict Specific Behavioral Intentions in Indonesia? The Role of Social Axioms within the Theory of Planned Behavior.- Cynicism in Love and in Politics.- Social Axioms in Italian Culture: Relationships with Locus of Control and Moral Development.- Social Axioms and IndividualisticCollectivist Orientations in Indian College Students.- Explaining Individuating Behavior Across Cultures: The Contributions of Values and Social Axioms.- Conclusion.- Believing in Beliefs: A Scientific but Personal Quest.