A cross-cultural study of strong ties and weak ties rationalities: toward an ontological turn in psychology

Kuang-Hui Yeh, Louise Sundararajan, Rachel Sing-Kiat Ting, Charles Liu, Tao Liu, Kejia Zhang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We developed the Strong Ties Weak Ties Rationality Scale (STWTRS) to demonstrate the heuristic value of the ontological turn which attempts to do justice to the cultural insider’s picture of what is real. To test empirically the hypothesis of the existence of two distinct ontological universes that fall along the divide between strong ties and weak ties ontological framings, we used STWTRS to conduct a cross-cultural study (n = 961) using four samples (i.e., Taiwanese, Yi Chinese, Asian American, and non-Asian American). The results support our claim that the ontological universe of the cultural insider is not a list of fragmentary, ever expanding list of attributes that proliferate in cross-cultural psychology, so much as a coherent wholeness. We argue that this concept is best articulated by Maturana and Varela’s (1980) theory of autopoietic living systems. Potential contributions to the literature and future research directions are discussed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)235-259
Number of pages25
JournalThe Humanistic Psychologist
Volume51
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2022

Keywords

  • Autopoiesis
  • Individualism versus collectivism
  • Moral cognition
  • Ontological turn
  • Strong ties versus weak ties

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