Mapping Culture and Rationality Across Four Countries: Expanding the Conceptual Horizons of Strong-Ties and Weak-Ties Rationality

The Strong-Ties and Weak-Ties Rationality Scale (STWTRS) is a theory-driven measure of the culture-insiders’ reasoning about the world. In this study, we further explored the latent structure of STWTRS in a cross-indigenous study (n = 2,173) conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic in two Asian countries (China and Malaysia) and two Western countries (Australia and the United States). We hypothesized that strong ties (ST) versus weak ties (WT) rationality can predict different downstream perceptions such as preferred support system and public stigma (PS) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results revealed consistently a two-factor structure in ST rationality—ST as communal (ST-C) and ST as authoritarian (ST-A); and in WT rationality—WT as analytic (WT-A) and WT as independent (WT-I), across four countries. Within-country comparisons revealed that both Asian countries had significantly higher ST scores than WT scores, whereas WT was significantly higher than ST in both Western countries. As predicted, across all four countries, ST-C was positively and significantly correlated with social tightness and preferred ST support system, whereas ST-A was the best predictor for PS. Variations of correlation patterns across countries could be explained by their respective exposure to Western influence. Findings could be explained by ecological-rationality match and construal-level theory, thereby opening up new conceptual horizons for future research in culture and rationality.