The Religious Bias of Love and Prejudice

Many religious teachings emphasize love, kindness, and generosity as the primary cultural values. Whether or not you are religious, you have probably heard of the “Golden Rule.” It states that you should treat others as you would like to be … Continue reading

Different Love Styles in Cross-cultural Perspective

During the 1970s, Canadian sociologist John Alan Lee explored a number of different love styles that men and women practice in their romantic relationships (Lee, 1973, 1976). This theory and method have become significant contributions to the individual typology of … Continue reading

How People Experience and Express Emotions in Individualistic Cultures

Several cultural ideals, the norms of social life, personality traits, emotions, and behavior define the individualistic features of societies. The key attributes of an individualistic culture are personal autonomy and relational independence, the primacy of a person’s individuality and uniqueness, … Continue reading

Cultural Values in Individualistic Cultures

Individualism and collectivism are the two opposite constructs and dimensions of culture. These dimensions have been among the most popular in cultural and cross-cultural studies of the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s (Hofstede, 1980/1984; Marsella et al., 1985; Triandis, 1995). … Continue reading

How People Experience Emotions in Collectivistic Cultures

People in collectivistic societies commonly have a personal identity strongly integrated into their group. Accordingly, the cultural norms of collectivistic societies assume interdependent relations with each other and with a group, such as extended family and kin. Their relational values … Continue reading

Cultural Values in Collectivistic Cultures

Collectivism and individualism were among the cultural constructs and dimensions that early cross-cultural psychologists identified and elaborated on in the 1980s and 1990s (Hofstede, 1980/1984; Marsella et al., 1985; Triandis, 1995). Since then, researchers have widely used the cultural parameters … Continue reading

How Romantic Was the Ancient Aryan Love?

The term “Aryan culture” refers to the ancient cultural civilizations that existed many centuries ago. The word “Aryan” was often used interchangeably with “Indo-European” to mean Indo-Iranian languages. Here I will talk about Aryan love. Who Were the Aryans? In … Continue reading

Surprising Findings on How Religions Affect the Expression of Emotions

Religious teachings give their followers lessons about the world, life, the mind, emotions, and behaviors. Among other important things in human life, religions teach believers the proper ways to experience and express emotions (for a review, see Karandashev, 2021a). In … Continue reading

The Measurement Pitfalls of Research Designs in Cultural Studies of Religions

Cross-cultural comparability and generalizability are the problems that come up in religious studies and need to be solved for scientific progress (Karandashev, 2021a; Karandashev et al., 2022; Fischer, 2022). When studying behavioral and social phenomena in various populations and religious … Continue reading

Religions in Cultural Perspectives

How Are Religious Cultures Different from National Cultures? Religious cultures are similar to national cultures yet differ in several ways. Religion, like national and ethnic cultures, can be thought of as a type of culture and a cultural system (Cohen, … Continue reading