Several validated image sets, such as NAPS, IAPS, GAPED, and OASIS, have been developed to elicit affective states. However, these image sets were primarily validated on Western populations within European and American contexts, and none have been fully validated in a Southeast Asian sample, where emotional restraint may also be valued similarly to the East Asian contexts. This study aimed to validate and provide norms for the Nencki Affective Picture System (NAPS; Marchewka et al., 2014) within a Malaysian sample. Subsets from the 1356 NAPS images consisting of five image categories (faces, people, objects, landscapes, animals) were presented sequentially to 409 Malaysian adults aged 18 and above, who rated images for valence, arousal and approach/avoidance on a 9-point Likert scale. Valence, arousal and approach/avoidance norms were compared against the original European sample. Malaysian men and women rated images with lower valence and motivation than Europeans, but Malaysian men showed higher arousal ratings compared to European men, while Malaysian women exhibited the opposite pattern, with lower arousal ratings than European women. A linear regression was found instead of a classic 'boomerang' shaped quadratic regression previously observed in Western samples, suggesting that emotional suppression may be at play, in line with social norms. The Malaysian normative ratings will be freely available to all researchers.
The emergence of COVID-19 dramatically changed social behavior across societies and contexts. Here we study whether social norms also changed. Specifically, we study this question for cultural tightness (the degree to which societies generally have strong norms), specific social norms (e.g. stealing, hand washing), and norms about enforcement, using survey data from 30,431 respondents in 43 countries recorded before and in the early stages following the emergence of COVID-19. Using variation in disease intensity, we shed light on the mechanisms predicting changes in social norm measures. We find evidence that, after the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, hand washing norms increased while tightness and punishing frequency slightly decreased but observe no evidence for a robust change in most other norms. Thus, at least in the short term, our findings suggest that cultures are largely stable to pandemic threats except in those norms, hand washing in this case, that are perceived to be directly relevant to dealing with the collective threat.
Norm enforcement may be important for resolving conflicts and promoting cooperation. However, little is known about how preferred responses to norm violations vary across cultures and across domains. In a preregistered study of 57 countries (using convenience samples of 22,863 students and non-students), we measured perceptions of the appropriateness of various responses to a violation of a cooperative norm and to atypical social behaviors. Our findings highlight both cultural universals and cultural variation. We find a universal negative relation between appropriateness ratings of norm violations and appropriateness ratings of responses in the form of confrontation, social ostracism and gossip. Moreover, we find the country variation in the appropriateness of sanctions to be consistent across different norm violations but not across different sanctions. Specifically, in those countries where use of physical confrontation and social ostracism is rated as less appropriate, gossip is rated as more appropriate.