Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology

Globalization has rendered culture mixing a pervading and overwhelming phenomenon. Culture mixing refers to the coexistence of representative symbols of different cultures in the same space at the same time. It reflects the new paradigm of polyculturalism in the culture and psychology research. The articles in this issue offer nuanced understandings to features of the culture mixing stimuli, personal and situational factors that affect responses to culture mixing, and the sociocultural and psychological consequences of culture mixing. We discuss how these articles provide a new context that extends existing psychological theories and set the stage for the burgeoning psychological inquiry of culture mixing. Future research is needed to uncover how different cultural elements are mixed and how ecological factors affect responses to culture mixing, to investigate the underlying psychological mechanisms of culture mixing, and use multiple methods at various levels of analysis to uncover the dynamic, interactive culturally mixed processes.

Humans possess evolved mechanisms to detect and reject contamination by potentially harmful foreign substances. These mechanisms may also function in the rejection of violations in the social order. Here, we propose that the disgust evaluation system may also be sensitive to culture mixing, especially when elements of own and foreign cultures occupy the same space at the same time (culture fusion). Across four studies, we observe support for this prediction. Paralleling disgust ratings for contaminants mixing with pure objects associated with the self (Study 1A), representations of blending and fusion between elements of own and foreign cultures were rated as more disgusting than simultaneous presentation of the same cultural elements without fusion (Studies 1B and 2). Disgust toward culture fusion was observed over and above incongruity associated with mixing two in-group cultural representations (Study 4). Moreover, selective disgust toward in-group–out-group culture fusion was especially pronounced among those endorsing higher levels of patriotism (Studies 1B, 2, and 4), but not when culture fusion involved two foreign representations (Study 3). These findings support the notion that the architecture for pathogenic- and food-based disgust may have been extended to reject external threats to the fidelity of in-group identity markers by out-group influences.

When and why do local communities display negative or exclusionary responses to mixing and blending of local and foreign cultural symbols in the same space or percept? Results from three experiments showed that the local community reacted most negatively to culture mixing when both objects were perceived to be icons or symbols of their culture of origin (Experiments 1-3). Experiment 3 further shows that concern about cultural contamination underlies exclusionary responses to culture mixing. We also identified two conditions that can deactivate such responses. First, even when the cultural symbols were presented simultaneously, keeping a distance between them assuages the concern over cultural contamination (Experiment 3) and reduces the perceivers’ negativity to culture mixing (Experiments 1-3). Second, not attributing cultural symbolism to either cultural object also makes exclusionary responses less likely (Experiments 1-3). These effects were observed among Americans (Experiments 1 and 2) and Chinese (Experiment 3) and across three different examples of culture mixing.

This research examined how affective and cognitive responses to culture fusion, a specific type of culture mixing that features the blending of different cultures or parts thereof into a new entity, are influenced by individual differences in Need for Closure (NFC). Two studies showed that individuals high (vs. low) in NFC felt less favorable toward culture fusion (i.e., the affective response), both at an abstract level (i.e., society structure models; Study 1, N = 191) and at a more concrete level (i.e., food stimuli; Study 2, N = 257). In addition, high NFC individuals tended to assign culturally fused stimuli to one discrete culture, rather than acknowledging them as culturally hybrid (i.e., the cognitive response). Furthermore, mediation analyses showed that the relationships between NFC and responses toward culture fusion were mediated by Right-Wing Authoritarianism. These findings are interpreted in terms of the threat to epistemic security needs posed by culture fusion.

The article examines the effect of bicultural framing strategy on the evaluation of culturally mixed products (CMPs). Across two experiments, we demonstrate a self–other asymmetry effect in the CMP evaluation. Specifically, we examine the “foreign-culture home-culture” strategy in which the foreign culture “modifies” the home culture. This phenomenon leads to less favorable evaluation of CMPs relative to the “home-culture foreign-culture” strategy in which the home culture “modifies” the foreign culture. Furthermore, the findings show that consumers’ perception of cultural intrusion mediates the effect of framing strategy on CMP evaluation. We also identify the boundary condition wherein the self–other asymmetry is attenuated when people focus their judgment on facts (as opposed to motivation).

Past research has examined independently how openness to experience, as a personality trait, and the situational threat triggered by a foreign cultural encounter affect the emergence of creative benefits from a culture-mixing experience. The present research provides the first evidence for the interactive effect of openness to experience and cultural threat following culturally mixed encounters on creative performance. In Study 1, under heightened perceptions of cultural threat, exposing to the mixing of Chinese and American cultures (vs. a non-mixed situation) made close-minded Chinese participants to perform more poorly in a creative generation task. In Study 2, inducing cultural threat by having a foreign cultural icon spatially intrude a sacred space of the local culture caused Chinese participants with lower levels of openness to perform less creatively when the foreign icon was deemed highly symbolic of the foreign culture. These patterns of effects did not emerge among open-minded participants. These findings suggest that trait openness acts as a buffer against foreign cultural threat to sustain the creative benefits of culture mixing.

Recent research has begun to examine the impact of cultural mixing on human psychology. We conducted four experiments to examine the influence of intrusive cultural mixing on implicit intergroup attitudes. Our results indicated that (a) intrusive cultural mixing augmented implicit prejudice toward the intruding foreign cultural group (Study 1), (b) heightened implicit prejudice partially mediated boycotting behavior provoked by intrusive cultural mixing (Study 2), and (c) both cultural identification (Study 3) and multicultural orientation (Study 4) moderated the influence of intrusive cultural mixing on implicit prejudice so that only individuals who highly identified with their heritage culture or those who exhibited a weak multicultural orientation manifested enhanced implicit prejudice. These findings extend our understanding of the influence of cultural mixing.

The present research demonstrates that integrative responses to culture mixing, in the context of Western brand names translated into Chinese, can influence consumer evaluations of the products. Specifically, we examine young, educated Chinese consumers’ evaluations of three types of brand name translation: phonosemantic (culturally mixed), semantic (monocultural), and phonetic (monocultural). Results from two studies show that young, educated Chinese consumers who are highly biculturated (i.e., knowledgeable about Western and Chinese cultures) tend to integrate the autonomy values associated with a phonosemantic brand translation, which in turn lead them to evaluate more favorably culturally mixed phonosemantic (vs. monocultural semantic or phonetic) brand translations. At the individual level, favorable attitudes toward culture mixing are more likely to emerge among individuals with a higher (vs. lower) endorsement of autonomy values. At the product level, favorable attitudes toward culture mixing are fostered when consumers encounter products that are higher (vs. lower) in value expressiveness.

Drawing on the literature on cultural priming and open-mindedness, we proposed that priming individuals with culture mixing would promote acceptance of new organizational policies and reduce adherence to the status quo more than priming them with local culture. In two studies using samples of Chinese supervisors, we showed that respondents who were primed with culture mixing were more willing to accept a hypothetical drastic drop in the percentage of the guaranteed component of their salary than those primed with Chinese culture, whereas there was no difference between those primed with Western culture and those in the neutral condition. We further showed that this pattern emerged only among participants with low need for cognitive closure, suggesting that such enhanced change acceptance might be motivated by open-mindedness. We also assessed alternative accounts driven by need for cognition or global-mindedness and both measures did not moderate the culture mixing effect. The implications for cultural mixing and change management are discussed.

Results from a field experiment conducted in Guangzhou, China, show that Chinese consumers react more negatively to culture-mixed products after shopping (vs. simply entering) in a high-status Chinese store (Exception). This effect was absent among Chinese consumers who shopped (vs. simply entered) in a high-status European store, a low-status European store, or a lower status Chinese store. The effect was also absent among Western shoppers. We argue that the Exception effect among Chinese consumers emerges due to heightened perceptions of the rising status of China—which might increase the positivity of Chinese identity and hence prompt a rejection of foreign cultural influences.

This research examines the effect of making similarity or difference comparisons on perceptions after bicultural exposure and consumer reactions to culture mixing. Results indicate that after bicultural exposure, focusing on differences bolstered ingroup cultural stereotyping (Study 1) and enhanced perceived differences between cultures (Study 2), whereas focusing on similarity comparison reduced perceived differences between cultures (Study 2). Moreover, a similarity focus reduced positive reactions to a culturally mixed product, and this effect was mediated by reduced creativity perception of the product (Studies 1 and 3). These findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the boundary conditions of the bicultural exposure effect and suggest a new mechanism of integrative consumer reactions to culturally mixed products.

Today’s globalized environment exposes people to culture mixing—mixing of iconic symbols of different cultures in the same space at the same time. Findings on individuals’ exposure to culture mixing provide evidence for both exclusionary and inclusionary responses. In this article, we focus on the growing phenomenon of culture mixing of global and local symbols and artifacts. We generate a conceptual model to identify who is likely to respond in what way to the mixed cultural environment and why. To answer these questions, we build on the global acculturation model, which aims to explain individuals’ adaptation to the global environment by considering the relative strength of their local and global identities. We extend this model by considering not only the two entities’ relative strength but also their balance—the degree of symmetry between the identities’ strength. We propose that individuals with dominant (unbalanced) identity types (global or local) will exhibit negative and exclusionary responses to culture mixing, whereas individuals with balanced identity types (glocal or marginal) will exhibit positive and inclusionary responses to culture mixing. We also incorporate the concept of bicultural identity integration (BII) to suggest that individuals with high identification with both cultures (glocals) and with high BII will exhibit more inclusive responses than glocals with low BII. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Why some multicultural individuals think and identify differently to others is a question that is yet to be clearly answered. We suggest that a key antecedent to psychological differences among multiculturals is early immersive culture mixing, or experiencing multiple cultures simultaneously at home while growing up. We propose that innate multiculturals (defined as individuals who have experienced early immersive culture mixing) are cognitively guided by a single hybrid cultural schema and have a hybrid cultural identity. This would make them fundamentally different from achieved multiculturals (individuals who have become multicultural in other ways), who should possess multiple distinct cultural schemas and cultural identities. A quasi-experiment indicated that, as predicted, innate multiculturals were guided by a single cultural frame with respect to attribution and locus of attention, whereas achieved multiculturals switched between different cultural frames. Innate multiculturals also reported a more integrated cultural identity than did achieved multiculturals. These findings open a new avenue in multiculturalism research, with important potential implications of early immersive culture mixing for a range of individual outcomes such as creativity.