Circling Science

Relational mobility predicts social behaviors in 39 countries and is tied to historical farming and threat

Robert Thomson, Masaki Yuki, Thomas Talhelm, Joanna Schug, Mie Kito, Arin H. Ayanian, Julia C. Becker, Maja Becker, Chi-yue Chiu, Hoon-Seok Choi, Carolina M. Ferreira, Márta Fülöp, Pelin Gül, Ana Maria Houghton-Illera, Mihkel Joasoo, Jonathan Jong, Christopher M. Kavanagh, Dmytro Khutkyy, Claudia Manzi, Urszula M. Marcinkowska, Taciano L. Milfont, Félix Neto, Timo von Oertzen, Ruthie Pliskin, Álvaro San Martín, Purnima Singh and Mariko L. Visserman · 2018

Evidence
Survey
Kind
Journal article
peer-reviewed
Method
Web survey of relational mobility and social behaviour in 39 societies
Sample
16,939 people in 39 societies
Published
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(29), 7521–7526

Mechanisms

Studies a process a circle relies on, such as disclosure or synchrony, wherever it happens.

A survey in 39 societies found more self-disclosure, support, trust and intimacy where relationships are easy to form and leave; this mobility was lower where farming was settled and interdependent, as with rice, or threats were greater.

What it doesn’t show

Self-reports from an online survey, compared between countries. It shows associations between societies, not causes, and nothing about what happens inside a particular group.

Summary based on the abstract and the full text’s methods.

Directions that build on it

  1. Circling across cultures

    Builds on 7 works · 1 funding route

    Does Circling feel the same, and help as much, where people disclose less and ask for support less directly?

Links

Cite

Thomson, R., Yuki, M., Talhelm, T., Schug, J., Kito, M., Ayanian, A. H., Becker, J. C., Becker, M., Chiu, C.-Y., Choi, H.-S., Ferreira, C. M., Fülöp, M., Gül, P., Houghton-Illera, A. M., Joasoo, M., Jong, J., Kavanagh, C. M., Khutkyy, D., Manzi, C., Marcinkowska, U. M., Milfont, T. L., Neto, F., von Oertzen, T., Pliskin, R., San Martín, Á., Singh, P., & Visserman, M. L. (2018). Relational mobility predicts social behaviors in 39 countries and is tied to historical farming and threat. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(29), 7521–7526. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1713191115