Revise The influence of globalization on individual behaviour for IB Psychology (3.4)

In this topic globalization means the increasing interconnectedness of cultures through media, migration, trade and technology. The psychological consequence of that interconnectedness is intensified cross-cultural contact: people are routinely exposed to values, images and norms from far beyond their immediate environment. Crucially, that exposure is not neutral. The 'global culture' that spreads most powerfully carries a particular flavour — largely Western, individualistic and consumerist — so many people now live inside two cultural streams at once: the local culture they were socialised into and a global culture arriving through their screens and their cities. Almost every effect in this topic flows from the tension, or the blending, of those two streams.

The most-examined effect of globalization is on identity — a person's sense of who they are. Arnett (2002), in an influential theoretical paper, argued that living within two cultures typically produces a bicultural or hybrid identity: people keep a local identity rooted in their immediate community while also developing a global identity that gives them a sense of belonging to a worldwide culture. Such individuals engage in frame-switching, shifting cultural frame depending on the situation — more collectivistic at a family gathering, more individualistic at work or online. For most people this is adaptive and even enriching. But Arnett also argued that a minority experience identity confusion: when local and global values clash sharply, or when cultural change is rapid, some people cannot integrate the two into a coherent self and end up belonging fully to neither.

Later research refined this by showing the outcome depends on HOW the two cultures are combined. Chen et al. (2008) studied Bicultural Identity Integration (BII) — the degree to which a person perceives their two cultural identities as compatible and blended rather than conflicting. Individuals high in BII (who felt their cultures fit together) reported better psychological adjustment and well-being than those low in BII (who felt the cultures pulled against each other). This matters for the exam because it turns a simple claim ('globalization affects identity') into a conditional, evidence-based one: globalization tends to produce bicultural identities, and whether that helps or harms depends on how integrated those identities feel.

Global media are the most powerful single channel of globalization, because they transmit not just information but ideals — of appearance, success, relationships and consumption. The classic demonstration is Becker et al. (2002). Television was introduced to the Fijian province of Nadroga only in 1995. Fiji had traditionally valued a robust body shape and hearty appetite, and disordered eating was rare. Becker's team surveyed adolescent girls in 1995 (just after TV arrived) and again in 1998. Over that short window, disordered-eating attitudes rose sharply, purging to control weight appeared where it had been essentially absent, and a majority of girls reported wanting to reshape their bodies, explicitly citing Western television characters as models to imitate. Because the change tracked the arrival of Western media so closely, the study is used as strong evidence that global media reshape attitudes (body ideals) and behaviour (dieting and eating).

You cannot randomly assign whole cultures to be globalized or not, so almost all research here is non-experimental — and knowing the methods, with their strengths and limits, is a fast route to critical-thinking marks. Four designs dominate. Natural experiments exploit a naturally occurring change, such as a culture gaining television or internet access (Becker et al.); they have high ecological validity but cannot control confounds. Cross-cultural comparative surveys measure a global value (e.g. individualism) across cultures and relate it to a behaviour (Ogihara & Uchida); they reveal patterns but risk imposing Western constructs (imposed-etic). Longitudinal designs track the same people or culture over time, capturing change but vulnerable to attrition and to other historical events. Correlational designs establish associations quickly but cannot, on their own, establish causation.

Global media are one route; the diffusion of individualistic values is another. Ogihara & Uchida (2014) examined what happens when the individualistic values carried by global culture take root in a strongly collectivist local culture — Japan. Across samples of Japanese workers and students, those who scored higher on individualism reported lower subjective well-being and fewer close friendships; the same relationship did not appear in a US comparison sample, where individualism is the cultural default. The interpretation is that adopting a 'global' individualistic orientation can be costly in a context built around group harmony and interdependence, plausibly by loosening the close relationships on which well-being depends there. This complements Becker: media introduce new ideals, values introduce new priorities, and both can change behaviour where they clash with the local culture.