More than just a holiday: How the place we are in shapes the person we are

If you are taking a break this summer, it’s likely you will have chosen somewhere where the weather is nice. You have probably also chosen - perhaps implicitly rather than implicitly - a location where you can feel safe from crime, oppression or conflict. You want to be in an environment that helps you feel good, so you can do things like relax in a deckchair with a book, or go out and enjoy whatever the local area has to offer.

We know from psychological research that contextual factors can make a huge difference to how we feel and behave. For example, the classic studies by Asch found that if you are sitting beside three people who confidently give an obviously wrong answer to a simple question, you are much more likely to conform to giving the wrong answer too.

“Milgram’s study of obedience, where people were led to believe they were giving someone an electric shock, was repeated in various countries, and found levels of obedience varied considerably in different countries”.

We also know that people in different countries might behave differently when put in the same situation. Milgram’s series of studies of obedience, where people were led to believe they were giving someone an electric shock, was repeated in various countries, and found levels of obedience varied considerably in different countries. For example, although Milgram found a surprisingly high degree of obedience in around two thirds of participants in his original studies in the US in the 1960s, a replication in Australia in the 1970s found high levels of obedience in less than a third of participants. Because other variables were controlled in the experiments, it’s possible that the international differences were caused by less controllable variables, such as the influence of culture and the influence social trends have on people.

Certainly, people in some countries are happier than people in other countries. We know the immediate surroundings of a person can impact their behaviour, but does the the context of the country itself, or the culture, make a noticeable difference? Well, some people make the conscious decision to fit in as much as possible with the country they visit, learning the language and customs before travelling there (the approach of “when in Rome, do as the Romans do”). And it’s much safer for you to follow the laws of the country you are in (e.g. restrictions on alcohol use in countries like Saudi Arabia) even if you disagree with them. So in that sense of course people behave differently when in a different country.

Apart from following local customs and laws, do people behave differently when in different countries in ways that are interesting psychologically? People who are bilingual sometimes feel differently depending on which language they are speaking. For example, in one study people who spoke fluent English and Spanish scored higher on Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness when speaking English compared to Spanish. Also, people who are bicultural tend to switch their thinking in accordance with the context e.g. becoming more collectivist when thinking about the Great Wall of China icons and more individualistic when thinking about the Statue of Liberty.

“Many papers do not even bother to identify or justify the nationality of their samples”.

It’s a complex issue when you look at it closely, but from the point of view of a psychologist the evidence presented above raises an important point regarding how research is conducted and reported. Journal articles generally give very detailed information about all aspects of a study, including demographics like age and sex, and the location where the study was done in, but surprisingly, “many papers do not even bother to identify or justify the nationality of their samples”, and fairly often textbooks don’t refer to the country in which a study was conducted either. If people behave differently in different countries, the nationality of the participants - or at least the place the study was conducted in, which at least in non-multicultural cities would serve as a rough proxy for nationality - should be made clear.

But things have been changing in recent years. For example, the realisation that in the top six APA journals, 96% of research participants were from Westernised countries (specifically, Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies i.e. the so-called ‘WEIRD’ countries) has resonated with many psychologists. With this in mind, in the British Psychological Society (BPS) textbook Perspectives in Male Psychology: An Introduction, we identified - where information was available - the country in which each study was conducted. Inevitably, most of the studies were conducted in the US, but there were many other countries involved in cutting-edge research too. In the end, Perspectives in Male Psychology identified studies from (in alphabetical order):

Afghanistan, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Cuba, Cyprus, Denmark, England, Estonia, France, Germany, Holland, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Puerto Rico, Russia, Scotland, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, USA, Vietnam, and Wales.

The book also included, where available and where relevant, demographic details of study participants, including information identifying cultural or ethnic origins e.g. African American, Asian American, French-Canadian etc. We also noted which cities a study was conducted in (e.g. London, New York), or the region (e.g. the American mid-west, the Persian Gulf, North of England, Eastern Europe, South America, Africa, Asia etc.), which we hope gives readers a richer sense of how these variables might have influenced the findings.  

“What would Zimbardo’s prison study have found if [it was] set in a yoga retreat in Bali, or a coffee shop in Amsterdam?”

There’s no doubt that people around the world share things in common, no matter where they are from, and studies of biology will vary less by culture than studies of opinions, but there is no doubt that culture can make a difference. For example, the similarities and differences in expression of masculinity across different cultures and through history is a fascinating and illuminating topic, well worth studying. It highlights the question of how much people vary due to nature (innate factors such as genetics) and how much is due to nurture (e.g. their culture).

Getting back to the question of holidays, do people feel differently on holiday? Yes, people tend to feel happier in the weeks before and after a holiday, as well as during a holiday. Having a pleasant location helps, but the increased happiness is less to do with being in a different country, and more to do with ‘getting away from it all’, and leaving work stress etc behind. Note that you need to step away from the laptop and work phone and properly detach from work fully in order to get the most benefit from your holiday.

This brief article barely scratches the surface of some fundamental issues in psychology, and it isn’t my aim to come up with any definitive advice or conclusions, but I hope you have enjoyed thinking again about some classic psychology research you may have read about before, as well as thinking about how your own behaviour is influenced by the place you are in and the people around you.

So wherever you are in the world this summer, maybe take a moment to think about how the local people there might have reacted if they were participants in one of your favourite studies. What would Zimbardo’s prison study have found if instead of being conducted in a grim university basement in northern California, it had instead been set in a yoga retreat in Bali, or a coffee shop in Amsterdam?

And whatever part of the world you find yourself in this summer, I hope you have a pleasant, safe and happy time.