Individualism-collectivism and the concept expansion of harm

Abstract

Our general understanding of harm has expanded over time, from physical injury to other types of harm. A decade ago, “online harm”, “environmental harm” and “psychological harm” were uncommon in daily communication. Today, such terms are ubiquitous. This phenomenon, known as the concept expansion of harm, has become more common worldwide, with harm-related concepts “creeping” into less severe contexts or qualitatively different life domains. Such concept expansion of harm may stem from individual and cultural factors. Building on past work, this research investigated how the concept expansion of harm may be influenced by the need for relational harmony, a core dimension underlying collectivistic cultures. Research has shown that the need for relational harmony affects individuals’ propensity to engage in meaning-making. Such meaning-making is done for the purpose of deriving common meaning from shared conversations. To the extent that concept expansion of harm similarly allows people to derive common meaning from shared conversations, then individuals should engage in concept expansion of harm for the sake of relational harmony. We tested this prediction by manipulating participants’ need for relational harmony through a threat prime paradigm. Participants were randomly assigned to either the ingroup relational threat condition, or the outgroup relational threat condition. We then measured participants’ concept expansion of harm with their ratings of ambiguous statements. Contrary to predictions, concept expansion of harm did not differ between participants in the ingroup relational threat and outgroup relational threat conditions. Six possibilities for the null findings are discussed.