Individualism/collectivism and personality in Italian and American Groups

Abstract: Italian (n = 129) and American (n = 86) samples were evaluated with the Five Factor Inventory of personality and a measure of individualism/collectivism. Greater individualism was seen in the American group than the Italian group, as in the Hofstede (2019) data. For the Italian sample only, greater individualism was associated with greater neuroticism and greater collectivism was associated with lower neuroticism. This may reflect poor culture fit for Italians with a very individualistic orientation given that Italy falls between the United States and Asian countries in terms of the individualism/collectivism dimension. 

Other studies have shown better personal adjustment being associated with having a personality that fits with the culture in which one is embedded. For both Italian and American groups, higher collectivism was associated with higher extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness consistent with other reports. Additional findings included higher openness in the Italian group and higher conscientiousness in the American group. (Burton et al., 2021)

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- Burton, L., Delvecchio, E., Germani, A. & Mazzeschi, C. (2021) Individualism/collectivism and personality in Italian and American Groups. Curr Psychol 40, 29–34 

- photograph by Charles H. Traub (Naples, 1985) via

Male + Black + Tall = Increased Stereotype Threat

According to psychological research on height in men, tall men are associated with intelligence, health, success, physical attraction, are more likely to be hired, get promoted, make more money. The taller, the better... but only if you are white and already stereotyped as competent and intelligent. For Black men, who are generally negatively stereotyped and associated with gun, hostility, and aggression, height does not signal competence but rather threat. Interestingly, height does not increase threat for White men, nor does it increase competence for Black men (Hester & Gray, 2018).

In fact, tall Black men are judged as more threatening and receive disproportionate attention from police.

Results showed that cultural stereotypes of threat are increased by tallness more for Black targets than for White targets and, conversely, that cultural stereotypes of competence are increased by tallness more for White targets than for Black targets.

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- Hester, N. & Gray, K. (2018). For Black men, being tall increases threat stereotyping and police stops. Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, link

- photograph by Charles H. Traub via

The "Infidelity Gender Gap"

According to a YouGov study, 19% of individuals reported having sex with someone other than their partner. By gender these are 25% of men and 13% of women (via). Interestingly, the rates also differ by age and is highest among women in their 60s and men in their 70s and remains high in their 80s (via).

photograph by Charles H. Traub via

Racist Humour, "Just a Joke"

Laughter is social communication and enhances social affiliation among participants, social cooperation, social bonding, increases social affiliation and group formation. At the same time, humour and laughter can be used to marginalise and "other" groups and individuals by ridiculing and insulting them and reinforce an ethnocentric worldview. Humour can help popularise and spread ideas of ethnic superiority and inferiority. It can also challenge asymmetrical power relations in society.

Racist humour played a crucial role in reproducing white supremacy in the U.S. by using stereotypes. Blackface minstrel shows, for instance, were a popular source of entertainment that contributed to the inferioraistaion of blacks and cultivated a proslavery imagination. It also allowed working-class whites to feel superior despite their lack of power and status in society. They were poor and exploited but at least not black. Later, overt displays of racism in public were no longer socially acceptable. After the civil rights movement, racism was "no longer funny". (Perez, 2017)

Abstract: The article examines the links between humour and hatred - a topic that is often ignored by researchers of prejudice. The article studies three websites that present racist humour and display sympathies with the Ku Klux Klan. The analysis emphasizes the importance of examining the 'metadiscourse', which presents and justifies the humour, as much as studying the nature of the humour itself. The meta-discourse of the sites' disclaimers is studied in relation to the justification of a joke being 'just a joke'. It is shown that the extreme racist humour of the KKK is not just a joke, even in terms of its own meta-discourse of presentation. The meta-discourse also suggests that the extreme language of racist hatred is indicated a matter for enjoyment. The sites portray the imagining of extreme racist violence as a matter of humour and the ambivalence of their disclaimers is discussed. As such, it is suggested that there are integral links between extreme hatred and dehumanizing, violent humour. (Billig, 2001)

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- Billig, M. (2001). Humor and hatred: the racist jokes of the Ku Klux Klan. Discourse & Society, 12(3), 267-289.
- Pérez, R. (2017). Racism without Hatred? Racis Humor and the Myth of "Colorblindness". Sociological Perspectives, link
- photographs by Charles H. Traub via and via

Visual Ageism

In terms of diversity, media studies used to focus on the frequency women and ethnic minority groups are characterised and started developing an interest in age and ageism much later approaching ageism as what it is: an "asymmetric power structure based on age, a constructed justification of inequalities between age groups". 

Loos and Ivan (2018) introduced the concept of "visual ageism", the "social practice of visually underrepresenting older people or misrepresenting them in a prejudiced way." It "includes older adults being depicted in peripheral or minor roles without positive attributes; non-realistic, exaggerated, or distorted portraits of older people; and over-homogenized characterizations of older adults." (Loos & Ivan, 2018)

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- Loos, E. & Ivan, L. (2018). Visual Ageism in the Media. Contemporary Perspectives on Ageism, 163-176, link
- photograph by Charles H. Traub via

The Gender Pension Gap

Worldwide, women receive lower pensions which makes them more vulnerable to poverty in old age. Findings show "a clear systematic and structural pension disadvantage for women" in almost all countries. Even now and even in the European Union, women have on average 30% lower retirement income than men. This gender pension gap ranges from 43.1% in Luxembourg to 1.1% in Estonia. Austria has the fourth highest one (38.7%) and a negative "top" position "despite an above-average economic performance per inhabitant and an above-average employment rate for women". Based on data of the 2017 pension access cohort, the gap calculated for Austria even reaches 42.3%.

6.2% of women in the European Union have no pension entitlement, in Austria the percentage of women affected is 18.4% (Mayrhuber & Mairhuber, 2020). However, things could also be different:

In the European Union 6.2% of female population age 65 to 74 have no pension entitlement at all. In Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden people of a certain age receive a universal pension benefit, so there are no differences in pension claims between men and women.

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- Mayrhuber, C & Mairhuber, I. (2020). The gender pension gap in Austria and Europe. Östereichische Gesellschaft für Europapolitik, link.
- photograph by Charles H. Traub via 

New York: The most linguistically diverse city

New York City, the "melting pot", is a culturally diverse metropolis with a population "defined by a long history of international immigration". Currently, about 36% of its population are foreign-born (via).



New York City is home to the largest Jewish community outside Israel, to the largest African American community of any US-American city, and the largest community of overseas Chinese (with six Chinatowns). Queens - the only large county in the U.S. where the median income among black households has surpassed that of whites - is the most diverse borough (via).





About 800 languages are spoken in New York, the most linguistically rich city in the world (via). Just 51% of New Yorkers speak only English at home. The languages of the other 49% span the globe with a majority of Spanish (and Spanish Creole) speakers (25%). There are also 85.000 Yiddish speakers (via). Over the last 30 years, the number of people speaking a language other than English at home increased by 140% with at least 303 languages. Different languages are part of everyday life: In the underground, information signs warning passengers to avoid electrified rails are written in seven languages.
New York is the city where many languages live but it is also said to be a place where languages will die turning the city into a "graveyard for languages". According to UNESCO estimations, half of the world's 6.500 languages are critically endangered. These languages are not necessarily spoken in remote valleys or highlands, "languages can die on the 26th floor of skyscrapers too". Daniel Kaufman, Juliette Blevins and Bob Holman set up the "Endangered Language Alliance" aiming to promote research on endangered languages in New York City and their conservation.

"There are these communities that are completely gone in their homeland. One of them, the Gottscheers, is a community of Germanic people who were living in Slovenia, and they were isolated from the rest of the Germanic populations. They were surrounded by Slavic speakers for several hundreds of years so they really have their own variety [of language] which is now unintelligible to other German speakers." Daniel Kaufman

The last speakers of this language happened to end up in Queens. Often, as people transition from one mother tongue into another, languages die (via). Some of the vulnerable languages are Aramaic, Chaldic, Mandaic, Bukhari, Irish Gaelic, Kashubian, Rhaeto-Romanic, Romany, Yiddish, and indigenous Mexican languages. There are, for instance, several hundred native speakers of Istro-Romanian, classified as severely endangered by UNESCO, living in Queens who probably outnumber those in Istria (via).



“It is the capital of language density in the world. We’re sitting in an endangerment hot spot where we are surrounded by languages that are not going to be around even in 20 or 30 years.”
Daniel Kaufman



“Do I worry that our culture is getting lost? As I get older, I’m thinking more about stuff like that. Most of the older people die away and the language dies with them.” (via)

"The idea was to deal with personalities and types. With the recognition of the passersby that they have been recognized. The face is a map of the person, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, 'Only fools look beneath the surface. It’s all there to be read.'" Charles H. Traub

Charles H. Traub worked on his street photography collection "Lunch Time" from 1977 to 1980. He took about 400 photographs of "ordinary" people in New York City, Chicago, Florida and some European cities. In fact, when Jackie Kennedy Onassies stopped and asked him to be photographed he turned her down since he was not interested in celebrities (via).



photographs by Charles H. Traub via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via and via