The regional differences between countries in traffic safety: A cross-cultural study and Turkish Case

Road traffic accidents are a large problem everywhere in the world. However, regional differences in traffic safety between countries are considerable. For example, traffic safety records are much worse in Southern Europe and the Middle East than in Northern and Western Europe. Despite the large regional differences in traffic safety, factors contributing to different accident risk figures in different countries and regions have remained largely unstudied. The general aim of this study was to investigate regional differences in traffic safety between Southern European/Middle Eastern (i.e., Greece, Iran, Turkey) and Northern/Western European (i.e., Finland, Great Britain, The Netherlands) countries and to identify factors related to these differences. We conducted seven sub-studies in which I applied a traffic culture framework, including a multi-level approach, to traffic safety. We used aggregated level data (national statistics), surveys among drivers, and data on traffic accidents and fatalities in the analyses. In the first study, we investigated the influence of macro level factors (i.e., economic, societal, and cultural) on traffic safety across countries. The results showed that a high GNP per capita and conservatism correlated with a low number of traffic fatalities, whereas a high degree of uncertainty avoidance, neuroticism, and egalitarianism correlated with a high number of traffic fatalities. In the second, third, and fourth studies, we examined whether the conceptualisation of road user characteristics (i.e., driver behaviour and performance) varied across traffic cultures and how these factors determined overall safety, and the differences between countries in traffic safety. The results showed that the factorial agreement for driver behaviour (i.e., aggressive driving) and performance (i.e., safety skills) was unsatisfactory in Greece, Iran, and Turkey, where the lack of social tolerance and interpersonal aggressive violations seem to be important characteristics of driving. In addition, we found that driver behaviour (i.e., aggressive violations and errors) mediated the relationship between culture/country and accidents. Besides, drivers from "dangerous" Southern European countries and Iran scored higher on aggressive violations and errors than did drivers from "safe" Northern European countries. However, "speeding" appeared to be a "pan-cultural" problem in traffic. Similarly, aggressive driving seems largely depend on road users' interactions and drivers' interpretation (i.e., cognitive biases) of the behaviour of others in every country involved in the study. Moreover, in all countries, a risky general driving style was mostly related to being young and male. The results of the fifth and sixth studies showed that among young Turkish drivers, gender stereotypes (i.e., masculinity and femininity) greatly influence driver behaviour and performance. Feminine drivers were safety-oriented whereas masculine drivers were skill-oriented and risky drivers. Since everyday driving tasks involve not only erroneous (i.e., risky or dangerous driving) or correct performance (i.e., normal habitual driving), but also "positive" driver behaviours, we developed a reliable scale for measuring "positive" driver behaviours among Turkish drivers in the seventh study. Consequently, I revised Reason's model [Reason, J. T., 1990. Human error. Cambridge University Press: New York] of aberrant driver behaviour to represent a general driving style, including all possible intentional behaviours in traffic while evaluating the differences between countries in traffic safety. The results emphasise the importance of economic, societal and cultural factors, general driving style and skills, which are related to exposure, cognitive biases as well as age, sex, and gender, in differences between countries in traffic safety.

The international match: Metaphors as vehicles of social identity building in cross-border mergers

This article focuses on cultural identity-building in the cross-border merger context. To provide an alternative to the dominant essentialist analyses of cultures and cultural differences, cultural identitybuilding is conceptualized as a metaphoric process. The focus is on two processes inherent in the cross-border merger context: construction of images of Us and Them and construction of images of a Common Future. Based on an analysis of a special metaphor exercise carried out in a recent Finnish–Swedish merger, the article illustrates how the metaphoric perspective reveals specific cognitive, emotional and political aspects of cultural identity-building that easily remain ‘hidden’ in the case of more traditional approaches.

On the Narrative Construction of Multinational Corporations: An Antenarrative Analysis of Legitimation and Resistance in a Cross-Border Merger

Although extant research has highlighted the role of discourse in the cultural construction of organizations, there is a need to elucidate the use of narratives as central discursive resources in unfolding organizational change. Hence, the objective of this article is to develop a new kind of antenarrative approach for the cultural analysis of organizational change. We use merging multinational corporations (MNCs) as a case in point. Our empirical analysis focuses on a revelatory case: the financial services group Nordea, which was built by combining Swedish, Finnish, Danish, and Norwegian corporations. We distinguish three types of antenarrative that provided alternatives for making sense of the merger: globalist, nationalist, and regionalist (Nordic) antenarratives. We focus on how these antenarratives were mobilized in intentional organizational storytelling to legitimate or resist change: globalist storytelling as a means to legitimate the merger and to create MNC identity, nationalist storytelling to relegitimate national identities and interests, Nordic storytelling to create regional identity, and the critical use of the globalist storytelling to challenge the Nordic identity. We conclude that organizational storytelling is characterized by polyphonic, stylistic, chronotopic, and architectonic dialogisms and by a dynamic between centering and decentering forces. This paper contributes to discourse-cultural studies of organizations by explaining how narrative constructions of identities and interests are used to legitimate or resist change. Furthermore, this analysis elucidates the dialogical dynamics of organizational storytelling and thereby opens up new avenues for the cultural analysis of organizations.

Attitudes towards suicide among Master’s degree students: a cross-cultural comparison between China and Finland

Attitudes towards suicide among Master’s degree students in Chang Sha (China) and Helsinki (Finland) were compared in order to explore possible cross-cultural differences. The sample included 206 Master’s degree students, 101 Chinese and 105 Finnish. Data were collected using the 30-item Multi-Attitudes Suicide Tendency Scale (MAST) and a demographic information form. According to the results, both Chinese and Finnish students held positive attitudes towards life, they held contradictory attitudes towards suicide, with Finnish students having more permissive and liberal attitudes towards suicide than their Chinese counterparts. In addition, three socio-demographic characteristics, namely religion, family structure, and economic status, associated with attitudes towards suicide among the Chinese Master’s degree students; meanwhile, all socio-demographic characteristics, including gender, religion, major subject, family structure, economic status, and received social support related to attitudes towards suicide among the Finnish Master’s degree students. However, after examining the interaction effect between socio-demographics and cultural backgrounds on attitudes towards suicide, the attitudes of Chinese students were more related to gender, marital status, family economic status, and received social support, whereas Finnish students were more influenced by religion. These findings suggest that culture plays an important role in shaping country-specific differences in attitudes towards suicide and their association with socio-demographic characteristics. Understanding individual attitudes towards suicide could help in intervention to prevent the development of suicidal ideation and in providing appropriate psychological counseling to reduce mental problems. Therefore, these cross-cultural differences may provide indications on how to conduct suicide prevention programs while considering culture-specific contexts.

Ufologia ja ufokokemukset uskonnollisina ilmiönä : Teoreettinen tutkimus

The main question of my doctoral thesis is whether ufology and UFO experiences are or can be explained as religious phenomena. My research is theoretical in the sense that I combine and systematise cultural scientific knowledge concerning the religiosity of ufology and UFO experiences and complete this theoretical effort with empirical subject matter. The research material for my study consists of theoretical literature and empirical texts written by ufologists and those who have had UFO experiences. I defined the material in a way that it became full and extensive with regard to ufology, stories about UFO experiences and the cultural scientific literature concerning them. In addition, I present a source criticism for the literature because it is in part informal. The method is analysing and synthesising the material in the context of spiral of hermeneutic inferential process. Definitions of religion, ufology and UFO experience, developed by myself, serve as guide lines for the process. The conclusions of my research are as follows. For the most part, ufology and UFO experiences belong to the category of religion and only a fraction of these instances can be explained as something else, for example psychiatric phenomena. From the religious viewpoint I explain ufology and UFO experiences on four different but interlinked levels: historical, comparative, sociological and psychological. Historically ufology and UFO experiences include esoteristic, Christian and folk religious elements. In addition UFO experiences have significant similarities with folk religious stories and shamanistic experiences. From the perspective of the sociology, of religion ufology and UFO experiences can be analysed as products of our scientific and technological Western culture. Social crisis and social psychological group mechanisms affect the appearance of ufological ideas and UFO experiences. Psychologically, in the background of religious UFO experiences there can be found several factors, such as wishful thinking. Concerning UFO sightings these are misinterpretations of certain ordinary and some rare or exotic natural and technical phenomena. Intense UFO experiences, such as UFO abductions, are stimulated for the most part by hallucinations, sleep paralysis disorders, lively fantasies (in case of fantasy prone personalities) and false memories. In group cases social pressure, small group delusion and the guilt of exposing the true nature of a story come into play. A UFO experience can be traumatising because of certain inferential mechanisms and cognitive dissonance involved in the process of conversion as a UFO experiencer. UFO religiosity is a cross cultural, widespread and a significant field of phenomena, which can offer insight about religious developments in the future. However, UFO religiosity has not been studied extensively. This research is one effort to address this lack of documentation. The motivation behind my thesis was to make ufology and UFO experiences more understandable.

A cross-linguistic study of lexical iconicity and its manifestation in bird names

Abstract This dissertation is a cross-linguistic study of lexical iconicity. The study is based on a genealogically stratified sample of 237 languages. The aim is to contribute with an empirical study to the growing dialogue focusing on different forms of lexical iconicity. The conceptual framework of the present study is based on an analysis of types and means of lexical iconicity in the sample languages. Archaeological and cultural evidence are used to tie lexical iconicity to its context. Phenomena related to lexical iconicity are studied both cross-linguistically and language-specifically. The cognitive difference between imitation and symbolism is essential. Lexical iconicity is not only about the iconic relationship between form and referents, but also about how certain iconic properties may become conventional, means used to create sound symbolism. All the sample languages show some evidence of lexical iconicity, demonstrating that it is a universal feature. Nine comparisons of onomatopoeic verbs and nouns, with samples varying between six and 141 languages, show that typologically highly different languages use similar means for creating words based on sound imitation. Two cross-linguistic comparisons of bird names demonstrate that a vast majority of the Eurasian names of the common cuckoo and the world-wide names of crow and raven of the 141 genera are onomatopoeic.

Grammar and disciplinary culture : a corpus-based study

The present study provides a usage-based account of how three grammatical structures, declarative content clauses, interrogative content clause and as-predicative constructions, are used in academic research articles. These structures may be used in both knowledge claims and citations, and they often express evaluative meanings. Using the methodology of quantitative corpus linguistics, I investigate how the culture of the academic discipline influences the way in which these constructions are used in research articles. The study compares the rates of occurrence of these grammatical structures and investigates their co-occurrence patterns in articles representing four different disciplines (medicine, physics, law, and literary criticism). The analysis is based on a purpose-built 2-million-word corpus, which has been part-of-speech tagged. The analysis demonstrates that the use of these grammatical structures varies between disciplines, and further shows that the differences observed in the corpus data are linked with differences in the nature of knowledge and the patterns of enquiry. The constructions in focus tend to be more frequently used in the soft disciplines, law and literary criticism, where their co-occurrence patterns are also more varied. This reflects both the greater variety of topics discussed in these disciplines, and the higher frequency of references to statements made by other researchers. Knowledge-building in the soft fields normally requires a careful contextualisation of the arguments, giving rise to statements reporting earlier research employing the constructions in focus. In contrast, knowledgebuilding in the hard fields is typically a cumulative process, based on agreed-upon methods of analysis. This characteristic is reflected in the structure and contents of research reports, which offer fewer opportunities for using these constructions.

Playing "Nordic": The Women of Niskavuori, Agri/Culture, and Imagining Finland on the Third Reich Stage

The theatrical censorship of the Third Reich considered the playwright's race and politics alongside the content of the drama. Given the political stigma of its "leftist" author, it is rather surprising that Hella Wuolijoki's Niskavuoren naiset opened in 1938 at the Staatliches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. The play ran for fourteen performances before being closed by the Reichsdramaturgie, apparently at the instigation of Finnish critics. Yet this was not the end of the play's or its author's fortunes in the Third Reich, as the possibility of staging the play was raised several times over the next four years, coming to a close in 1942. Playing "Nordic" examines the ideological and theatrical background of this extended "cultural performance," as a means to reopening and reconstructing the work of the 1938 Die Frauen auf Niskavuori. Written by a Finnish, northern, "Nordic" author, and preoccupied with the dynamics of rural culture in an increasingly urbanized world, Niskavuoren naiset was understood in the Third Reich to illustrate and reinforce the racial, agri/cultural themes of Blut und Boden ("veri ja maa"). Playing "Nordic" examines this thematic relationship in three phases. The first phase uses archival materials to investigate the Reichsdramaturgie's understanding of the play and its author, and its ongoing discussion of Wuolijoki from 1937 to 1942. Play evaluator Sigmund Graff's description of Niskavuoren naiset as hamsunartig, or "Hamsun-esque," inspires the second phase of the dissertation, which first elaborates the meanings of Blut und Boden through a reading of contemporary "racial" theory and anthropology, and then assesses the representation of Finland within this discourse, one of the dominant cultural paradigms of the Third Reich. Imaging Finland for German audiences, the play stood among analogous, continued efforts to represent Finland and the rural life in the Third Reich, colored by Blut und Boden: art and agricultural exhibitions, essays and propaganda literature, mass demonstrations of the peasantry. This wider framework for the performance of "Finland" materializes the abstract or theoretical program of Blut und Boden in its everyday performed meanings; as such it provides the essential background for reading the Hamburg production of Die Frauen auf Niskavuori, which sustains the third and final phase. The German translation and the Hamburg photographic record are compared with the Helsinki premiere to assess the impact of Blut und Boden on the representation of Wuolijoki's play in the Third Reich. The journalistic critical response illuminates the effect that the dramatic complex of rural and racial values - generically identified as Bauerndrama in the Third Reich - had on the reception of the play; at the same time, both visual and critical documents also suggest possible moments of theatrical dissent in the Hamburg production. Playing "Nordic" undertakes a documentary and cultural reading of the changing theatrical meanings of Wuolijoki's Niskavuoren naiset as it crossed the frontier from Finland to the stage of the Third Reich. It also provides a model for the ways theatrical signification operates within a network of cultural and ideological meanings, suggesting the ideological work of theatrical production depends on, reinforces, and contests that tissue of values. Although Finnish criticism of Niskavuoren naiset has assumed the play's Blut und Boden resonance contributed to Wuolijoki's success in the Third Reich, this study shows a considerably more complex situation. This revealing production dramatizes the changing uses of plays in a politicized national and transnational context. As part of the framing of "Nordic" identity on the wider stage of the Third Reich, Die Frauen auf Niskavuori exemplifies the conjunction of concurrent - sometimes independent, sometimes interlocking - "racial" and national ideologies.

Intercultural Learning and Hybridity in the Culture Laboratory

The number of immigrant students in vocational education and training is steadily increasing in Finland. This poses challenges for teachers and schools. This research focuses on emerging questions of intercultural learning in the context of immigrant training, and on a method the Culture Laboratory that was developed in an attempt to respond to the challenges. The main methodological and theoretical framework lies in cultural-historical activity theory, developmental work research, and in the concepts of the intercultural and hybridity. The empirical material consists of videotaped recordings of discussions in the Culture Laboratory. The five main research questions focused on the strengths and limitations of the Culture Laboratory as a tool for intercultural learning, the significance of disturbances in it, the potential of suggestions for intercultural learning, paper as a mediating artifact , and the concept of intercultural space. The findings showed that the Culture Laboratory offered a solid background for developing intercultural learning. The disturbances manifested revealed a multitude of scripts and activities. It was also suggested that the structure of expansive learning could start from externalization instead of internalization. The suggestions the participants made opened up a hybrid learning space for intercultural development, and offered a good springboard for new ideas. Learning in Paperland posed both challenges and opportunities for immigrant students, and different paper trails emerged. Intercultural space in the Culture Laboratory was a developmental zone in which a hybrid process of observing, comparing, and creating took place. Key words: intercultural learning, immigrant training, cultural-historical activity theory, developmental work research,

Assessing organizational culture in complex sociotechnical systems : Methodological evidence from studies in nuclear power plant maintenance organizations

Failures in industrial organizations dealing with hazardous technologies can have widespread consequences for the safety of the workers and the general population. Psychology can have a major role in contributing to the safe and reliable operation of these technologies. Most current models of safety management in complex sociotechnical systems such as nuclear power plant maintenance are either non-contextual or based on an overly-rational image of an organization. Thus, they fail to grasp either the actual requirements of the work or the socially-constructed nature of the work in question. The general aim of the present study is to develop and test a methodology for contextual assessment of organizational culture in complex sociotechnical systems. This is done by demonstrating the findings that the application of the emerging methodology produces in the domain of maintenance of a nuclear power plant (NPP). The concepts of organizational culture and organizational core task (OCT) are operationalized and tested in the case studies. We argue that when the complexity of the work, technology and social environment is increased, the significance of the most implicit features of organizational culture as a means of coordinating the work and achieving safety and effectiveness of the activities also increases. For this reason a cultural perspective could provide additional insight into the problem of safety management. The present study aims to determine; (1) the elements of the organizational culture in complex sociotechnical systems; (2) the demands the maintenance task sets for the organizational culture; (3) how the current organizational culture at the case organizations supports the perception and fulfilment of the demands of the maintenance work; (4) the similarities and differences between the maintenance cultures at the case organizations, and (5) the necessary assessment of the organizational culture in complex sociotechnical systems. Three in-depth case studies were carried out at the maintenance units of three Nordic NPPs. The case studies employed an iterative and multimethod research strategy. The following methods were used: interviews, CULTURE-survey, seminars, document analysis and group work. Both cultural analysis and task modelling were carried out. The results indicate that organizational culture in complex sociotechnical systems can be characterised according to three qualitatively different elements: structure, internal integration and conceptions. All three of these elements of culture as well as their interrelations have to be considered in organizational assessments or important aspects of the organizational dynamics will be overlooked. On the basis of OCT modelling, the maintenance core task was defined as balancing between three critical demands: anticipating the condition of the plant and conducting preventive maintenance accordingly, reacting to unexpected technical faults and monitoring and reflecting on the effects of maintenance actions and the condition of the plant. The results indicate that safety was highly valued at all three plants, and in that sense they all had strong safety cultures. In other respects the cultural features were quite different, and thus the culturally-accepted means of maintaining high safety also differed. The handicraft nature of maintenance work was emphasised as a source of identity at the NPPs. Overall, the importance of safety was taken for granted, but the cultural norms concerning the appropriate means to guarantee it were little reflected. A sense of control, personal responsibility and organizational changes emerged as challenging issues at all the plants. The study shows that in complex sociotechnical systems it is both necessary and possible to analyse the safety and effectiveness of the organizational culture. Safety in complex sociotechnical systems cannot be understood or managed without understanding the demands of the organizational core task and managing the dynamics between the three elements of the organizational culture.

Preadolescents and Their Mothers as Oral Health-Promoting Actors : Non-biologic Determinants of Oral Health among Turkish and Finnish Preadolescents

Is oral health becoming a part of the global health culture? Oral health seems to turn out to be part of the global health culture, according to the findings of a thesis-research, Institute of Dentistry, University of Helsinki. The thesis is entitled as “Preadolescents and Their Mothers as Oral Health-Promoting Actors: Non-biologic Determinants of Oral Health among Turkish and Finnish Preadolescents.” The research was supervised by Prof.Murtomaa and led by Dr.A.Basak Cinar. It was conducted as a cross-sectional study of 611 Turkish and 223 Finnish school preadolescents in Istanbul and Helsinki, from the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades, aged 10 to 12, based on self-administered and pre-tested health behavior questionnaires for them and their mothers as well as the youth’s oral health records. Clinically assessed dental status (DMFT) and self-reported oral health of Turkish preadolescents was significantly poorer than the Finns`. A similar association occurred for well-being measures (height and weight, self-esteem), but not for school performance. Turkish preadolescents were more dentally anxious and reported lower mean values of toothbrushing self-efficacy and dietary self-efficacy than did Finns. The Turks less frequently reported recommended oral health behaviors (twice daily or more toothbrushing, sweet consumption on 2 days or less/week, decreased between-meal sweet consumption) than did the Finns. Turkish mothers reported less frequently dental health as being above average and recommended oral health behaviors as well as regular dental visits. Their mean values for dental anxiety was higher and self-efficacy on implementation of twice-daily toothbrushing were lower than those of the Finnish. Despite these differences between the Turks and Finns, the associations found in common for all preadolescents, regardless of cultural differences and different oral health care systems, assessed for the first time in a holistic framework, were as follows: There seems to be interrelation between oral health and general-well being (body height-weight measures, school performance, and self-esteem) among preadolescents: • The body height was an explanatory factor for dental health, underlining the possible common life-course factors for dental health and general well-being. • Better school performance, high levels of self-esteem and self-efficacy were interrelated and they contributed to good oral health. • Good school performance was a common predictor for twice-daily toothbrushing. Self-efficacy and maternal modelling have significant role for maintenance and improvement of both oral- and general health- related behaviors. In addition, there is need for integration of self-efficacy based approaches to promote better oral health. • All preadolescents with high levels of self-efficacy were more likely to report more frequent twice-daily toothbrushing and less frequent sweet consumption. • All preadolescents were likely to imitate toothbrushing and sweet consumption behaviors of their mothers. • High levels of self-efficacy contributed to low dental anxiety in various patterns in both groups. As a conclusion: • Many health-detrimental behaviors arise from the school age years and are unlikely to change later. Schools have powerful influences on children’s development and well-being. Therefore, oral health promotion in schools should be integrated into general health promotion, school curricula, and other activities. • Health promotion messages should be reinforced in schools, enabling children and their families to develop lifelong sustainable positive health-related skills (self-esteem, self-efficacy) and behaviors. • Placing more emphasis on behavioral sciences, preventive approaches, and community-based education during undergraduate studies should encourage social responsibility and health-promoting roles among dentists. Attempts to increase general well-being and to reduce oral health inequalities among preadolescents will remain unsuccessful if the individual factors, as well as maternal and societal influences, are not considered by psycho-social holistic approaches.

Trust, participation and health among ageing people : A cross-sectional cohort study of men and women born in 1926-30, 1936-40, and 1946-50 in the Lahti region, southern Finland

The purpose of the present study was to explore the associations between good self-rated health and economic and social factors in different regions among ageing people in the Päijät-Häme region in southern Finland. The data of this study were collected in 2002 as part of the research and development project Ikihyvä 2002 2012 (Good Ageing in Lahti region GOAL project). The baseline data set consisted of 2,815 participants born in 1926 30, 1936 40, and 1946 50. The response rate was 66 %. According to the previous studies, trust in other people and social participation as the main aspects of social capital are associated with self-rated health. In addition, socioeconomic position (SEP) and self-rated health are associated, but all SEP indicators do not have identical associations with health. However, there is a lack of knowledge of the health associations and regional differences with these factors, especially among ageing people. Regarding these questions, the present study gives new information. According to the results of this study, self-perceived adequacy of income was significantly associated with good self-rated health, especially in the urban areas. Similar associations were found in the rural areas, though education was also considered an important factor. Adequacy of income was an even stronger predictor of good health than the actual income. Women had better self-rated health than men only in the urban areas. The youngest respondents had quite equally better self-rated health than the others. Social participation and access to help when needed were associated with good self-rated health, especially in the urban area and the sparsely populated rural areas. The result was comparable in the rural population centres. The correlation of trust with self-rated health was significant in the urban area. High social capital was associated with good self-rated health in the urban area. The association was quite similar in the other areas, though it was statistically insignificant. High social capital consisted of co-existent high social participation and high trust. The association of traditionalism (low participation and high trust) with self-rated health was also substantial in the urban area. The associations of self-rated health with low social capital (low participation and low trust) and the miniaturisation of community (high participation and low trust) were less significant. From the forms of single participation, going to art exhibitions, theatre, movies, and concerts among women, and studying and self-development among men were positively related to self-rated health. Unexpectedly, among women, active participation in religious events and voluntary work was negatively associated with self-rated health. This may indicate a coping method with ill-health. As a whole, only minor variations in self-rated health were found between the areas. However, the significance of the factors associated with self-rated health varied according to the areas. Economic factors, especially self-perceived adequacy of income was strongly associated with good self-rated health. Also when adjusting for economic and several other background factors social factors (particularly high social capital, social participation, and access to help when needed) were associated with self-rated health. Thus, economic and social factors have a significant relation with the health of the ageing, and improving these factors may have favourable effects on health among ageing people.