600074
research-article2015
JCCXXX10.1177/0022022115600074Journal of Cross-Cultural PsychologyTam
Article
Understanding Intergenerational
Cultural Transmission Through the
Role of Perceived Norms
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology
1­–7
© The Author(s) 2015
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0022022115600074
jccp.sagepub.com
Kim-Pong Tam1
Abstract
Intergenerational cultural transmission refers to the transmission of cultural ideas (e.g., values,
beliefs, knowledge, practices) from one generation to the next generation. Among all available
cultural ideas, which ones do parents select for transmission? As the recent normative approaches
in cultural psychology highlight, cultural members do not just passively act out their internalized
characteristics; they also strategically use their understanding of the culture’s norms to guide
their actions. This essay elaborates the implications of these approaches for understanding
intergenerational cultural transmission. The perceived norms perspective is introduced. This
perspective premises that when selecting cultural ideas for transmission, parents consider not
only their own orientations but also their perceptions of what is normatively important in the
culture. It further states that parents’ reference to perceived norms is directed by the goals they
hold. This essay discusses the contributions of this perspective to the study of intergenerational
cultural transmission and identifies some directions for future research.
Keywords
cultural transmission, intergenerational transmission, perceived norms, value socialization,
parenting, child rearing, intersubjective approach, cultural psychology
Cultural transmission is a process of interest to a wide range of social science disciplines because
it is useful for explaining cultural stability and cultural change (Schönpflug, 2009b). The utility of
the emerging normative approaches in cultural psychology (i.e., the intersubjective approach by
Chiu, Gelfand, Yamagishi, Shteynberg, & Wan, 2010; the subjective norm approach by Fischer
et al., 2009; and the descriptive norm perspective by Shteynberg, Gelfand, & Kim, 2009), which
commonly emphasize the role of perceived descriptive norms in explaining cultural behavior,
should lie in part in its ability to understand this process. I thus address this issue in this essay.
Given that parents are arguably the most important transmitters (Schönpflug, 2009a) and values
are a core element of culture (Schwartz, 1992), I will focus on vertical, parent-to-child transmission of values. I will first introduce what is already known about the role of perceived norms in
this transmission process. I will then discuss the implications of this perspective for the understanding of intergenerational cultural transmission and identify some directions for future research.
1The
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong
Corresponding Author:
Kim-Pong Tam, Division of Social Science, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay,
Hong Kong.
Email: [email protected]
Downloaded from jcc.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 4, 2016
2
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 
The Perceived Norms Perspective
Intergenerational cultural transmission is defined as the transmission of cultural ideas (e.g., values, beliefs, knowledge, practices) from one generation to the next generation. This process is
selective (Campbell, 1975; Schönpflug, 2009a). Parents as primary cultural transmitters face a
perennial question: Which cultural ideas should be transmitted to children? In other words, what
is the selection device underlying intergenerational cultural transmission?
A handy answer to this question is that parents want to transmit cultural ideas that they personally endorse or possess. This view is in line with the culture and self perspective, which contends
that culture resides in people’s internalized values and beliefs, and cultural behavior is driven by
these internalized characteristics (e.g., Triandis, 1989). This view is also consistent with a predominant assumption in familial socialization research: Parents wish to transmit a replica of their
own characteristics to children (see Kuczynski, Marshall, & Schell, 1997; Strauss, 1992). This
assumption regards parent–child similarity as the expected outcome of intergenerational transmission. Based on this assumption, past studies often focused on documenting the similarity, or
explaining the lack thereof, between parents’ and children’s value orientations (e.g., Roest,
Dubas, Gerris, & Engels, 2009; Schönpflug, 2001).
The Basic Premise
The recent normative approaches to cultural psychology (Chiu et al., 2010; Fischer et al., 2009;
Shteynberg et al., 2009) suggest that cultural members do not always passively internalize cultural
ideas and act out these internalized orientations. Cultural members also actively construct and share
knowledge about their culture, and this knowledge could be distinct from their internalized orientations (e.g., Fischer et al., 2009; Tam, Leung, et al., 2012; Wan et al., 2007; Zou et al., 2009). What
is more, cultural members tend to strategically use such cultural knowledge to guide their actions to
meet demands in the cultural ecology (Chiu et al., 2010; Gelfand & Harrington, IN PRESS).
To explicate the implications of these normative approaches for the understanding of intergenerational cultural transmission, I introduce the perceived norms perspective here. This perspective premises that when selecting cultural ideas for transmission, parents consider not only their
own orientations but also their understanding about the culture’s norms. This basic premise has
received robust support in recent studies. Tam and Lee (2010), with regard to a list of values,
measured Singaporean mother participants’ personal endorsement (i.e., the extent to which they
endorsed these values), perceived norms (i.e., the extent to which they perceived these values to
be widely endorsed by Singaporeans), and transmission preference (i.e., the extent to which they
wanted to transmit these values to children). They found that in most of the values examined,
both personal endorsement and perceived norms were significantly associated with transmission
preference. That is, the more parents endorse a value, or the more they consider this value to be
widely endorsed by fellow Singaporeans, the more they want to transmit it to children. These
findings were replicated in a more recent series of studies conducted in Hong Kong and the
United States. Using multi-level analyses, Tam, Lee, Kim, Li, and Chao (2012) tested their intersubjective model of value transmission and found that within an average parent, both personal
endorsement and perceived norms significantly and independently predicted transmission preference (and in turn his or her child’s actual values).
The Role of Goals
As noted, cultural members use their understanding of the culture’s norms strategically to meet certain goals. The perceived norms perspective, thus, further suggests that goals determine the extent to
which parents refer to perceived norms when selecting which cultural ideas to transmit.
Downloaded from jcc.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 4, 2016
3
Tam
It has been well documented that norms serve important epistemic function of reducing
uncertainty (Chiu, Morris, Hong, & Menon, 2000). Some cultural psychology studies have
found that people who are particularly concerned about cognitive closure exhibit a greater
tendency to adopt cultural norm-consistent behavior (e.g., Chao, Zhang, & Chiu, 2010; see
Gelfand & Harrington, IN PRESS). A similar pattern has been found for intergenerational
transmission of values too. In one study (Tam, Lee, et al., 2012, Study 1), a stronger association between perceived norms and transmission preference was found among parents who had
a stronger need for closure.
Some goals are specific to the familial context. For example, parents are concerned about
their children’s adaptation to society (Kuczynski et al., 1997; Schönpflug, 2009a). Parents thus
recognize a need to transmit values that they know are important in the society (e.g., Inkeles,
1955; Youniss, 1994). The perceived norms perspective suggests that the influence of perceived norms on parents’ transmission preference should become particularly pronounced
when this goal of helping children adapt to society is salient. This hypothesis has been confirmed in a recent study. Based on the fact that social adaptation is a more pressing concern for
immigrant than veteran families (e.g., Youniss, 1994), Tam, Lee, et al. (2012, Study 1) found
that transmission preference was more strongly predicted by perceived norms among immigrant than veteran parents.
A similar picture has been revealed in parents with a bicultural background (e.g., ethnic
minorities). To these parents, when they help their children adapt to society, they need to
consider which society, the settlement society or the ethnic society, is more relevant to their
children’s future. Such consideration in turn influences the extent to which they refer to
perceived norms when they construct their transmission preference. A recent study confirmed this view. Tam and Chan (2015) measured personal endorsement, perceived norms in
the settlement society, perceived norms in the ethnic society, and transmission preference of
ethnic minority parents in Hong Kong. They found that these parents’ transmission preference was predicted by both sets of perceived norms, but the strength of this prediction
depended on their expectation about their children’s future. When they had a stronger expectation that their children would return to the ethnic society (stay in the settlement society) in
the future, the degree of reference to their perceived norms in the ethnic society (the settlement society) became larger.
Another goal that is often observed among parents is the concern about preserving the culture in
the next generation (Berry, 2008). This goal is particularly salient among parents who strongly
identify with their culture (Hughes et al., 2006). Accordingly, the perceived norms perspective suggests that this cultural preservation goal drives parents, particularly those who hold a strong cultural
identity, to transmit cultural ideas that are perceived to be normative in the culture, and this should
hold true even if they now settle in a culturally different society (wherein such ideas do not have
much social adaptation utility). Tam and Chan (2015) found confirming evidence to this suggestion. They found that ethnic minority parents’ transmission preference was predicted by their perceived norms in the ethnic society, and this prediction was particularly pronounced among those
with a strong ethnic identity and remained significant even when their expectation about their children’s returning to the ethnic society in the future (i.e., the social adaptation goal) was statistically
controlled for.
In line with the suggestions by Tam and Chan (2015), a more recent study provides preliminary evidence that reference to perceived norms when constructing their transmission preference
could indeed bear the benefits parents wish for (i.e., social adaptation and cultural preservation).
Using a sample of immigrant families in Hong Kong, Chan and Tam (2015) found that mothers
who to a larger extent referred to their perceived norms in the settlement society indeed had children with fewer difficulties in adapting to that society. Similarly, they found that mothers who
more strongly referred to their perceived norms in the ethnic society indeed had children with
Downloaded from jcc.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 4, 2016
4
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 
stronger identification with that society. In short, it appears that reference to perceived norms in
the construction of transmission preference can really help parents meet their goals.
Implications
Not all cultural ideas are transmitted across generations. What determine this selectivity? The
perceived norms perspective highlights the need to consider the role of perceived norms. Parents
refer to both their own orientations and their understanding of the culture’s norms when they
select cultural ideas for transmission. This premise implies that, collectively speaking, ideas that
are either widely endorsed by parents or widely perceived by parents to be normative in the culture are likely to be selected for transmission to the next generation and thereby retained in a
culture. Extrapolating from this implication, it seems conceivable to label values that are both
widely endorsed and widely perceived to be normative as the core values of a culture because
they are most likely to be retained.
The perceived norms perspective offers an alternative interpretation of cross-generation differences. Past studies often considered values dissimilarity between two successive generations
as an indication of ineffective or disrupted cultural transmission (Rowe, 1994; see Kuczynski
et al., 1997) and explained such dissimilarity in terms of changes external to families and in the
broader societal structures (e.g., socioeconomic prosperity, modernization). Nevertheless, when
one takes the perceived norms perspective into account, cross-generation differences do not necessarily indicate failed transmission. Rather, such differences could be intended (see also
Trommsdorff, 2009). What parents select for transmission could be different from what they
personally possess. Thus, even when children fully accept what parents want to transmit, it is still
possible that parents and children do not share the same set of cultural ideas.
The above argument helps resolve a riddle in the study of intergenerational cultural transmission. Some argue that intergenerational cultural transmission is non-responsive to environmental
variability and not facilitative to cultural change (Laland, 1993) because when effective, it gives
rise to parent–child similarity, implying absence of novelty and change (Boyd & Richerson,
1985). Accordingly, research on cultural change seldom considers the intergenerational transmission process (Boehnke, 2001). Nevertheless, from the perceived norms perspective, intergenerational cultural transmission and cultural change are not incompatible (see also Inkeles, 1955).
Rather, intergenerational cultural transmission can give rise to changes across generations. When
parents are not assumed to pursue a complete replica of their own values in their children, it
becomes possible for parents to introduce changes in the culture they are aware of into their
transmission endeavors and thereby contribute to the spread of such changes in the next generation. In this process, parents do not have to internalize such changes. As long as their understanding of what fellow cultural members value and believe is updated, their transmission endeavors
change accordingly. In this view, parents act as “cultural middlemen,” channeling changes in the
culture to the next generation based on their understanding of such changes (Tam & Chan, 2015;
Tam, Lee, et al., 2012).
Directions for Future Extension
Up to date, works derived from the perceived norms perspective have examined intergenerational
cultural transmission only. Future studies should consider other forms of cultural transmission
(e.g., horizontal transmission, oblique transmission). Take transmission in schools as an example.
Some studies showed that school types or teachers’ values do not have any significant effect on
students’ values (e.g., Astill, Feather, & Keeves, 2002). One may conclude that there is no effective cultural transmission in schools. Nevertheless, from the perceived norms perspective, this
conclusion is premature. The values that schoolteachers or administrators hold may differ from
Downloaded from jcc.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 4, 2016
5
Tam
the values they want to transmit to students. It is possible that they construct their teaching practice with close reference to their understandings of the culture’s norms, particularly when they
consider social adaptation or cultural preservation to be important.
The discussion thus far assumes that who are transmitters and who are receivers can be easily
identified and the boundary between the two roles is static. This assumption is obviously an oversimplification, however. Sometimes children adopt the role of transmitters and introduce new
cultural ideas to parents, and parents play the role of receivers and accept these ideas from children (see Taris, 2000). To deepen the understanding of intergenerational cultural transmission
from the perceived norms perspective, future studies should relax this assumption and consider
the dynamicity of the boundary between transmitters and receivers. Apparently, more complicated research designs (e.g., longitudinal studies) will be needed in these studies.
Although transmission of values has been well researched, studies about transmission of
other cultural ideas are scarce (see Boehnke, Hadjar, & Baier, 2009). Future extension of the
perceived norms perspective may focus on social axioms, another core element of culture
(Leung et al., 2002). Social axioms differ from values; the former refer to generalized beliefs
about how the world and humans are, whereas the latter refer to a subjective appraisal of how
the world and humans should be (Leung et al., 2002). Only one study has ever examined intergenerational transmission of social axioms (Boehnke et al., 2009), but this study did not find
any strong indication of parent–child similarity. As noted, one should not interpret this lack of
similarity as evidence of ineffective transmission. From the perceived norms perspective, it is
possible that parents refer to perceived norms, not their personal belief, when they consider
which social axioms they want to emphasize in their transmission endeavors. This hypothesis
remains to be tested.
Epilogue
Research on intergenerational cultural transmission typically considers internalization of a cultural idea by children to be the end of the process and, hence, the outcome variable or dependent
variable in the investigation (Schönpflug, 2009b; Tam, Lee, et al., 2012). However, given the
importance of perceived norms as a determinant of a wide range of cultural behavior (Chiu et al.,
2010; Fischer et al., 2009; Shteynberg et al., 2009) and as a selection device underlying intergenerational cultural transmission, as illustrated in this essay, future research needs to address this
question: How do cultural members acquire perceived norms? In other words, there is a need for
a new line of investigations that consider the transmission of perceived norms and treat perceived
norms as an outcome variable.
Tam (2015) conducted an exploratory study in this regard. Using the multi-level analytic
approach, in four adolescent samples, he found that on average an adolescent’s perceived norms
of values are attributable to four sources: (a) his or her personal endorsement (possibly reflecting
social projection; see Ross, Greene, & House, 1977), (b) his or her perception of parents’ and
peers’ personal endorsement (possibly reflecting social inference; see Kashima, Wilson, Lusher,
Pearson, & Pearson, 2013), (c) his or her parents’ perceived norms (possibly indicating intergenerational transmission), and (d) norm perceptions held by a randomly selected stranger (possibly
indicating transmission in the broader societal context; see Roest et al., 2009). Although the first
two sources appear to be some basic social-psychological processes, the last two sources seem to
imply that perceived norms, just as other cultural ideas, are transmitted in a culture.
This exploratory study just marks the beginning of the needed investigations. There are still
many unknowns. It appears that perceived norms are transmitted within families. How exactly
are they transmitted? Is there any peer-to-peer transmission? It also appears that even strangers
share similar norm perceptions to some extent. What contribute to this sharing? Is it attributable
to similar experience in the educational system? What is the role of public cultural
Downloaded from jcc.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 4, 2016
6
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 
representations (e.g., classical texts) or social institutions (e.g., legislation, media)? I end this
essay by calling for studies that address these issues.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The works by the author described in this article were substantially supported by grants
from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project No.
HKUST642909 and HKUST641513).
References
Astill, B. R., Feather, N. T., & Keeves, J. P. (2002). A multilevel analysis of the effects of parents, teachers
and schools on student values. Social Psychology of Education, 5, 345-363.
Berry, J. W. (2008). Globalisation and acculturation. International Journal of Intercultural Relations,
32, 328-336.
Boehnke, K. (2001). Parent-offspring value transmission in a societal context. Journal of Cross-Cultural
Psychology, 32, 241-255.
Boehnke, K., Hadjar, A., & Baier, D. (2009). Value transmission and “zeitgeist” revisited. In U. Schönpflug
(Ed.), Cultural transmission (pp. 441-459). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. J. (1985). Culture and the evolutionary process. Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press.
Campbell, D. T. (1975). On the conflicts between biological and social evolution and between psychology
and moral tradition. American Psychologists, 30, 1103-1126.
Chan, H.-W., & Tam, K.-P. (2015). Reconsidering the meaning of effective value socialization: The role of
perceived norms in value socialization in immigrant families. Manuscript under review.
Chao, M. M., Zhang, Z. X., & Chiu, C. Y. (2010). Adherence to perceived norms across cultural boundaries: The role of need for cognitive closure and ingroup identification. Group Processes & Intergroup
Relations, 13, 69-89.
Chiu, C.-Y., Gelfand, M. J., Yamagishi, T., Shteynberg, G., & Wan, C. (2010). Intersubjective culture: The
role of intersubjective perceptions in cross-cultural research. Perspectives on Psychological Science,
5, 482-493.
Chiu, C.-Y., Morris, M. W., Hong, Y., & Menon, T. (2000). Motivated cultural cognition: The impact of
implicit cultural theories on dispositional attribution varies as a function of need for closure. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 247-259.
Fischer, R., Ferreira, M. C., Assmar, E., Redford, P., Harb, C., Glazer, S., . . . Achoui, M. (2009).
Individualism-collectivism as descriptive norms: Development of a subjective norm approach to culture measurement. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 40, 187-213.
Gelfand, M. J., & Harrington, J. R. (IN PRESS). The motivational forces of descriptive norms: For
whom and when are descriptive norms most predictive of behavior? Journal of Cross-Cultural
Psychology.
Hughes, D., Rodriguez, J., Smith, E. P., Johnson, D. J., Stevenson, H. C., & Spicer, P. (2006). Parents’ ethnic-racial socialization practices: A review of research and directions for future study. Developmental
Psychology, 42, 747-770.
Inkeles, A. (1955). Social change and social character: The role of parental mediation. Journal of Social
Issues, 11, 12-23.
Kashima, Y., Wilson, S., Lusher, D., Pearson, L. J., & Pearson, C. (2013). The acquisition of perceived
descriptive norms as social category learning in social networks. Social Networks, 35, 711-719.
Kuczynski, L., Marshall, S., & Schell, K. (1997). Value socialization in a bidirectional context. In J. E.
Grusec & L. Kuczynski (Eds.), Parenting and the internalization of values: A handbook of contemporary theory (pp. 23-50). New York, NY: John Wiley.
Downloaded from jcc.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 4, 2016
7
Tam
Laland, K. N. (1993). Social transmission of food preferences among Norway rats by marking food sites
and by gustatory contact. Animal Learning & Behavior, 21, 35-41.
Leung, K., Bond, M. H., de Carrasquel, S. R., Muñoz, C., Hernández, M., Murakami, F., . . . Singelis, T.
M. (2002). Social axioms: The search for universal dimensions of general beliefs about how the world
functions. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 33, 286-302.
Roest, A., Dubas, J. S., Gerris, J. R., & Engels, R. C. (2009). Value similarities among fathers, mothers,
and adolescents and the role of a cultural stereotype: Different measurement strategies reconsidered.
Journal of Research on Adolescence, 19, 812-833.
Ross, L., Greene, D., & House, P. (1977). The “false consensus effect”: An egocentric bias in social perception and attribution processes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 13, 279-301.
Rowe, D. (1994). The limits of family influence: Genes, experience, and behavior. New York, NY: Guilford
Press.
Schönpflug, U. (2001). Intergenerational transmission of values: The role of transmission belts. Journal of
Cross-Cultural Psychology, 32, 174-185.
Schönpflug, U. (2009a). Epilogue: Toward a model of cultural transmission. In U. Schönpflug (Ed.),
Cultural transmission (pp. 460-478). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Schönpflug, U. (2009b). Theory and research in cultural transmission: A short history. In U. Schönpflug
(Ed.), Cultural transmission (pp. 9-30). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and
empirical tests in 20 countries. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology
(Vol. 25, pp. 1-65). New York, NY: Academic Press.
Shteynberg, G., Gelfand, M. J., & Kim, K. (2009). Peering into the “magnum mysterium” of culture: The
explanatory power of descriptive norms. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 40, 46-69.
Strauss, C. (1992). Models and motives. In R. G. D’Andrade & C. Strauss (Eds.), Human motives and
cultural models (pp. 1-20). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Tam, K.-P. (2015). How do people know what fellow cultural members value? A multi-source model on
acquisition of perceived descriptive norms. Manuscript under preparation.
Tam, K.-P., & Chan, H.-W. (2015). Parents as cultural middlemen: The role of perceived norms in value
socialization by ethnic minority parents. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 46, 489-507.
Tam, K.-P., & Lee, S.-L. (2010). What values do parents want to socialize in their children: The role of
perceived normative values. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 41, 175-181.
Tam, K.-P., Lee, S.-L., Kim, Y.-H., Li, Y., & Chao, M. M. (2012). Intersubjective model of value transmission: Parents using perceived norms as reference when socializing children. Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 38, 1041-1052.
Tam, K.-P., Leung, A. K. Y., Kim, Y.-H., Chiu, C.-Y., Lau, I. Y.-M., & Au, A. (2012). The better-thanaverage effect in Hong Kong and the U.S.: The role of personal trait importance and cultural trait
importance. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 43, 915-930.
Taris, T. W. (2000). Quality of mother-child interaction and intergenerational transmission of sexual values:
A panel study. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 161, 169-181.
Triandis, H. C. (1989). The self and social behavior in differing cultural contexts. Psychological Review,
96, 506-520.
Trommsdorff, G. (2009). Intergenerational relations and cultural transmission. In U. Schönpflug (Ed.),
Cultural transmission (pp. 126-160). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Wan, C., Chiu, C.-Y., Tam, K.-P., Lee, S.-L., Lau, I. Y.-M., & Peng, S. (2007). Perceived cultural importance and actual self-importance of values in cultural identification. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 92, 337-354.
Youniss, J. (1994). Rearing children for society. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development,
66, 37-50.
Zou, X., Tam, K.-P., Morris, M. W., Lee, S. L., Lau, I. Y. M., & Chiu, C. Y. (2009). Culture as common
sense: Perceived consensus versus personal beliefs as mechanisms of cultural influence. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 579-597.
Downloaded from jcc.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 4, 2016