Department of Communication and Culture

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 94 p. 104981-104981 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2026.104981

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications Doi: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-026-08549-2

Abstract In increasingly diverse societies, people in intercultural contact must navigate cultural diversity to find their place and sense of belonging. Yet, research on acculturation has largely focused on minority groups, leaving majority group responses to cultural change underexplored. A substantial subset of majority group members adopts an undifferentiated acculturation strategy, expressing low or neutral scores on both heritage culture maintenance and other culture adoption. This pre-registered mixed-methods study provides the first comprehensive examination of this strategy’s internal heterogeneity. We surveyed 316 undifferentiated White British participants and applied Latent Profile Analysis across psychological, ideological, and demographic variables, integrating these results with quantified qualitative data. The analysis revealed two subgroups. The larger Humanistic profile ( n  = 242) was characterised by politically liberal views, stronger identification with all humanity, and inclusive attitudes towards immigrants, and scored significantly higher—though still neutral in absolute terms—on other culture adoption. Their neutrality appeared to reflect a universalist, equality-oriented outlook rather than indifference, suggesting a cosmopolitan form of belonging grounded in global human identification. The smaller Detached profile ( n  = 74) showed higher cultural-identity reflection and cultural essentialism, and greater indifference to intercultural contact, but did not differ from the Humanistic group on heritage culture maintenance. This orientation reflected a more disengaged or ambivalent sense of belonging, marked by scepticism towards cultural identity as a basis for social connection. These findings demonstrate that the undifferentiated strategy is not monolithic but comprises at least two orientations: one grounded in inclusive, humanity-based belonging and another reflecting detachment from cultural involvement. We propose extending acculturation theory to incorporate these humanistic and detached patterns, which may represent distinct adaptations to culturally complex, globalised societies. We discuss their implications for fostering or hindering belonging among a substantial segment of majority-group members.

Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review 7(4) Doi: https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-206

Fact-checking on social media matters more than ever. When Meta abandoned professional fact checkers in 2025 in favour of crowd-sourced annotations, it bet that community participation could substitute for institutional expertise. Our systematic review of 21 empirical studies of social media fact-checking (2022–2025) suggests the picture is more complicated than it appears. Community-based fact-checking is faster and scalable, whereas professional fact checkers are generally more trusted but often slow. Neither model, on its own, performs strongly across trust, scalability, and impact. The evidence suggests that hybrid systems combining community speed with expert verification are likely to be the most effective approach.

barnehage.no

Når nye foreldre følger barnet sitt inn gjennom barnehageporten for første gang, tar de ikke bare med seg matboks og skiftetøy. De tar også med seg forventninger om hvordan personalet skal møte og forstå barnet deres. Det er her grunnlaget for samarbeid og tillit legges.

Frontiers in Virtual Reality 7 Doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2026.1860842

Research in virtual reality and related immersive environments increasingly relies on avatars as perceptual and embodied carriers of social identity, yet existing avatar systems offer limited control over identity cues, restricted demographic diversity, and weak reproducibility. These constraints narrow the questions that can be asked about embodiment, social categorization, and intergroup processes. We introduce synthetic embodiment as a theory and method framework for studying AI-generated identity cues in virtual reality and related immersive environments, including persistent metaverse contexts. The framework reconceptualizes identity not as a fixed categorical label, but as a multidimensional and controllable design space varying across phenotype, gender presentation, age, cultural markers, ambiguity, and intersectional cue structure. We further propose the Embodiment Categorization Bias (ECB) model, which specifies a testable process through which identity cues operate as perceptual inputs, shape embodiment strength, guide social categorization, and influence intergroup outcomes such as bias, empathy, perceived threat, cooperation, and social distance. To support empirical work, we outline a methodological pipeline for avatar generation, standardization, immersive integration, perceptual validation, and fairness auditing. An illustrative feasibility demonstration shows how theoretically specified identity variables can be translated into structured generative prompts and preliminary avatar stimuli across multiple generative AI systems. This demonstration is not presented as perceptual validation or as empirical evidence for the ECB model, but as an illustration of the early stimulus-construction stage of the synthetic embodiment pipeline. Together, synthetic embodiment positions AI-generated avatars as research infrastructure for more precise, scalable, and ethically accountable studies of identity in immersive environments.