From identity to caring: A 44-country examination of the role of global social identifications in concern for global issues

Previous research suggests that people who identify with global communities tend to show greater concern for global challenges. Using student samples from 44 countries across different cultural clusters (N = 13,055), we examined whether (1) three forms of dispositional global social identification (GSI, with all humanity, citizens of the world, and people all over the world) are related to concern for global issues, (2) situational activation of these identifications increases such concern, (3) country-level traditional and survival values are negatively associated with global concern, and (4) these values moderate the GSI–concern link. Both dispositional and situational GSIs positively predicted global concern. Situational activation showed inconsistent effects, whereas dispositional GSIs demonstrated moderate and consistent associations with global concern across the full sample and most countries. Overall, dispositional forms of GSI appeared more influential than situational ones. Contrary to expectations, traditional values (and survival values—marginally) were positively related to global concern and showed no evidence of moderating GSI–concern associations. Additional analyses showed the indices of GDP per capita, Human Development, Gini, and poverty as robust predictors of global concern. We discuss how these findings refine claims about the universality of global identification outcomes and highlight the importance of socio-cultural context in shaping such concern.