Social representations of events and people in world history across 12 cultures

Abstract

Social representations of world history were assessed using the open-ended questions, "What are the most important events in world history?" and "Who are the most influential persons in world history in the last 1,000 years?" Data from six Asian and six Western samples showed cross-cultural consensus. Historical representations were (a) focused on the recent past, (b) centered around politics and war, and (c) dominated by the events of the World Wars and (d) the individual Hitler, who was universally perceived as negative, (e) Representations were more Eurocentric than ethnocentric, (f) The importance of economics and science was underrepresented. (g) Most cultures nominated people (more tha..