Student or educator? Sign up with your school email and get 6 months of Pro free.
CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 466

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 44 of the 44 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Cultural additivity: behavioural insights from the interaction of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism in folktales

Open access
Vuong, Quan-Hoang, Bui, Quang-Khiem, La, Viet-Phuong, Vuong, Thu-Trang, Nguyen, Viet-Ha T., Ho, Manh-Toan, Nguyen, Hong-Kong T., Ho, Manh-Tung·2018·Palgrave Communications
DOI 10.1057/s41599-018-0189-2
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Computational folkloristics, which is rooted in the movement to make folklore studies more scientific, has transformed the way researchers in humanities detect patterns of cultural transmission in large folklore collections. This interdisciplinary study contributes to the literature through its application of Bayesian statistics in analyzing Vietnamese folklore. By breaking down 307 stories in popular Vietnamese folktales and major story collections and categorizing their core messages under the values or anti-values of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, the study shows how the Bayesian method helps discover an underlying behavioural phenomenon called “cultural additivity.” The term, which is inspired by the principle of additivity in probability, adds to the voluminous works on syncretism, creolization and hybridity in its technical dimension. Here, to evaluate how the values and norms of the aforementioned three religions (“tam giáo”三教) co-exist, interact, and influence Vietnamese society, the study proposes three models of additivity for religious faiths: (a) no additivity, (b) simple additivity, and (c) complex additivity. The empirical results confirm the existence of “cultural additivity” : not only is there an isolation of Buddhism in the folktales, there is also a higher possibility of interaction or addition of Confucian and Taoist values even when these two religions hold different value systems (β{VT.VC} = 0.86). The arbitrary blend of the three religions is an example of the observed phenomenon of Vietnamese people selecting and adding ideas, beliefs, or artefacts—which may sometimes appear contradictory to principles of their existing beliefs—to their culture. The behavioural pattern is omnipresent in the sense that it can also be seen in Vietnamese arts, architecture, or adoption of new ideas and religions, among others. The “cultural additivity” concept, backed by robust statistical analysis, is an attempt to fill in the cultural core pointed out by syncretism and account for the rising complexity of modern societies.

Overview

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1057/s41599-018-0189-2

Cites

44 of 44 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Verification

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Citations

Cites

Show all 44 references

Research works printed but not linked: 56

  1. Bortolini E, Pagani L, Crema ER, Sarno S, Barbieri C, Boattini A, Sazzini M, da Silva SG, Martini G, Metspalu M (2017b) Reply to d’Huy et al.: Navigating biases and charting new ground in the cultural diffusion of folktales. Proc Natl Acad Sci 114(41):E8556–E8556 · doi:10.1073/pnas.1715139114
  2. Bronner SJ (2005) “ Gombo” folkloristics: Lafcadio Hearn’s creolization and hybridization in the formative period of folklore studies. J Folk Res 42(2):141–184
  3. Choi WH, Kim DK (2013) ‘A research on the transmission and variation of tales to build korean yadam computer aided digital archive’. Appl Mech Mater: Trans Tech Publ, 307: 502–505. · doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/amm.307.502
  4. Cleary JC (1991) Buddhism and popular religion in medieval Vietnam. J Am Acad Relig 59(1):93–118 · doi:10.1093/jaarel/lix.1.93
  5. d’Huy J, Le Quellec J-L, Berezkin Y, Lajoye P, Uther H-J (2017) Studying folktale diffusion needs unbiased dataset Proc Natl Acad Sci 114(41):E8555–E8555 · doi:10.1073/pnas.1714884114
  6. Dogra S (2018) Folklore and computers: The oral and the digital in computational folkloristics. Int J Humanities Soc Sci 6(1):22–27
  7. Drell JH (1999) Cultural syncretism and ethnic identity. J Mediev Hist 25(3):187–202 · doi:10.1016/s0304-4181(99)00002-0
  8. Durkheim E (1897) Le suicide. Presses Électroniques de France, Paris, France
  9. Gomes A (2007) Cultural syncretism, civility, and religious diversity in Goa, India. Suomen Antropologi: J Finnish Anthro Soc 32(3): 12-24.
  10. Grayson JH (1984) Religious syncretism in the Shilla period: The relationship between Esoteric Buddhism and Korean primeval religion. Asian Folkl Stud 43(2):185–198 · doi:10.2307/1178008
  11. Hitchcox L (1990) Movement and change. In: Hitchcox L (ed) Vietnamese Refugees in Southeast Asian Camps.. Palgrave Macmillan, London, UK, pp. 21–35 · doi:10.1007/978-1-349-20979-8_2
  12. Hoang VT (2017) New religions and state’s response to religious diversification in contemporary Vietnam: Tensions from the reinvention of the sacred. Springer, Switzerland · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-58500-0
  13. Hoskins J (2015) The divine eye and the diaspora: Vietnamese syncretism becomes transpacific Caodaism. University of Hawai’i Press · doi:10.21313/hawaii/9780824840044.001.0001
  14. Hoskins JA, Ninh T-HT (2017) Globalizing vietnamese religions. J Vietnam Stud 12(2):1–19 · doi:10.1525/jvs.2017.12.2.1
  15. Kendall L (2008) Editor’s introduction: Popular religion and the sacred life of material goods in contemporary Vietnam. Asian Ethnol 67(2):177
  16. Kendall L (2011) Gods, gifts, markets, and superstition: spirited consumption from Korea to Vietnam. In: Endres K.W., Lauser A Engaging the Sprit World: Popular Beliefs and Practices in Modern Southeast Asia. Berghahn Books, New York, pp 103–120
  17. Kendall L, Tam VTT, Huong NTT (2008) Three goddesses in and out of their shrine. Asian Ethnol 67(2):219
  18. Le T (2016) The common root of Three Religions (三敎同源) in the history of Vietnamese thoughts. Stud Confucianism: J Confucianism Res Inst 36(8):535–561
  19. Lenz Dunker CI (2008) Psychology and psychoanalysis in Brazil: From cultural syncretism to the collapse of liberal individualism. Theory Psychol 18(2):223–236 · doi:10.1177/0959354307087883
  20. Louass I (2015) La collaboration franco-caodaïste au début de la guerre d’Indochine (1945-1948) : un « pacte avec le Diable » ? » (Collaboration between French and Caodaists at the Beginning of the Indochina War (1945-1948): A “Deal with the Devil”?). Bull De l’Institut Pierre Renouvin 1(41):75–87 · doi:10.3917/bipr.041.0075
  21. Magliocco S (2010) Witching culture: Folklore and neo-paganism in America. University of Pennsylvania Press
  22. Moretti F (2000) Conjectures on world literature. New Left Rev 54–68 · doi:10.64590/hxj
  23. Nguyen D-P (2017) Text as social and cultural data: a computational perspective on variation in text. Universiteit Twente, Enschede
  24. Nguyen DC (2014a) Kho tàng truyện cổ tích Việt Nam (quyển 1) [Collection of Vietnamese folktales, vol. 1]. Nha Xuat Ban Tre, Ho Chi Minh City, (2 vols)
  25. Nguyen DC (2014b) Kho tàng truyện cổ tích Việt Nam (quyển 2) [Collection of Vietnamese folktales, vol. 2]. Nha Xuat Ban Tre, Ho Chi Minh City, (2 vols)
  26. Nguyen L (2014c) Viet Nam Phat Giao Su Luan (On the history of Buddhism in Vietnam). Nha Xuat Ban Van Hoc, Hanoi
  27. Nguyen L (2014d) Viet Nam Phat Giao Su Luan [On the history of Buddhism in Vietnam]. NXB Van hoc, Hanoi, Vietnam
  28. Nguyen MD (1985) Culture shock - A review of Vietnamese culture and its concepts of health and disease. Cross-Cult Med 142(3):409–412
  29. Nguyen NH (1998) The Confucian incursion into Vietnam. In: Slote, WH & Vos, GAD (eds) Confucianism and the Family: A Study of Indo-Tibetan Scholasticism. State of New York University Press: New York, pp. 91–104.
  30. Nguyen TA (1993) Buddhism and Vietnamese society throughout history. South East Asia Res 1(1):98–114 · doi:10.1177/0967828x9300100106
  31. Nguyen TD (2013) Tam giáo đồng nguyên và tính đa nguyên trong truyền thống vănTransdisciplinary Approach hóa Việt Nam [Three Religions and pluralism in Vietnamese traditional culture]. Khoa học Xã hội Việt Nam 66:35–43
  32. Nguyen TD (2015) Some features of the ‘Vietnamization’ of Confucianism in the history of Vietnam. Stud Confucianism: J Confucianism Res Inst 33(11):497–530 · doi:10.18216/yuhak.2015.33..019
  33. Nguyen TT (2008) History of Buddhism in Vietnam. Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change. Series Iii, Asia (Book 5). Council for Research in Values & Philosophy, Washington D.C
  34. Như-Quỳnh CT, Schafer JC (198Tibetan ScholasticismTibetan Scholasticism8) From verse narrative to novel: The development of prose fiction in Vietnam J Asian Stud 47(4):756–777 · doi:10.2307/2057851
  35. Novak P (1987) Tao how? Asian religions and the problem of environmental degradation. ReVision 9(2):33–40
  36. Pedersen DB (2016) Integrating social sciences and humanities in interdisciplinary research. Palgrave Commun 2:16036 · doi:10.1057/palcomms.2016.36
  37. Pham LH, Fry GW (2004) Education and economic, political, and social change in Vietnam. Educ Res Policy Pract 3(3):199–222 · doi:10.1007/s10671-005-0678-0
  38. Phap TT (2017) Lĩnh Nam chích quái [Selected tales of extraordinary beings in Linh Nam]. Kim Dong, Hanoi
  39. Quinn-Judge S (2013) Giving peace a chance: National reconciliation and a neutral South Vietnam, 1954-1964. Peace Change 38(4):385–410 · doi:10.1111/pech.12037
  40. Raffin A (2008) Postcolonial Vietnam: hybrid modernity. Post Stud 11(3):329–344 · doi:10.1080/13688790802226728
  41. Ringgren H (1969) The problems of syncretism. Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 3: 7-14. · doi:10.30674/scripta.67029
  42. Smith R (1970) An introduction to Caodaism I. Origins and early history. Bull Sch Orient Afr Stud 33(2):335–349 · doi:10.1017/s0041977x00103404
  43. Stewart C (2011) Creolization, hybridity, syncretism, mixture. Port Stud 27(1):48–55 · doi:10.5699/portstudies.27.1.0048
  44. Stockhammer P W (2011) Questioning Hybridity. In: Stockhammer P.W. (Ed.) Conceptualizing CulturalHybridization: A Transdisciplinary Approach. 1st. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, Heidelberg, pp 1–13
  45. Tangherlini TR (1994) Cinderella in Korea: Korean Oikotypes of AaTh 510. Fabula 35:282–304 · doi:10.1515/fabl.1994.35.3-4.282
  46. Tangherlini TR (2013) The folklore macroscope. West Folk 72(1):7–27
  47. Taylor RL, Choy HYF (2005) The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Confucianism. vol. 1, The Rosen Publishing Group, New York, NY
  48. Tehrani JJ, d’Huy J (2017) Phylogenetics meets folklore: Bioinformatics approaches to the study of international folktales. In: Kenna R, MacCarron M, MacCarron P (eds) Maths meets myths: Quantitative approaches to ancient narratives. Understanding complex systems. Springer, Cham, pp. 91–114 · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-39445-9_6
  49. Thompson S (1977) The folktale. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles
  50. Toan-Anh (2005) Nep cu: Tin nguong in Vietnam (Quyen thuong) [Old habits: Religious beliefs in Vietnam (Vol. I)]. Nha Xuat Ban Tre, Hanoi
  51. Tran AQ (2017) Gods, Heroes, and Ancestors: An Interreligious Encounter in Eighteenth-century Vietnam. Oxford University Press · doi:10.1093/oso/9780190677602.001.0001
  52. Vuong Q-H, Ho M-T, Nguyen H-K, Vuong T-T, Tran K, Ho M (2018a) “Paintings can be forged, but not feeling”: Vietnamese art—market, fraud, and value. Arts 7(4):62 · doi:10.3390/arts7040062
  53. Vuong QH (2018) “How did researchers get it so wrong?” The acute problem of plagiarism in Vietnamese social sciences and humanities. Eur Sci Ed 44(3):56–58
  54. Vuong QH, Ho T, La V-P, Nhue D, Bui Q-K, Cuong NPK, Vuong T-T, Ho M-T, Nguyen H, Pham H-H and Napier NK (2018c) ‘Cultural Additivity’and How the Values and Norms of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism Co-Exist, Interact, and Influence Vietnamese Society: A Bayesian Analysis of Long-Standing Folktales, Using R and Stan. Université Libre de Bruxelles CEB Working Paper No. 18/015 · doi:10.2139/ssrn.3134541
  55. Vuong QH, Tran TD (2009) The cultural dimensions of the VietnTransdisciplinary Approachamese private entrepreneurship. IUP J Entrep Dev, VI 3&4:54–78
  56. Xu Y-z (2002) A thesis on the spreading and influence of taoism in vietnam. J Hist Sci 7:015

Cited by

See all 466

Metadata

Authors
Vuong, Q.-H., Bui, Q.-K., La, V.-P., Vuong, T.-T., Nguyen, V.-H. T., Ho, M.-T., Nguyen, H.-K. T., & Ho, M.-T.
Venue
Palgrave Communications
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2018-12-04
Volume
4
Issue
1
ISSN
2055-1045 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1057/s41599-018-0189-2
OpenAlex
W2902417118
Cited by
466
References
44
FWCI
733.21
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
gold
Licence

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review

How to cite

Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.

This page
CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Cultural additivity: behavioural insights from the interaction of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism in folktales. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1057/s41599-018-0189-2
The paper
Vuong, Q.-H., Bui, Q.-K., La, V.-P., Vuong, T.-T., Nguyen, V.-H. T., Ho, M.-T., Nguyen, H.-K. T., & Ho, M.-T. (2018). Cultural additivity: behavioural insights from the interaction of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism in folktales. Palgrave Communications. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-018-0189-2

Data sources

Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.