{
  "id": "artifact:the-world-got-bigger-and-so-did-the-self",
  "slug": "the-world-got-bigger-and-so-did-the-self",
  "title": "The World Got Bigger, and So Did the Self",
  "thesis": "Travel does not automatically broaden the mind. Sustained cultural contact can.",
  "abstract": "A personal cultural essay tracing Tony Malott's path from rural Arkansas through military life in Japan and Germany to multicultural California, arguing that sustained contact—not travel alone—can widen inherited worldviews while retaining explicit evidence and caveats.",
  "topics": [
    "culture",
    "intergroup-contact",
    "travel",
    "worldview",
    "identity"
  ],
  "date": "2026-07-09",
  "dateLabel": "Source dated",
  "published": false,
  "publicationState": "MERGE_READY",
  "updated": "2026-07-09",
  "sourceDates": {
    "created": "2026-07-09",
    "updated": "2026-07-09",
    "migrated": "2026-07-19"
  },
  "kind": "Personal Cultural Essay",
  "sourceFamily": "SharePlane Platform",
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  "packageHref": "downloads/works/the-world-got-bigger-and-so-did-the-self.zip",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://shareplane.malott.ai/artifacts/the-world-got-bigger-and-so-did-the-self/",
  "sources": [
    {
      "id": "source:world:contact-meta-analysis",
      "type": "public-research",
      "title": "Intergroup Contact Theory meta-analysis",
      "canonicalEvidenceHeading": "Source 1: Intergroup Contact Theory",
      "locator": "https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16737372/",
      "role": "contact and prejudice evidence",
      "description": "Pettigrew and Tropp’s 2006 meta-analysis reviewed 713 independent samples from 515 studies and found that intergroup contact typically reduces intergroup prejudice. This supports the artifact’s central evidence-backed claim that meaningful contact can weaken prejudice, while not proving that every kind of contact works.",
      "publiclyExposed": true
    },
    {
      "id": "source:world:contact-conditions",
      "type": "public-research-summary",
      "title": "Conditions for Better Contact",
      "canonicalEvidenceHeading": "Source 2: Conditions for Better Contact",
      "locator": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/intergroup-contact-theory",
      "role": "contact-condition context",
      "description": "Allport’s contact framework and later intergroup contact theory emphasize that contact tends to work better under conditions such as equal status, common goals, cooperation, reduced competition, and institutional support. This supports the artifact’s distinction between shallow exposure and dignified shared life.",
      "publiclyExposed": true
    },
    {
      "id": "source:world:foreign-experience-trust",
      "type": "public-research",
      "title": "Foreign Experience and Generalized Trust",
      "canonicalEvidenceHeading": "Source 3: Foreign Experience and Generalized Trust",
      "locator": "https://business.columbia.edu/faculty/research/does-travel-broaden-mind-breadth-foreign-experiences-increases-generalized-trust",
      "role": "foreign-experience and trust evidence",
      "description": "Cao, Galinsky, and Maddux found across five studies that the breadth of foreign experiences predicted and experimentally increased generalized trust, while focusing on differences across countries was important to that effect. This supports the artifact’s argument that real exposure to difference matters more than generic travel sentimentality.",
      "publiclyExposed": true
    },
    {
      "id": "source:world:multicultural-openness",
      "type": "public-research",
      "title": "Multicultural Experience, Openness, and Prejudice",
      "canonicalEvidenceHeading": "Source 4: Multicultural Experience, Openness, and Prejudice",
      "locator": "https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ejsp.2189",
      "role": "multicultural contact evidence",
      "description": "Sparkman, Eidelman, and Blanchar found that multicultural experiences were associated with greater openness and less ethnic prejudice, and that experimental multicultural exposure reduced intercultural prejudice through openness-related shifts. This supports the artifact’s claim that multicultural contact can change the way people process unfamiliar groups.",
      "publiclyExposed": true
    }
  ],
  "posture": "personal-testimony-with-public-research-support",
  "media": [],
  "schema": "shareplane.portable-work.v1",
  "author": {
    "name": "Tony Malott",
    "url": "https://malott.ai/"
  },
  "content": {
    "mediaType": "text/plain",
    "path": "records/the-world-got-bigger-and-so-did-the-self/context.txt",
    "sha256": "5e698b344ccee372c0f8d3953ac299af697d920bb6f39253547dd2f70ac7e42b",
    "complete": true,
    "extraction": "Native presentation reading order; scripts, styles, and platform chrome excluded."
  },
  "relationships": [
    {
      "source": "artifact:the-world-got-bigger-and-so-did-the-self",
      "target": "artifact:the-country-where-movement-became-homework",
      "type": "companion",
      "group": "companions",
      "label": "Compare cultural contact with physical defaults",
      "explanation": "The cultural essay examines how sustained contact can enlarge a worldview; the movement essay examines how physical defaults constrain daily behavior. Together they compare two ways environments shape the self."
    }
  ],
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}