10. Personality and culture Flashcards
What is associated characteristics?
Characteristic associated with personality
How are personality traits, associated characteristics, and institutions connected?
They all influence each other
Premise: People will create institutions and social norms that tend to attract like-minded people to their area as well as shape those around them
How do the stereotypes of certain countries line up with reality?
Often stereotypes like “industrious german” actually line up with reality.
There is a substantial degree to which different nations agree on different characteristics that represent different countries
What is reference group effect?
Your self-ratings probably compared yourself against those that you knew and/or deemed relevant
When a woman has to rate her hight she compared herself to other women and not to the general population
Can people high on agreeableness only agree to things that are morally correct?
NO! Agreeable people can go along with “bad” politics if there is enough societal agreeableness
Why is there no correlation between perceived national character (stereotype) and self-reports
Because of reference groups - you don’t compare yourself to the general population but to the those that you deemed relevant
What does objective indicators with and what doesn’t it correlate with?
Objective indicators correlate with “percieved national character” and DID NOT correlate with self-ratings
What does Shweder suggest?
He suggest that personality, conceived of as real property of a human being is the notion invented by our culture, it does not exist in all cultures, therefore personality is not a real property of human beings
The majority of research in psychology is done on what kind of people?
Weird people
It is both done by and on western people
Why are WEIRD people actually weird?
if Americans/Danes etc are unlike the rest of the population of the world - if the research only replies to them then we have a problem
How does the result you find in non-developed countries differ from those in developed countries?
When you’re looking at populations that are less development you find results that are far less.
The population that we study makes this illusion seem like it is a big deal
If you look at other population you don’t see the same result
Non-western populations look more like other non-western populations then western look like other western - WHY?
The novel setting in western countries makes people shift more
How is conformity motivations (cultural differences within a nation) different for a college student than for non-college educated?
The conformity motivations are weaker among college-educated than non-educated Americans
Non-college educated acted more similar to that observed in east Asian examples
How might a thing like emotional suppression show cultural differences?
gender difference: men are more likely to suppress emotions
Cultural differences: EX: Japanese men suppress their feelings more when another male is present than do American men
What characterizes individualism (I)?
Priority to personal goals over goals of the social groups
What characterizes collectivism (C)?
Either no distinction or priority to collective goals over personal goals
Is independence related to collectivism or individualism?
Individualistic
Is interdependence related to collectivism or individualism?
Collectivistic
Whose needs matter the most in collectivist cultures?
The needs of the group are more important than the right of the individual
Whose needs matter the most in individualistic cultures?
the need of the individual is the most important consideration
How do the collectivist cultures see the environment and themselves?
They see the environment as more or less fixed (Stable norms, duties etc.) They see themselves as changeable -> ready to fit in
How do the individualist cultures see the environment and themselves?
They see themselves as more or less stable (stable attitudes, personality etc.) and the environment as changeable
What is the effect of failure and success to motivation in collectivistic and individualistic cultures?
Collectivist: Motivation increases following failure. They are more prone to the incremental view (You need to work harder to meet the task that you weren’t meeting)
Individualist: Motivation increases following success
they are more prone to entity theory ( You think ability is something that you have)
What kinds of arguments are most effective in collectivistic cultures?
Arguments that are influenced by social proof
What kinds of arguments are most effective in individualistic cultures?
Arguments that are influenced by commitment/consistency arguments
What 3 things are typical for the recreational setting in collectivist cultures?
- has stable relationships
- is relatively large (more than 3 people)
- meets frequently
What 3 things are typical for the recreational setting in individualistic cultures?
- has variable memberships
- is often small (2-3) or very large
- meets infrequently
How is emotion different in collectivist and individualistic cultures?
Collectivist: more grounded in an assessment of social worth, to reflect the nature of social reality rather than private inner experience, to depend on relationships
Individualistic: more self-focused emotions
How is consistency/self-determination in collectivist societies different from individualistic societies?
The individualistic view - assumes that behavior lies within the person: that person is expected to behave in a consistent way from one situation to the next
The collectivist view - A member is expected to change his or her behavior as a function of that immediate situation
Why don’t members of a collectivist culture feel self-regard less acutely?
Because they tie their individual well-being to that of the larger group
Definition of vertical cultures?
They are more competitive and entail dominance hierarchies with more levels and fever people near the top
Definition of horizontal cultures?
People tend to feel more tightly bounded to the level at which their collective identity is located and thus less able to rise and fall
Name a country that is horizontal individualistic
DENMARK
Name a country that is horizontal collectivistic
Israeli Kibbutz
Name a country that is vertical individualistic
USA
Name a country that is vertical collectivistic
India, China
Is the power distance greater in vertical or horizontal societies?
Vertical
What are cultural variations?
local within-group similarities and between-group differences can be of any sort – physical, psychological, behavioral or attitudinal
Cultural personality psychology has 3 key goals - what are those?
- to discover the principles underlying the cultural diversity
- to discover how human psychology shapes culture
- discover how cultural understandings, in turn, shape our psychology
Definition of evoked culture
Cultural differences created by differing environmental conditions activating a predictable set of responses
Ex: The observation that residents of Zaire sweat more than residents of Iceland may be explained as an environmentally evoked difference that operates on sweat glands, which all humans possess
Definition of transmitted culture
Consists of ideas, values, attitudes, and beliefs that exist originally in at least one person’s mind that are transmitted to other people’s minds through their interaction with the original person
Cultural universals
Features of personality that appear to be universal, or present in most or all human cultures
Can all behaviors can be classified as either evoked culture or transmitted culture?
Not all behaviors can be classified as either evoked culture or transmitted culture. Instead, they may interact in influencing human behavior
Egalitarism
how much a particular group displays equal treatment of all individual in that group
What is cultures of honor
cultures where insults are viewed as highly offensive public challenges, which must be met with direct confrontation and physical aggression.
Acculturation
the contact between two cultural groups that leads to change in both groups but the change is often more prominent in the non-dominant group
Self-enhancement bias
we tend to rate ourselves better than others
What is within culture variations
variations within a culture. Can arise from different sources including differences in growing up in various socioeconomic classes, differences in historical era, or differences in the racial context in which one grows up
Give examples of in culture variations
Social class Era
What do WIERD people stand for?
WESTERN INDUSTRALIZED EDUCATED RICH DEMOCRATS
