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Question 1

Kroeber & Kluckholhn, 1952

Answer 1

Came up with academic definitions of culture

Question 2

Most basic definition of culture (descriptive

Answer 2

culture refers to “all social activities in the broadest sense, such as language, marriage, property system, art, etc” (basically a list of things that are cultural)

Question 3

Historical Definition of culture:

Answer 3

culture means the total social heredity of mankind (as opposed to biological heredity), while as a specific term a culture means a particular strain of social heredity

Question 4

Normative definition of culture:

Answer 4

culture is all standardized social procedures and customs, passed on socially, that form a people’s way of life

Question 5

Broadest way of thinking of culture: psychological definition of culture

Answer 5

culture consists of all results of human learned effort at adjustment

Question 6

Structural definition of culture

Answer 6

culture is a system or organization of interdependent values common to specific groups, forming a pattern that is unique to each society

Question 7

Textbook definition of culture

Answer 7

~ information acquired from other members of one’s species through social learning that can affect one’s behaviors

~Groups of individuals existing in some shared context (not mutually exclusive with above)

Question 8

Issues with defining cultures

Answer 8

Most broad way people define culture is by country/ national borders

Question 9

Faults with using national boundaries as defining culture:

Answer 9

1)cultural boundaries are not clear cut/fuzzy
Some boundaries blend with each other

2)culture constantly changes
~~Ie: Americans support for legal same-sex marriage and legalizing marijuana has drastically changed

3)within versus between culture variation
more variability within a culture compared to the average difference between two cultures
~~There are a lot of similarities between two cultures

Question 10

Wilhelm Wundt (Father of modern psychology)

Answer 10

Established the first psychology lab in Germany

Studied low-level processes, and empathized need for strict experimental control (everything must be kept the same except for the variable tested)

When studying high-level processes (ie language, religion) he emphasized the importance of no strict control
~~~We can not have strict control over folk lore, religion, etc

Question 11

Behaviorism:

Answer 11

behaviors are simply objectively measured as stimulus-response patterns

Watson

Question 12

1950’s Cognitive Revolution

Answer 12

We have thoughts, feelings, our mental processes have meaning

first creation of PC (computer)
~People drew comparisons between the brain and the CPU
~All CPU’s work the same, therefore all brains work the same no matter where they are
~Assumption that brains are the same no matter where the brain is
~Psychologists assumed whatever they were seeing in the brains of western people was the same as everyone else in the world (ie asia)

Question 13

Richard Shweder

Answer 13

Proposed to be less

Eurocentric with psychology

Mind and environment mutually constitute each other

Our brains are shaped by the environment that we are in

Question 14

nonuniversal(cultural invention)-

Answer 14

If its not cognitively available everywhere

Usually a cultural invention not universally available

Ie:abacus (cognitive tool not found in all cultures)

Question 15

Existential universal

Answer 15

cognitive tool found in all cultures/exists everywhere but is functionally different in diff cultures

Question 16

Functional universal(variation in accessibility)

Answer 16

cognitive tool serves the same function in all cultures, but more present in cultural environments than others

example:Most cultures will use punishment for misbehavior, but some societies are more likely to engage in punishment than others

Question 17

Accessibility universal(no variation)

Answer 17

cognitive tool equally accessible in, and serve the same purpose across all cultures

Ie: social facilitation

Question 18

more culturally variable=

Answer 18

more specific

Question 19

more universal

Answer 19

more general

Question 20

How can we determine if something is universal or culturally variable

Answer 20

difficult; Lack of sufficient data

Question 21

WEIRD

Answer 21

Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic)

Question 22

what percentage of participants in psyc studies are WEIRD

Answer 22

Majority of participants in psyc studies are WEIRD (96%)

WEIRD issue:creates distorted view/representation of all people in the world

Question 23

Muller-Lyer illusion (deception task to seeing which line is longer)

Answer 23

Western researchers assumed that all participants would choose that line A was longer because that was the conclusion from US participants

This is not true, some countries are not as susceptible to this illusion including S. African

Question 24

Carpenter hypothesis

Answer 24

There are corners everywhere in the western world, we are more attuned to corners, line A looks longer because the corner is more distant from us while line b looks closer because compared to a corner, it is closer to us

Things further away look bigger, and things closer to us look smaller

Question 25

Figure Line task

Answer 25

Two areas of the brain most involved in figure line task: left interior parietal lobe and right inferior precentral gyrus ->both associated with increased attentional control

Question 26

Relative task-

Answer 26

task comparing the answer with the example

Question 27

Absolute task-

Answer 27

task asking to find the exact answer that is displayed in the example

Question 28

figure line task conclusion

Answer 28

We expect for the easier task to be less activation of those regions of the brain and harder tasks have more activation

Culturally less familiar tasks required more attentional control

Culture and the brain are intertwined

It takes more effort to engage in tasks that are culturally unfamiliar

Question 29

figure line task conclusion

Answer 29

For E. Asians the absolute task had more activation of the two regions of brain, concluding that the absolute task was harder than relative task

For US participants the absolute task had less activation than E Asian participants in the two regions of the brain