Chapter 1 Flashcards
What is culture?
What is culture (according to text)?
Any kind of idea, belief, technology, habit, or practice that is acquired through learning from others.
AND
A group of people who are existing within some kind of shared context
What are some challenges when studying/defining culture?
- Cultural boundaries are not always distinct
- Culture changes over time
- Individual variation w/i a culture
How does cultural psychology differ from “general psychology” (text)
General psychology is argued to assume the human mind operates according to natural laws independent from context or cultures and focuses on universality rather than variability.
Cultural psychologists believe that you can not consider the mind separate from its culture.
What is a cultural psychologist’s view on “thinking”
Thinking involves participation in the context within which one is is thinking and interacting with the content one is thinking about and the ways that people think is shaped by the culture they’re in.
What are the 4 levels of universality (according to text, ordered from lowest to highest)
Nonuniversal, existential universal, functional universal, accessibility universal
What makes a psychological process nonuniversal?
It does not exist in all cultures.
Cultural inventions.
What is an example of a nonuniversal psychological process
Numerical reasoning
What makes a psychological process an existential universal?
It is available in all cultures but the process does not occur in the same way across cultures.
Not used to solve the same problems.
Not EQUALLY accessible
What is an example of an existential universal?
Internal motivation
What makes a psychological process a functional universal?
It is available in all cultures and used to solve the same problems across cultures (same function).
It is not equally accessible to people in all cultures (more accessible to people from some cultures).
What is an example of a functional universal?
Punishment
What makes a psychological process an accessibility universal?
It is available to all cultures, solves the same problems, and is equally accessible to across cultures.
What is an example of an accessibility universal?
Social facilitation
Processes that emerge in infancy
What does WEIRD stand for?
Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic
What is the “color-blind approach” to cultural psychology? aka ____
(according to text)
Having the perspective that people are the same everywhere.
Focus on common human nature.
aka culture-blind
What are some supports for the “color-blind approach”?
(according to text)
Attention to differences can lead to discrimination - so focus on the similarities.
People will get along better (?)
What is the “multicultural approach” to cultural psychology?
(according to text)
Focusing on and respecting group differences.
Group identities are meaningful.
People are more likely to identify with their group if it is smaller or more disadvantaged than others.
People will fair better when the distinctive characteristics of their group are observed and appreciated.
What groups are found to favor a multicultural approach vs a color-blind approach?
Minority group members are more likely to favor a multicultural approach and majority group members are more likely to favor a multicultural approach
What are some supports for a multicultural approach?
Increase identity security of minority group members.
Majority group members act in less prejudicial ways when exposed to multicultural messaging
Why study cultural psychology?
Increases cultural awareness.
Better able to detect discrimination.
Understand the role cultural experiences play in how the mind operates.
Greater appreciation for one’s own culture.
What is ethnocentrism?
Judging people from other cultures by the standards of one’s own culture.
