Chapter 1

Question 1

What are two major definitions of culture?

Answer 1

• indicate particular kinds of information

- people who exist within the same kind of shared context

Question 2

What does is mean to ‘indicated particular kinds of information’?

Answer 2

how a person learns by observing others (ideas, beliefs, technology, habits, practices)

Question 3

What does is mean by ‘people who exist within the same kind of shared context’?

Answer 3

people with the same cultural ideals, practices, norms

Question 4

What are two major themes of cultural psychology?

Answer 4

• psychological processes are shaped by experiences

- there are tensions between universal and culturally variable psychologies

Question 5

What is a third, global definition?

Answer 5

referring to broad swaths of the earths population, which may include people from a large number of different countries
ex) Western Culture

Question 6

What are three challenges when thinking about groups of people constituting cultures?

Answer 6

• people are exposed to other cultures via travel and technology
• cultures don’t only apply to countries (gays, colleges, religions)
• cultures are dynamic and ever changing

Question 7

What are some qualities that lead to groups being qualified as having culture?

Answer 7

• members exist within a shared context
• communicate with one another
• have some norms that distinguish them from other groups
• have some common practice and ideas

Question 8

How does cultural variation in psychological processes extend beyond preferences?

Answer 8

• sense of right and wrong
• world views
• motivation

Question 9

What does one person (Richard Shweder) say is the problem with many of the assumptions made in a PSY 101 (general psychology) course?

Answer 9

argues that PSY 101 assumes that the mind operates under a set of natural and universal laws that are independent from content or context. Believes it teaches that “people are the same wherever you go”

Question 10

Why is it problematic to conceive of the mind as a central processing unit (CPU)?

Answer 10

thinking also requires interacting with the content that one is thinking about and participation in the context within which one is doing the thinking
-There’s a lot more that goes into thinking than ‘being a robot’ because the mind is intertwined with what it is thinking about

Question 11

Explain the task and results in the figure-line task shown in figure 1.1 in terms of which tasks were easier and harder for European-Americans versus East Asians.

(The box with a line drawn in it, in absolute task asked to draw a line in a smaller box that is close to the absolute length of the line in the first box… in relative task, draw a line that is as close as possible to the relative length of the line in the first box)

Answer 11

• Western Cultures (European-Americans) had an easier time performing absolute task
• Non-Western Cultures (East Asians) had easier time performing the relative task

Question 12

What does this box study (as well as the study about London cab drivers) show about experiencesshaping brains?

Answer 12

Cultures provide people with particular sets of experiences on a daily basis and influence the change in their brains. We think differently based on different cultural experiences

Question 13

Why can culture not be separated from the mind?

Answer 13

culture and mind make each other up
-cultures emerge from the interaction of the various minds of the people that live within them and then culture shape the way those minds operate

Question 14

What are the basic practices of Sambian culture to rid males of their femaleness and cultivate their maleness?

Answer 14

Young boys must give blow jobs to the elders of the community, piercing their noses, thrashing with sticks

Question 15

What is jerungdu?

Answer 15

What the Sambian’s consider PHYSICAL strength.

• viewed as the supreme essence of maleness
• given to boys through semen which they must get from another male

Question 16

What are the four levels of psychological universals?

Answer 16

• non-universals
• existential universals
• functional universals
• accessibility universals

Question 17

Non-Universals

Answer 17

doesn’t exist in all cultures

ex) abacus

Question 18

Existential Universals

Answer 18

Available in all cultures, but not used in the same way

ex) intrinsic motivation

Question 19

Functional Universals

Answer 19

Used to solve all problems in cultures, but not readily available
ex) punishment

Question 20

Accessibility Universals

Answer 20

Equally accessible in all cultures
ex) social facilitation (idea that people perform better at a practiced task when people are watching a worse when its not practiced)

Question 21

What is the difference between abstract and concrete levels?

Answer 21

Concrete: belief that psychological processes are essentially the same everywhere
Abstract: belief that psychological processes emerge differently across cultural contexts

Question 22

What is meant by the psychological database being largely WEIRD?

Answer 22

Western
Educated
Industrialized
Rich
Democratic
...Societies

Question 23

How do WEIRD databases affect results of studies on the Mueller-Lyer Illusion?

Answer 23

People from western cultures grew up with carpentered corners and therefore had an advantage when thinking about depth whereas people from non-western cultures are at a disadvantage because they haven’t

Question 24

How has this affected results of studies on the Mueller-Lyer illusion?

Answer 24

WEIRD represents a narrow and unrepresentative sample therefore weakening the findings of the study

Question 25

What is the difference between a color-blind and a multicultural approach?

Answer 25

color-blind: downplay racial/ethnic differences

multicultural: attending to and respecting group differences

Question 26

What have studies shown about the benefits of one approach over the other? (color blind vs multicultural)

Answer 26

studies have shown that color-blind approach predicts more prejudicial feelings whereas multicultural makes migrants feel much more at home

Question 27

What is ethnocentrism, and how does it show that we are a product of our culture?

Answer 27

-using your own culture as a standard to judge other peoples cultures and downplay it, we are brought up to think that our way is the best