Chapter 1 Flashcards
Understanding Cross-Cultural Psychology
Access to Resources
The indicator of availability of material resources to a population.
Activity
A process of the individual’s goal-directed interaction with the environment.
Availability of Resources
A measure indicating the presence of and access to resources essential for the individual’s well-being.
Collectivism
Behaviour based on concerns for other people, traditions, and values they share.
Cross-Cultural Psychology
The critical and comparative study of cultural effects on human psychology.
Cultural Psychology
The study that seeks to discover systematic relationships between culture and psychological variables.
Culture
A set of attitudes, behaviours, and symbols shared by a group of people and usually communicated from one generation to the next.
Ecological Context
The natural setting in which human organisms and the environment interact.
Ethnicity
A cultural heritage shared by a category of people who also share a common ancestral origin, language and religion.
Ethnocentrism
The view that supports judgement about other ethnic, national and cultural groups and events from the observer’s own ethnic, national or cultural group’s outlook.
Folk Theories
A collection of popular beliefs and assumptions - “everyday psychology” - formulated by the people for the people.
Humanist Tradition (Humanism)
A discipline with the humanities that emphasizes the subjective side of the individual: the sense of freedom, beauty, creativity and moral responsibility.
Ideological (Value-based) Knowledge
A stable set of beliefs about the world, the nature of good and evil, right and wrong, and the purpose of human life - all based on a certain organizing principal or central idea.
Indigenous Groups
Groups that are protected by international or national lawy, retaining specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territoy and their cultural and historical uniqueness.
Individualism
Complex behaviour based on concern for oneself and one’s immediate family or primary group as opposed to concern for other groups to which one belongs.
Legal Knowledge
A type of knowledge encapsulated in the law and detailed in official rules and principles related to psychological functioning of individuals.
Multiculturalism
The view that encourages the recognition of equality for all cultural and national groups and promotes the idea that various cultural groups have the right to follow their own paths of development.
Nation
A large group of people who constitute a legitimate, independent state and share a common geographic origin, history and, frequently, language.
Nontraditional Culture
Cultures based largely on modern beliefs, rules, symbols and principles, relatively open to other cultures, absorbing and dynamic, science based and technology driven, and relatively tolerant to social innovations.
Power Distance
The extent to which the members of a society accept that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally.
Race
A large group of people distinguished by certain similar and genetically transmitted physical characteristics.
Religious Affiliation
An individual’s acceptance of knowledge, beliefs and practices related to a particular faith.
Scientific Knowledge
A type of knowledge accumulated as a result of scientific research on a wide range of psychological phenomena.
Sociopolitical Context
The setting in which people participate in both global and local decisions; it includes various ideological issues, political structures, and the presence or absence of political and social freedoms.
Traditional Culture
Cultures based largely on beliefs, rules, symbols and principles established predominantly in the past, confined in local or regional boundaries, restricting and mostly intolerant to social innovations.
Uncertainty Avoidance
The degree to which the members of a society feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity.
Uncertainty Orientation
Common ways in which people handle uncertainty in their daily situations and lives in general.
