Chapter 1 Introduction to Cultural Psychology Flashcards
Between the absolute task and the relative task, which one is East Asians less familiar about and showing more brain activations?
East Asians show more activation of the brain regions (the left inferior parietal lobule and the right precentral gyrus) on the absolute task
Between the absolute task and the relative task, which one is Americans less familiar about and showing more brain activations?
The relative task
How does our brain change as a result of experiences? e.g., in the case of a juggler
Juggler’s brains change with training to have increased grey matter in regions of the brain that process and store complex visual motion
How does learning to read change one’s brain?
Literate people have:
A thicker corpus callosum
Facial recognition processing in the right hemisphere
Improved verbal memory
The altered part of the prefrontal cortex is involved in language production.
What are some differences between the industrialized and non-industrialized societies?
People in industrialized societies process space in more relative terms whereas people in non-industrialized societies process space in more absolute terms
What are some domains in which industrialized societies occupy an extreme position?
Some Visual Illusions.
Perceptions of fairness公平感
Folkbiological reasoning
- How do we understand other species
- Industrialized does not have good assume and reasoning
- Unindustrialized have better assumptions 不站在人类的角度
Egocentric spatial reasoning.
- Industrialized people see space more egocentric
What is the Mueller-Lyer Illusion?
The edge is further away from us therefore our brain thinks it may be longer/bigger because we grew up in a world with a corner
If people are not exposed to carpentered corners, especially in childhood, they don’t learn that the corners provide depth cues, and therefore they are not susceptible to the illusion.
What are some domains in which Western societies occupy an extreme position?
More Analytic reasoning.
More Independent Self-Concepts.
- understand self as individual and traits inside the person
- non western更容易通过对比认识自己
More Motivations for Self-Enhancement.优化
- Focus on what’s good about themselves and avoid what’s bad about themselves
Less Conforming.
More desire for Choice.
- Care a lot about making their own choices
Morality Exclusively Based on Justice Concerns 道德完全基于Justice
What is the difference between holistic thinking and analytic thinking?
Holistic thinking focuses on understanding the big picture by considering all aspects of a situation and their interrelationships, while analytical thinking breaks down complex problems into smaller parts to examine individual elements and find logical solutions, essentially prioritizing context and relationships over detailed analysis.
Analytic thinking is less common almost everywhere in the non-Western world.
East Asians tend to prefer holistic thinking over analytic thinking.
What are some domains in which Americans occupy an extreme position?
More defensive reactions to thoughts of death.
More independent selves.
More analytic reasoning.
More desire for choice.
What are some defensive responses to death thoughts?
People become more patriotic, they are more eager to protect the status quo and they dislike outgroup member more
Who responded the most defensively to thoughts about death? What does it reflect?
Americans respond the most defensively to thoughts about death.
This could reflect the heightened existential anxiety associated with extreme individualism. 这可能反映了与极端个人主义相关的生存焦虑的加剧
What are some domains in which College-Educated Americans differ from other Americans?
Higher heritability estimates for IQ (as a function of SES (socioeconomic status), not college education per se). 更高的智商遗传率估计值（作为 SES（社会经济地位）的函数，而非大学教育本身）
More independent views of self.
Less conforming.
More desire for choice
More justice-based morality
More defensive responses to death thoughts
Why is our best estimate of how much IQ is heritable greatly influenced by the SES of the sample?
有钱人家都同样注重教育 （similar experience）
所以导致gene非常determine 他们的IQ
但是穷人家的孩子有些会带孩子去图书馆，有些不会（variance更多）
What are some empirical evidences on the implementation of multicultural policies?
Companies with more multicultural policies have more employee engagement and trust. 制定了更多多元文化政策的公司拥有更多的员工参与度和信任度。
European-Canadian and First Nation students have more positive interactions when multicultural messages are present. 当多元文化信息出现时，欧裔加拿大学生和原住民学生会有更积极的互动。
Are there benefits to attending to cultural differences?
Intergroup relations appear to benefit from attending to cultural differences. Minority group members especially benefit, although sometimes majority group members may feel resentful. 关注文化差异似乎有益于群体间关系。少数群体成员尤其受益，尽管有时多数群体成员可能会感到不满。
Majority members may feel excluded unless messages highlight the benefits for both majorities and minorities. 除非信息强调了多数群体和少数群体的益处，否则多数群体成员可能会感到被排斥
What are some challenges to thinking about a group of people as constituting a culture?
- Cultural boundaries are not distinct
人们可以从不同的渠道受到不同文化的影响 from travelling, advertisements, or movies
so we usually use nationality as a rough indicator of culture
Different culture groups
比如 LGBT文化，星球大战文化
They share context, and norms, and communicate
the fluid nature of cultural boundaries weakens the ability of researchers to differentiate between cultural groups
- Cultures change over time as a challenge
Some shared cultural information disappears as new habits replace the old
but cultural information persists across time as well - Variability among individuals who belongs to the same culture
different temperament, traits, life experiences, and history
Individual differences lead some people to reflexively embrace certain cultural messages, staunchly react against some, and largely ignore others.
the result in this book only reflects average tendencies, not all the people in a culture
e.g. 虽然西方人比东亚人更善于表达情感，但是不排除那种非常会表达情感的东亚人出现
Cultural membership does not determine individual responses
What does general psychology assume about human nature?
assumes that the mind operates according to a set of natural and universal laws that are independent of context or content
people’s thinking same across cultures and is universal
see the mind as a CPU
but suggest that variation of thinking does not exist
see context and content as unwanted noise
What is the cultural psychology perspective on human nature?
The mind does not operate independently of what it is thinking about
Cultural information makes people’s actions, thoughts and feelings meaningful, immersed in them
human thought is sustained by the meanings people pursue
How can the mind be shaped by cultural experiences?
the human brain continues to change, grow, and rewire itself in response to experience.
e.g. 伦敦出租车司机的hippocampus 比一般人大，所以他们导航大空间记忆力更强; people doing mindfulness exercises have increasing amounts of grey matter
the nature of brain is not fixed, but changes, in the response to experiences
What is the case study on the Sambia about? What messages/meanings can we learn from this case study?
femaleness is an innate natural essence
maleness is a tenuous脆弱的 essence that must be explicitly cultivated培养
Initiation rituals
a process for boys to become masculinized
give boys a sense of jerungdu
teenagers get their jerungdu by getting semen from oral sex
then adults can get jerungdu from the tree
Sexual orientation change process
7 to 17 → homosexual behaviors
17(marriage) to fatherhood → bisexual behaviors
After fatherhood → heterosexual behaviors
Comparison with Western Culture
Western → a lifestyle that affects how people view themselves
Sambian men homosexuality, bisexuality, and heterosexuality are universal and natural stages in life
必须这些阶段必须是按顺序的
Two takeaways:
1. Our actions are fraught with meaning, and this meaning is derived from particular cultural experiences.
- Our sexual motives are biologically grounded, they become shaped by specific cultural beliefs and practices
What are the four levels of universality in the decision tree identified by Norenzayan and Heine?
- Nonuniversal
a process does not exist in all cultures, cultural inventions
- Abacus reasoning (算盘), used in the middle east and in asia - Existential universal
A psychological process exists in all cultures, although the process is not necessarily used to solve the same problems, nor is it equally accessible across cultures.
- Increased persistence in the face of success
BUT (intrinsic motivation)
Western → 成功后比失败后更努力
East Asian → 失败后比成功后更努力 - Functional universal (accessibility)
exist in all cultures, are used to solve the same problems across cultures, yet are more accessible to people from some cultures than others.
- Eg: Punishing unfairness
Costly punishment is meted out in response to unfair behaviour universally; such punishment thus serves a similar function
But there was also considerable variation in the amount of punishment
每个人愿意付出的惩罚金额不同 - Accessibility universal
exists in all cultures, is used to solve the same problems across cultures, and is accessible to the same degree across cultures
- Best candidates → psychological processes that emerge very early in infancy or are shared across species.
Eg Social facilitation
the tendency for individuals to do better at well-learned tasks and worse at poorly learned ones when in the presence of others
What is the difference between color-blind approach and multicultural approach?
- Color-blind approach
in many respects, people are the same everywhere
People will interact with each other without giving much attention to anyone’s ethnic or cultural background.
Perhaps the best way for people of different backgrounds to get along is to stop paying attention to cultural differences (biases) and focus instead on people’s common human nature.
How to eliminate discrimination
人们容易在有群体区分时对其他群体产生歧视
if people’s attention is not drawn to the differences between cultures, they will be less likely to create boundaries between themselves and others.
- Multicultural approach (Opposite)
Focusing on and respecting group differences is frequently
Rationale:
People really do identify strongly with their groups
People are especially likely to identify with their group if their group is smaller than other ones or is disadvantaged in some way (refuse adopting dominant groups)
So minority group members tend to favour a multicultural approach more than majority members do
Groups that emphasize multicultural messages fare better in many ways than groups that emphasize colorblind messages.
What is ethnocentrism and what is wrong about it?
Ethnocentrism is judging people from other cultures by the standards of one’s own culture.
- learning about other cultures can sometimes be provocative as people confront other ways of doing things that go against their own cultural values.
Imagine a psychological process that exist in all cultures, but is activated for different reasons across cultures. This would be evidence for a(n)
a. nonuniversal
b. existential universal
c. functional universal
d. accessibility universal
e. conditional universal
b. existential universal
- You review all the studies that you’ve done in your career and realize that they all use WEIRD samples. Based on this characteristic of your samples, which of the following challenges is the most applicable to your work?
a. determining universality
b. countering ethnocentrism
c. getting jerungdu
d. overcoming the Müller-Lyer illusion
e. defining culture
a. determining universality
