Cross Cultural Psychology

Question 1

According to Rohner (1984) what is culture?

Answer 1

“highly variable systems of meaning” that are learnt and shared by people from one generation to the next in an identifiable population

Question 2

according to Hogg and Vaughan (2014) what is culture?

Answer 2

The expression of group norms and values at the national, racial and ethnic level

Question 3

why is culture important?

Answer 3

provides a context for understanding human development and behaviour

Question 4

what did Henrich, Heine and Norenzayan find about psychological samples?

Answer 4

96% of samples in psychology come from countries representing only 12% of the world’s population

Question 5

what is a WEIRD sample?

Answer 5

Western
Educated
Industrialised
Rich
Democratic

Question 6

Fairness in economic decision making, Henrich et al. (2010)

Answer 6

• 2 Ppts put in lab, one decides the amount of money they should split with the other Ppts
• the other can reject the offer but there will then be less money
• In the US, offers accepted are £4-5 less than what people reject as they don’t think the offer is fair
• The US is an outlier as they have a higher need for fairness
• Other groups were more willing to accept lower offers
• shows norms for exchange have evolved with changes for dealing with moenyt and trading with elements of fairness
• shows how humans have innate ability for fairness behaviour

Question 7

what did Hofstede (1980) look into about culture and the workplace?

Answer 7

gave questionnaire to 117,000 managers of multinational companies in 40 countries.

Question 8

what did Hofstede (1980) factor analysis reveal?

Answer 8

1. Power Distance
2. Uncertainty Avoidance
3. Masculinity-Femininity
4. Individualism-Collectivism = most widely used dimension
5. Time Perspective*

These dimensions characterise WHOLE cultures/societies.

Question 9

what is PDI?

Answer 9

power Distance Index
Unequal distribution of power between parties, and how much this inequality is accepted by each party. Can be in the family, the work place, the government

Question 10

what is Independent self-construal (IndSC) by Markus and Kitayama?

Answer 10

person’s identity is seen as a product of stable internal traits and is separate and unique from others
- the boundary is impermeable
- strong and unique traits are internalised
- the traits of significant other are muted and external

Question 11

what is Interdependent self-construal (InterSC) by Markus and Kitayama?

Answer 11

person’s identity is intertwined with others and defined by those relationships.
- the boundary is permeable
- string traits are shared with significant others
- unique and internalised traits and muted

Question 12

what is rational self-construal (RelSC)?

Answer 12

individual difference in the extent to which people define themselves in reference to close personal relationships (e.g., spouse/close friend).
NOT ABOUT GROUP MEMBERSHIP OR SOCIAL ROLE

Question 13

what is the Self-Construal scale (Singelis, 1994)?

Answer 13

• questionnaire
• measures Self- Construal
• 12 items on IndSC & 12 items on InterSC
• Likert scale – 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree)

Question 14

what is the Twenty Statements Task (Kuhn & McPartland, 1954)?

Answer 14

• Participants complete 20 sentence stems that start with “I am…”
• Statements are coded into IndSC, InterSC and RelSC.
• The number of statements in each category then serves as a measure of self-construal.

Question 15

what is Priming Self-Construal? Trafimow, Triandis & Goto (1991)

Answer 15

• asked people to think of what makes them different from their friends and family (IndSC prime) or what makes them similar to their friends and family (InterSC prime).
• It assumes that people in all cultures have both the IndSC and InterSC.
• It allows cause-effect relationships to be investigated

Question 16

what did Morris and Peng (1994)?

Answer 16

• predicted cross-cultural differences in attribution would occur in social situations due to differences in socialization.
• Ps in study 100 Chinese & 100 American school children
• Ps watched animated displays of social events (fish swimming) and physical events (football moving).
• DV = ratings of the extent to which the object’s movement was influenced by internal or external factors (1-5 scale).
• chinese children more likely to explain behaviour due to external behaviour due to external factors
• American children more likely to explain behaviour due to internal factors

Question 17

Choi and Nisbett (1998) study

Answer 17

• 78 American & 94 Korean participants read a pro (anti)-capital punishment essay allegedly written by another student.
• Random assignment to: No choice condition, Exposure condition, Exposure & arguments condition
• DV = rated the extent to which the essay corresponded to the student’s real attitude (1-7 scale).
• Eastern cultures when primed with context are more likely to take context into account than Americans

Question 18

what did Masuda and Nisbett (2001) find about cross cultual variation?

Answer 18

• a link between self-construal & attention to visual scenes.
• East Asian individuals process holistically – perception of objects is bound to the social context.
• Westerners process the focal object.
• Assumed to stem from differences in Ancient Greek vs. Ancient Chinese societies.
• western culture relying on rice farming

Question 19

Experiment 1: Masuda & Nisbett (2001)

Answer 19

• Participants saw 45 original objects & 45 novel objects.
• The background was manipulated: (a) original (b) none (c) novel
• Participants indicated whether they had seen the object (Yes/No).
• DV: number correctly recalled.

Question 19

findings of experiment 1

Answer 19

• across the different conditions Americans do not seem to differ, higher scores indicate more accuracy
• Japanese ps when see novel background accuracy way off compared to original background.
• Shows info processed in relation to original background for Japanses, however not much difference in conditions for Americans

Question 20

Kitayama, Duffy, & Kawamura & Larsen (2003) study

Answer 20

• Cross-cultural differences in cognitive processing may be differentially advantageous.
• Some tasks require absolute judgments (i.e., focal object is unaffected by context).
• Other tasks require relative judgments (i.e., focal object is dependent on context).
• Framed line task (FLT): non-social test of cognitive ability.

Question 21

Kitayama et al. (2003) Experiment 1:

Answer 21

• 20 participants in USA & 20 in Japan.
• 5 combinations of FLT: x2 test frame > original; x2 test frame < original; x1 test fame & original = same size.
• 5 combinations given in a counterbalanced order.
• DV: Mean Error across FLT trials (measured in mm)

Question 21

Limitations in Cross-Cultural Psychology: Oyserman, Coon & Kemmelmeier’s (2002) meta-analysis of IND-COL research revealed that ….

Answer 21

• IND-COL differences often assumed without measurement
• Over-reliance on correlational studies
• Diversity of measures used to measure the same DV
• Lack of replication studies

Question 22

Cross er al. (2011) issues with self report surveys

Answer 22

• Two factor structure (IndSC & InterSC) is not a good fit
• Cronbach’s alpha reliabilities are adequate at best.
• Multiple versions of the Self-Construal Scale (Singelis, 1994)
• Face validity of some items questionable – “I value being in good health above everything” (IndSC item!)
• Reference group effect (Heine, Lehman, Peng & Greenholtz, 2002)

Question 23

what are some issues with the the Twenty Statements Test (TST): Cross et al. (2011)

Answer 23

• Researchers rarely provide a detailed description of their coding scheme.
• Researchers differ in their definition (& hence coding) of InterSC and RelSC.
• TST does not assess the importance of self-views to the person.

Question 24

what did Güngör et al. (2014) argue?

Answer 24

while all interdependent cultures value interpersonal connectedness, the nature of the connection differs between face and honour cultures

Question 25

what does keeping face cultures mean?

Answer 25

respecting others by observing norms dictated by one’s position in the social hierarchy.

Question 26

what does honour cultures mean?

Answer 26

pride that is based on social image, reputation and others’ evaluation.