Cross Cultural Psychology Flashcards
Culture and Psychology
Culture:
- Shared beliefs, values, attitudes and behaviours
- -> learned behaviour rather than genetically defined
Cultural psychology:
-ways people are influenced by their culture
Cross- cultural psychology
- difference and similarities in people across different cultures
Common cultural differences
Attitudes towards time:
- Monochronic cultures
- -> time regulated
- -> expectation- punctual, deadlines met, schedule kept
- Polychronic cultures
- -> time is fluid
- -> lessened expectation: punctual, deadlines, schedule
Common cultural differences
Emotional displays
cultural display rules
- what emotions it is appropriate to display and when appropriate
Common cultural differences
Interpersonal space
- culturally define appropriate distance kept from others
- directly related to population density
- Densely populates areas much smaller personal space
- -> in Australia personal space varies greatly depending on the areas
Common cultural differences
Context
low context cultures
–> literal interpretation of what is said
High context
- attention to body language and situation
- look for hidden meaning
Common cultural differences
Tight vs loose adherence to cultural norms
Tight:
- close adherence to cultural norms expected
loose:
- deviations from cultural norms accepted
Common cultural differences
Individualism vs collectivism
individuals:
- focus on the self as unique and own goals most important
collectivism:
- focus on the group
- group goals more important than individual goals.
Linguistic Relativity
Whorf (1956)
- language determines the way we think
Cross- Cultural differences in memory
- Fausy & Boroditsky (2011)
- English and Spanish speakers
- Videos of intentional vs accidental events
- -> english speakers more likely to remember agent of accidental event (implication for eyewitness testimony)
Culture and identity
Ethnic identity
- part of a person’s identity associated with racial, religious or cultural group to which one belongs
- development begins in early adolescence
- Phinney (1989) ethnic identity stage model
- -> unexamined: little thought to ethnic identity
- -> exploration: active learning about culture
- -> Achievement: commitment to ethnic identity
Culture and Health
- Cultural differences in concepts of health and illness
disease
- -> western culture: due to organic cause
- -> Chinese culture: due to imbalance in energy- (concepts of yin and yang) or with the natural environment
Health
- Native Americans- balance between self and natural environment
- Maori people- balance between physical, emotional, physiological and spiritual health
- Australia Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people- connection to land, spirituality, ancestry, kin
- Western culture- thin is ‘healthy’
Culture and Psychological Health
- Some psychological disorders are found cross- culturally
- -> depression, schizophrenia
- Culture- bound syndromes
Windigo – Native Americans
- Cannibalistic obsession, depression, homicidal/suicidal, delusional, may want to eat human flesh
- Brain fag sydrome – West Africa
Low-grade stress in students prior to exams; headaches, eye fatigue, inability to concentrate - Piblokto (Artic hysteria) – Artic Circle
Dissociative episode followed by extreme excitement, then a seizure, coma, and amnesia
Cultural Contact
Culture shock
clash between cultural practices of of country of origin and new country
–> anxiety, fear, depression
Cultural Contact
Acculturation
Process of understanding a new culture
- -> leads to changes in behaviours, attitudes, beliefs, perception of self
- Framework for understanding acculturation-> Berry’s (1980) typology
Cultural Contact
Berry’s (1980) typology
Extent to which an individual retains own culture and embraces another culture
- Assimilation:
- -> adopt new culture; reject original culture
- Segregation:
- -> maintain original culture, reject new culture
- Integration (biculturalism)
- -> adopt new culture, maintain connection with original culture.
- Marginalisation
- -> reject both new and original culture
Cultural Contact
Racism
ideas that siggest particular groups of people possess characteristics, behaviours, beliefs or attitudes that are superior or inferior to other groups
–> new racism- more subtle/ covert –> can lead to internalised racism
Cultural Contact
Discrimination
Differential treatment of an individual based on attributes such as age, gender, ethnicity, religion rather than perceives merit.
Cultural Competence
Effectiveness in communicating and behaving appropriately with people from another culture
- awareness of own cultural background and biases
- understand and respect that people from other cultures may have different values, attitudes and world views
Cultural and cross- cultural research methods
Cross cultural researchers:
- seek to understand similarities and difference between cultural groups
- -> etic (outsider) approach
- -> comparative research, quantitative
Problem: ethnicity is often confounded with other variables e.g., SES
Ethical dilemma: research findings could lead to further discrimination or marginalisation
Cultural researchers
- Seek to understand the subjective experiences of people in particular cultural contexts
- -> Emic (insider) approach
- -> Qualitative
