Cross-cultural psychology Flashcards
What is culture?
- The set of cognitions and practices that characterise a specific social group and distinguish it from others
- A set of meanings, not genetically transferred between individuals, shared within a population and enduring for generations
- Culture is the expression of group norms at the national, racial and ethnic levels
What is there a reciprocal relationship between?
individual psychological processes and culture
What does it mean that psychology has been culture blind?
- Most psychologists were middle-class white male Americans
- We tended to ignore culture in our research
- Laboratory experiments were the preferred method and were controlled for culture
What are the three main questions of cultural psychology?
- Are Western psychological theories valid in other cultures?
- Are there psychological constructs that are culture-specific?
- How can we evolve a psychology with universal relevance?
What can said to be the main difference between Eastern and Western cultures (over-generalisation)?
- Western cultures are more individualistic – emphasise personal achievements at the expense of group goals
- Eastern cultures are more collective – more emphasis placed on the family and loyalty and working towards group goals
How could you define the independent self?
An autonomous self with clear boundaries between self and other. Thoughts feelings and attributes less affected by social context. Behaviour by internal characteristics
How could you define the interdependent self?
Interdependent-flexible and diffuse boundaries between self and others. Tied into relationships and much more responsive to social context
Give features of the independent self
- Bounded, stable, autonomous
- Personal attributes guide action
- Achievement-oriented
- Formulates personal goals
- Defines life by successful goal achievement
- Responsible for own behaviour
- Competitive
- Strives to feel good about the self
What are features of the interdependent self?
- Connected, fluid flexible
- Participates in social relationships that guide action
- Oriented towards the collective
- Meets obligations and conforms to norms
- Defines life by contributing to the collective
- Is responsible with other for joint behaviour
- Is cooperative
- Subsumes self in the collective
What is the attribution bias?
you think that you have succeeded because of your personal self, however you think that other people’s successes are due to the environment. You think that your failures are based on the environment and their failures are based on themselves
What culture differences are there in attributional style?
the fundamental attribution error/ correspondence bias is NOT present in collective cultures (Kitayama and Uskul. 2011)
In studying culture and cognition what difference did Shen, Zhang & Hunt, 2008 between Chinese and US participants?
Chinese participants conformed more to stereotypes due to their collective nature (comparative), but more able to supress attitudes than US participants as they were less concerned about their individual ideas
In studying culture and cognition what difference did Lehmen et al. find between East Asians and Americans?
thought processes differ between East Asians and Americans. East Asians more holistic and relationship oriented whereas Americans are more linear and analytic
What did Smith and Bond (1998) find in their meta-analysis of 31 Asch-type studies in US and 16 other countries?
Conformity stronger outside of western Europe and North America
In Hofstede’s (1980) questionnaire to 117,000 managers in 40 countries what different dimensions of values did make because of the trends between different cultures?
Power distance (degree to which unequal power is accepted)
Uncertainty avoidance (how much we plan for stability)
Masculinity-femininity (how much we value typically masculine and feminine attributes)
Individualism – collectivism
Time perspective (how we think of the now)
