Cross Cultural Research and Nature-Nurture Debate in Health Psychology

Question 1

What does cross-cultural mean?

Answer 1

Comparing behaviour in different cultures

Question 2

What does culture mean?

Answer 2

Different beliefs and norms shared by a particular group of people

Beliefs learnt through socialisation

Question 3

Why is cross-cultural research useful in health psychology?

Answer 3

Drug taking seen as universally would be due to nature

Differences in drug-taking would be due to nurture

Cross-cultural research is important to avoid ethnocentrism

Question 4

What does the mnemonic WEIRD stand for?

Answer 4

W - westernised
E - educated
I - industrialised
R - rich
D - democratic

Cross-cultural research wants to avoid this

Question 5

What are the strengths of cross-cultural research?

Answer 5

Nature-nurture

Collects primary data

Question 6

What are the weaknesses of cross-cultural research?

Answer 6

Ethnocentric bias

Subjectivity

Question 7

Why is nature-nurture a strength of cross-cultural research?

Answer 7

Cross-cultural research can be used to explore whether a persons substance use behaviour is determined by nature or nurture

Nature-nurture debate can be explored further by undertaking twin studies in which individuals are raised apart in different cultures