Cultural Differences Flashcards
anthropological vs psychological definitions
What is culture?
Anthropological definitions:
* Tylor (1871) - complex whole that includes knowledge, art, morals, laws, customs and other capabilities/habits acquired as a member of a society
- Herskovitz (1948) - man-made part of the human environment; includes physical objects and social systems
Psychological definitions:
* Rohner (1984) - learned meaning maintained by a population and transmitted between generations
- Hofstede (2001) - collective programming of the mind that distinguishes members of one group from another group
Social systems
Rohner (1984): the behaviour of multiple individuals within a culturally-organised population; has different levels (e.g. nations, families etc.)
Social systems have cultures; cultures do not have social systems.
Issues with studying culture
- theorising based on stereotypes; especially when power differentials between researcher and culture being studied, must be open-minded
- working in multiple languages; translation issues (e.g. concepts that may not translate well)
- different response styles; reflect communication styles
- cultures are not individuals! cannot apply the same methods when researching
Studying culture
Emic vs Etic approaches
Emic appraoches are grounded in a specific cultural context and do not attempt to generalise or make comparisons
Etic approaches aim to compare cultures (universality)
> can have imposed etic (using own concepts to understand other cultures) vs derived etic
Cross-cultural, cultural, indigenous, comparative culturology
Different schools? of cultural psychology
Cross-cultural psychology
* examining influence of culture on individuals
* focus on cross-national comparison
* relativism
* origins in social/organisational psychology reflected in use of surveys
Cultural psychology
* examining how cultures operate; study of cultural processes
* focus on single cultural context
* relationship between individual and society
Indigenous psychologies
* decolonisation of psychology; empowering diverse local perspectives to overcome power imbalance
* use of indigenous methods
* focus on building theory before attempting comparisons; cross-indigenous approach
Comparative culturology
* focus on societies, not individuals
* examining how societies differ in cultural characteristics
* use of large multinational surveys
Hofstede’s project
Inspired by early cross-cultural studies failing to replicate Western findings (e.g. on conformity/loafing); show we need a theory of how cultures differ.
Secondary analysis of an IBM employee survey (questions about job satisfaction, personal goals etc.) with a wide variety of response formats; aim was to investigate cultural variation.
Drew on the ‘ecological fallacy’: falsely extrapolating group-level findings to individual level of explanation - e.g. Robinson’s (1950) paradox of immigrants and literacy among states (%immigrants; positive correlation) vs individuals (immigrant status; negative correlation).
> Reverse ecological fallacy is falsely attributing properties of individuals to cultures
Solved methodological issue of cultural variation in acquiescence by using an average of individual responses for each country
Discovered 4 dimensions of cross-cultural variation
Hofstede’s 4 dimensions of cultural variation
Power distance (PD)
* confirmatory FA
* how much do members of society accept uneven distribution of power among institutions?
* e.g. desire autocratic bosses
* highest: south asia, central america
* lowest: north europe, illegal occupation of palestine
Uncertainty avoidance (UA)
* confirmatory FA
* how comfortable are members of society with uncertainty/ambiguity?
* thus how much do they support beliefs promising certainty and maintaining institutions protecting conformity?
* e.g. company rules should never be broken
* highest: meditteranean, central america
* lowest: singapore, north europe
Individualism (IDV)
* exploratory FA
* preference for weak social framework in which individuals should take care of themselves and immediate families, vs strong social framework where individuals can expect others to look after them in return for unquestioning loyalty
* e.g. items about work goals
* highest: rich Western
* lowest: poor central america
* strong negative correlation with PD
Masculinity (MAS)
* exploratory FA
* preference for achievement, heroism, assertiveness and material success; vs preference for relationships, modesty, caring for weak and quality of life
* toughness vs tenderness
* no correlation with IDV; tenderness focus on relationship/others vs collectivism focus on ingroups/social position
* highest: Japan, south america
* lowest: scandivania
Chinese Cultural Connection (1987)
- international project with students across 22 countries
- used 40 values proposed by Chinese social scientists or derived from Chinese philosophy
- balancing out Hofstede’s Western bias
- no attempt at cultural inclusion
- identified new dimension: Confucian work dynamism, which is associated with persistence, protecting face and respect for tradition
- positive correlation with economic growth
- Hofstede added ‘long-term orientation’ to his model
Schwartz Values Survey
critique of Hofstede
* content too narrow
* underrepresented world regions
* effect of sample type
* historical change
* culture- vs individual-level dimensions
* some items had meaning equivalence
more general model of cultural values, derived from diverse sources/origins
analysed within and between-cultures; standardisation to remove acquiescence; country means for ecological analysius
40 of 56 values showed similar positions within all cultures
ecological smallest space analysis showed circumplex model of 7 value types
Revised Minkov-Hofstede model
reanalysis of existing data such as World Values Survey; new samples from 56 countries; new items to measure Hofstede dimensions; bipolar format; only between-culture analysis
retained
* individualism
* Confucian work dynamism/long-term orientation -> renamed ‘monumentalism vs flexibility’
because only dimensions that replicated
Markus and Kitayama’s (1991) Theory of Self-Construals
outline the 2 claims & predictions for cognition, emotion and motivation
Claim 1:
Western cultures differ from non-Western cultures by how they see themselves (construals of self) vs how they see others (construals of others)
independent construals: no overlap between self and others
interdependent construals: overlap between self and others, self is permeable, most important traits are those that overlap
different ways of being independent or interdependent (important features, tasks, role of others, basis of self-esteem)
Claim 2:
construals can influence individual experience, including cognition, emotion and motivation
Cognition Predictions; compared to Americans, South-East Asians show more
* interpersonal knowledge
* context-specific knowledge of self and other
* more attention to interpersonal context in basic cognition
Emotion Predictions;
* ego-focused emotions (anger, frustration, pride) more important in US
* other-focused emotions (sympathy, feelings of interpersonal communion, shame) more important in Japan
Motivation Predictions; cultural differences in self-construals will foster
* self-expression vs self-restraint
* individual or collective bases of achievement
* self-enhancement vs modesty
Markus and Kitayama’s (1991) evidence
