Cultural Psychology Flashcards
Why is the neglected 95% a problem?
Because most people are not WEIRD.
Psychological studies don’t generalise very well.
There is substantial variability in experimental results across populations.
WEIRD pps are outliers, psychologically unusual people.
Describe the difference between the enlightenment and the romanticism.
The enlightenment - emphasised reason and individualism rather than tradition. Descartes, Locke, Newton.
Romanticism - emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of all the past and nature. Medieval rather than classical.
Describe the difference between empiricism and interpretivism.
Empiricism - all knowledge derived from a sensory experience.
Interpretivism - theoretical belief that reality is socially constructed and fluid.
What is Volkerpsychologie (Wundt)?
New branch of Psychology - historical + comparative methods instead of experiments alone. Communal + cultural products of human nature.
What is accommodation?
Modification of knowledge given data.
What is assimilation?
Incorporation of data to existing knowledge.
What are representativeness and availability heuristics?
Representativeness - people asked to judge probability that something belongs to that category.
Availability - employed when people are asked to assess the frequency of a class.
Name some cultural specific phenomena.
Visual illusions - perceptions are determined by perceptual inference habits.
Spatial orientation - ostension, spatial description + intrinsic description.
Self-views + self-enhancement - pervasive and pronounced differences between East Asians and Westerners. East Asians - do not self-enhance.
Value of personal choice - American independent selves; Asian interdependent selves (more intrinsic motivation).
Motivation to conform - collectivist countries - higher levels of conformity.
Name some cultural universal phenomena.
Perceiving colour - universal constraints on colour naming.
Analog numeracy - something physical with continuous change.
Emotional expression (Ekman) - basic emotions position captures what is unique about emotion + what emotions have in common which distinguishes them from other affective phenomena.
Psychological essentialism - strong biological component was found for reason about the inheritance of properties. Native American children - consider blood as a candidates biological essence.
Mate preferences - women’s greater valuation of social status, men’s greater valuation of physical attractiveness.
Personality structure (traits) - NEO personality inventory - normative American self-report structure replicated in most cultures + recognised in all.
What is the difference between individualistic and collectivist societies?
Individualistic - rights of the individuals come before duties. Autonomy + self-actualisation.
Collectivistic - duties of the individuals come before rights. Group belongingness + group-related studies.
What is the difference between independent and interdependent self?
Independent - unique qualities of the individuals, personal freedom + agency.
Interdependent - individual as a member of a group. Responsibility, group cohesiveness.
What are agents qualities?
Attention is paid to traits which affect the trait-holder.
What are communal qualities?
Attention is paid to traits which affect the environment of the trait-holder.
Name two findings of individualistic vs collectivist cultures.
In individualistic cultures, others are more similar to me than I am to others.
Better than the average effect refers more to agents than communal qualities.
Reverse for collectivist societies.
What is the difference between tight and loose cultures?
Tight = strong norms.
Societies who don’t have a lot of ecological or historical threats tend to be looser.
Population density predicts tightness.
