Cultural Psychology Flashcards
What are universals in psychology?
Core mental attributes that are shared on some conceptual level by humans across cultures
- i.e., fundamental cognitive and affective processes
WEIRD vs Non-WEIRD psychological process examples
- Visual perception
- Analytic vs Holistic cognition
- Fairness
- Individualism-Collectivism Scale
Segall et al (1966) Muller-lyer illusion American vs Non-western cultures
American undergrads required longer extensions of A before perceived the same as B vs other cultures
- if only used Americans then left with conclusion illusion does exist when it differs by culture (environmental explanations)
Carpentered Wood Hypothesis
Illusion in WEIRD cultures that non-rectangular shapes are rectangular in perspective
BUT: Growing up in contexts without carpentering like this, then the illusion does not exist
Attention to the field - East Asian vs American cognition
East Asian - Holistic view, object and environment entwined
American - Analytic view, object and environment separate
Fairness - Heinrich et al. (2015) ultimatum games across cultural groups
- Prosper offers ranged 26-56%, responder rates also varied
- Higher collectivism - higher offers, but if too high will be declined - reciprocity
Differences in Fairness explanations
- Social learning is cultural learning - highly evolved and adaptive
- You bring preferences and beliefs acquired from context to experiment
- Generalise others actions
Individualism
- Independence, motivated by own preferences, needs, rights
- priority to personal goals
- Look after self + immediate family
- Rationalise pros and cons of associating
Collectivism
- Membership to specific collectives
- Cohesion co-operation
- Group wishes, needs and desires valued first
- Individual minimised, group maximised
Dimensions of I-C
- Vertical Individualism: autonomous individual accepting if inequity
- Vertical Collectivism: sees self as an aspect of ingroup but accepts inequalities within collective
- Horizontal Individualism: autonomous individual, equality expected
- Horizontal Collectivism: sees self as members of ingroup but sees members of collective as same
Factors influencing I-C
- Complexity
- Tightness (norms imposed)
Hofstede’s Dimensions
- Individualism
- Power differences
- Uncertainty - avoidance
4, Masculinity
Cultural membership and language relation
- Degree to which shared context/ mutual understanding influences talk
High vs Low context cultures
- High context: more info in physical context or internalised in person
Low context: highly verbal, mass info vested in explicit code
Sampling Biases
- neglected 95%
- majority North American
- If not american, then asian (cautious of dichotomy)
Define Culture
- Information capable of affecting behaviour acquired from other members of group through social transmission
- Group in shared context
Dangers of culture
- Stereotyping
- Homogenizing (same as ingroup, dif from outgroup)
- Essentializing (characteristic seen as essence)
- Reifying (lack flexibility)
Overcoming dangers
- Mindful of stereotyping specific ethnic groups
- culture is not concrete, it is flexible and changes
- culture might have emerged from distant locations
Adams & Markus (2005)
- refer to culture as PATTERNS (rather than membership)
Key points about culture
- Several definitions to do with: social learning, info transmission, shared context
- cultural patterns emerge through peoples shared experiences that can move beyond groups
Cultural Psychology
- Understand how culture reflects and shapes the psychological processes of their members - in a mutually reinforcing process
- Mind and culture inseparable
- psychological processes influenced by the content of peoples lives
Another definition of culture
Culture consists of explicit and implicit patterns of historically derived and selected ideas and their embodiment in institutions, practices and artifacts.
- over-arching general ideas manifested in daily experiences and institutions of culture as well
Ideal Affect
ideal emotional state, changes with culture.
Cultural differences - ideal affect
Individualistic - high arousal states
- influence others to meet your needs
Collectivistic - low arousal (calm)
- change your needs to fit in with others
Parent-child interactions and ideal affect
Children socialised to value certain affective states over others.
Story books are a cultural product revealing ideals
Ideal Affect - Outside the Head STUDY
Tsai et al. (2006)
Study 1: Taiwanese vs European-American vs Asian-American
- preference for arousal states changed with ethnicity
- EA (high > AA > T (low)
Study 2: books sold
- EA books - more excited experiences
- T books- more calm experiences
* outside experiences and cultural products reinforce psychological processes
Outside the Head
- daily experiences and practices (intangible)
2. Cultural products (tangible)
Priming study
Children from IND and COL cultures shown both exciting vs calm book
- EA preferred bigger/excited smile (no effect of condition)
- those in excited condition more likely to perceive smile as happier
- EA preferred more exciting activities (playground)
- excited condition more likely to prefer exciting activities (irrespective of group)
Cross-cultural definition
The study of similarities and differences in individual psychological functioning in various cultural and ethnic groups - relationship between psychological variables and sociocultural, ecological and biological variables and changes of
Yang (2000) 3 goals of CC
- Transport and test (general piece of knowledge that is taken to a new context and test)
- Explore and Discover (explore construct, understand variation - discover something about construct)
- Integration (integrate new theory and idea, so it is better representation of process)
The difference between cross-cultural and cultural psychology
Cross cultural:
- Natural science
- mind/culture distinctiveness
- context free definitions of psychological and behavioural practices
- Universal explanations
VS Cultural:
- Psychology/anthropology hybrid
- Mutual constitution of mind and culture
- Context-bound defintions
- psycholgy is understood with context as it develops
Etic approach to culture
An etic approach involves looking at groups of cultures at one time. A classification system is imposed whereby the classification of criteria is external to the culture being studied. It favours universals - concepts and methods not derived from the culture of interest are applied to examine how the concept is realised in that culture. It argues that with careful administration of tests of psychological constructs they can be reliable and used across cultural settings.
Emic approach to culture
In an emic approach to culture, psychology is examined from the point of view of the culture of interest. It is culture specific and avoids imposing external concepts or methods but seeks to discover concepts from within. For example, tradition and the values placed around different traditions.
Two methods of trait approaches to personality
- Lexical studies
- describe people they know by rating them on trait adjective scale (normally 5-7 points)
- Factor analysis is often used as if the five factor model of personality
- This approach works on the assumption that the most important personality traits are encoded as words in natural languages, and analysis of these words will lead to an acceptable personality model.
(Maybe not? Philipino Indigenous Psyc) - Questionnaires
- Rate yourself on statements about characteristics, feelings and behaviours
- NEO personality inventory based on OCEAN FFM
McCrae & Terracciano (2005) - Etic personality study
- NEO personality questionnaire was conducted in 30 + studies globally and translated into 40+ languages
- the questionnaire was well-administered and personality seemed to generally conform to the FFM globally
Limitations - Translation issues, made in english translated out, does not account for differences in personality words
- Could be traits that describe personality out of a western/european context - even if people fit the FFM, these traits might not be the most important in different cultures
Cheung et al. (2001) - Emic personality study
- Aim to develop a personality assessment for Chinese people in the republic of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong
To determine what constructs of personality were important they used contemporary chinese novels, chinese proverbs, street survey, pilot study, chinese psychological literature on personality - Can see they were trying to discover an appropriate personality model from within chinese culture adn not apply methods of concepts from elsewhere
- 6 factor structure created, included interpersonal relatedness
NEO studies critique (5)
- Evidence of FFm doesn’t preclude possibility of additional factors specific to a cultural context
- Evidence for a factor doesn’t mean it is equally important of value in every culture
- Challenges to the idea that personality is linked to a behavioural self
- Heavy reliance on westernised studies
- Methodological concerns regarding etic measure
What are the Etic methodological concerns? (4)
- Cultural equivalence (extent to which measures mean the same thing across cultures - errors of omission and errors of commission)
- Conceptual equivalence (does a concept mean the same thing across culture?) (e.g., dependency in Japan vs USA)
- Scale equivalence
- Response bias
What are errors of omission and errors of commission?
Errors of Omission is when you fail to do cross-cultural work, it leads to generalised statements about the nature and determinants of behaviour.
Errors of Commission is when the researchers are insensitive to the group under investigation. It means assumptions are made that the concepts under investigation transfer across cultures and mean the same thing.
What is an imposed etic?
Assuming that the psychological dimensions measured by the instrument of scale mean the same thing between cultures.