cultural psychology Flashcards
culture by Edward Burnett Tyler
complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society
geert hoofdstede about culture
the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group of people from another
steven j heine about culture
any kind of information that is acquired from other members of one’s species through social learning that is capable of affecting an individual’s behaviours.
particular group of people living within a shared context and exposed to same cultural information “western” vs. “east astian” cultures.
Alex mesoudi about culture
socially transmitted information
cultural values
preferences for one state of affairs over another that distinguishes ocountries (rather than individuals) from each other
individualism vs collectivism
the extend to which individuals prioritize their personal goals vs their group goals
tightness vs looseness
tolerance of deviant behaviour and severity of punishments to norm violators
construct equivalence
similarity of construct across cultures
methodlogical equivalence
equality in familiratiry with stimulus material & response procedure
linguistic equivalence
translation accuracy, retention of connotations
culture defined by book
culture is any kind of information that is acquired from other members of one’s species through social learning that can influence an individual’s behaviors /// A culture is a group of people who are existing within some kind of shared context.
see the mind as a highly abstract central processing unit CPU
that operates independently of the context within which it is thinking or of the content it is thinking about
nonuniversal
if we find that a particular psych process can be said to not exist in all cultures, this reflects an absence of universality, they are cultural inventions
existential universal
a psych process is said to exist in all cultures althoug the process is not necessarily used to solve the same problems, nor iis it equally accessible across cultures
functional universal
psych processes that exist in all cultures, are used to solve the same problems across cultures, yet are more accessible to people from some cultures than others
accessibility universal
a given psych process exists in all cultures, is used to solve the same problems across cultures and is accessible to the same degree across cultures
ethnocentrism
judging people from other cultures by the standards of one’s own culture
ethnographies
usually contain rich description of a culture or a particular situation or group of people within a culture, derived from extensive observations nd integration by an anthropologist
Methodological equivalence
for researchers to make meaningful comparison sacross cultures, participants must understand the questions or situations the same way
power
its capacity of the study to detect an effect to the extent that such an effect really exists
back translation
a strategy to avoid the problems having a translator during a conversation. translating your original text from egnlsih to Indonesian, and then translating that back from Indonesian to English
response bias
factor that distorts the accuracy of a. persons response to survey uquestions
reference group effect
people from different cultures tend to evaluate themselves by comparing themselves to different reference groups, and thus different standards
deprivation effect
the issue for measuring values across cultures is the expectation that in cultures where there is chronically less personal safety, people would express valuing it more.// The tendency for people living in conditions with a real threat of starvation to value food more than those living where food is abundant is an example of
between groups manipulation
in which different groups of participants receive different levels of the independent variable
within groups manipulation
each participant receives more than one level of the independent variable.
situation sampling
if researchers can see how people respond to situations that are regularly experiences by people in another culture, they can get some perspective on how cultures shape people’s way of thinking.
cultural priming
works by making certain ideas more accessible to participants, and if those ideas are associated with cultural meanings, researchers can invesitigate what happens when people start to think about them
tightness-looseness
refers to the degree to which a culture, or society has strong social norms and low tolaerance for people who violate those norms
unpackaging
cultural findings means identifying the underlying variables that give rise to cultural differences
Occam’s razor
states that the simplest solution to a problem tends to be the right one
culture of honor
in which people (especially men) strive to protect their reputation through aggression
agent based modeling
a way of testing a hypothesis by creating simulations with virtual agents who are programmed to act autonomously in a computerised game
prestige bias
learning something from someone that is an expert in a skill or area and thinking that this is best
imitative learning
in which the learner internalises something of the models goals and behavioural strategies//less effective, more precise
emulative learning
more effective, less precise, in which the learning focuses on the environmental events involved, such as how to use of one object could potentially cause changes in the state of the environment.
how is cultural learning possible
theory of mind (understanding others intentions) and language (communicate ideas and intentions)
ratchet effect
accumulation of cultural information (high-fidelity social transmission) + innovation (modification and improvement of the transmitted cultural information)
where does cultural variation come from?
cultural norms are adaptive responses to features of the ecology (geography & climate)
how does ecology contribute to cultural variation?
evoked culture -> transmitted culture
evoked culture
culture norms as a biological encoded response to certain ecological factors (parasite prevalence)
parasite prevalence
physical attractiveness (index of healthy) is important in mate selection
transmitted culture
cultural norms are learned from other individuals (spreading of the norms that have been developed) for ex: watch neighbour plant wheat seeds and enjoy the benefits > plants wheat seeds himself
which cultural ideas spread
useful, communicable, minimally counterintuitive, emotional
how have cultures been changing?
globalisation (and glocalization), rise of individualism, increase in IQ, (Flynn effect)
how do cultures persist?
cultural innovations are constrained by preexisting structures -> early ecological factors appear to have disproportionate influence on cultural evolution, pluralistic ignorance
when do we acquire culture?
learning culture (hardwired to learn culture, sensitive periods), following instinct (hard wired skills)
physical and social settings
what affordances the physical space provides (nutrition, climate)
customs & practices of child rearing
inherited and adapted way of nurturing, entertaining, educating and protecting the child
caretakers psychology
parental athnotheories (beliefs and values about child development and parenting)
similarity bias
choosing whom to imitate and learn from based on the targets similarity to themselves
conformist transmission
a tendency to learn from people who are engaging in behaviours that are more common compared with others
mentalizing
interest in the mental states of others
scaffolding
instructed learning is common with children, by using models to simplify a task and direct a child’s attention to the relevant steps
ratchet effect
after an initial idea is learned from others, it can be then modified and improved upon by other individuals. cultural info grows in complexity and often in usefulness over time
cultural worlds
worlds the contain cultural ideas that have accumulated over time
