Culture Flashcards
Cultures:
shared systems of meaning that provide the standards for perceiving, believing, evaluation, communicating, and acting among those who share a language, a historic period, and a geographic location
culture=game rules
Culture is not race or ethnicity
Classical anthropological view
children are born without culture, but as soon as they gain culture, they gain personality
without culture there’s no personality
Modern Cultural view
Personality traits as product of biological and cultural evolution
Culture influences personality
“PERSONALITY is completely independent with the meanings and practices of particular sociocultural contexts” “there is no personality without culture”
Personality also influence culture
There is no culture without personality
Personality meaning resides in artifacts people use (e.g. living spaces, preferred icons, music preferences, etc) and institutions they support (Hollywood, capitalism)
The use and availability of cultural products, in turn, perpetuates particular behavioral, affective, and cognitive tendencies (personality)
Personality and culture in everyday contexts: Personal ads(advertisement for yourself (like a dating app))
India Tribune focuses on jobs, San Francisco chronicle focuses more on hobbies
Lexical approach
using natural language as a window to study cultural universals/differences in personality
Fundamental lexical hypothesis
psychological constructs that are the most salient and socially relevant in peoples lives will eventually become encoded in tier language
The more important a construct is: 1)the more likely it is to be expressed as a single word and overrepresented in the language and
2)the more languages and cultures will have a word for it
Do the big 5 traits replicate across cultures?
Yes, in spain-using translated american measures
But, what is the limitation of a study that used translated american measures?
No way to know if spaniards have other dimensions that are important
Need for another study that:
1)identifies the basic indigenous deimnesions of personality decription in spanish
2)assess the overlap between indigenous spanish dimension and american big 5
->led to combined etic/emic approach
Emic approach
indigenous measures
- 7 indigenous spanish personality dimensions
Positive valence, neg valence, consciousness, agreeableness, openness, pleasantness, engagement
Pleasantness and engagement: spanish factors
Passion and pleasure/pain is important part of spanish culture
Etic approach
imported measures->self reports on spanish translated big 5 questionnaires
Overlap between indigenous (emic) spanish personality and imported (etic) big 7 inventory
Positive valence between spanish and imported is highly correlated(.79)
Neg valence is medium correlated between spanish and imported(.47)
Agreeableness is highly correlated (.71)
Consciousness is medium correlated (.60)
Conclusion of etic/emic approach
1)there is considerable overlap between the spanish Siete Grandes and the AMerican Big 5(if we separate out pos and neg valence to make it big 7)
1b) exceptions pleasantness and engagement(in spaniards)
* Instead of extraversion and neuroticism
* Also openness not quite the same
2)postiive and negative valence seem fairly robust(valid despite variations) across two cultures
Cultural difference in personality: individualism
Focus on what you want
Minimize role of others in self’s behaviors
Use self-descriptive traits to describe self(dependable)
Cultural difference in personality:collectivism
Emphasis on interconnectedness of group
Goal: to fit in, promote group harmony
Use interpersonal roles to describe one self (daughter, sister)
Individualistic western cultures
the self does not overlap with other close relationships
