Culture Flashcards
1
Q
components of culture
A
- Cultural Differences (evoked vs. transmitted culture)
- Cultural Similarities (cultural universals)
2
Q
evoked culture (and its 2 key ingredients)
A
- Differences in physical environments lead to different adaptations among different groups of people; such differences are characterized as “cultural differences” (ie. People who live closer to equator sweat more than Canadians)
- 2 key ingredients:
- Universal underlying mechanisms (ie. Fight or flight response; sweat glands)
- Environmental differences in the degree to which the underlying mechanism is activated (ie. Differences in threats/demands in early environments; temperature differences
3
Q
evoked culture & personality: pathogen prevalence example
A
- In populations with higher exposure to pathogens:
- Lower levels of openness
- Lower levels of extraversion
- Deviating from cultural norms (in regards to food preparation) may also increase likelihood of pathogen exposure (ie. Risk of food-born disease) -> more conformity
- Historical prevalence of pathogens also associated with more authoritarian personalities, more authoritarian governance, and more conservative political ideologies (support for “parasite stress” hypothesis)
4
Q
transmitted culture
A
- Ideas, values, attitudes, and beliefs, that are communicated from one person to another (originally from one person)
- Different cultures focus on spreading certain ideas, morals, values, attitudes, and beliefs, and have different self-concepts
- These differences in turn result in differences in personality (by impacting behavioural tendencies) from one culture to the next
- Includes cultural orientation and self-enhancement
5
Q
3 types of transmitted culture
A
- Vertical transmission: parents -> child
- Horizontal transmission: between peers/people of the same generation
- Oblique transmission: from older generations to younger generations
- Includes grandparents, media, and unrelated people
- Ex. The Taliban is an example of oblique transmission for Malala
6
Q
cultural orientation
A
- Individualistic: focus on uniqueness, independence, agency, independent self-construal
- Collectivistic: focus on relationships with others and communion; interdependent self-construal
- Also linked to how people process information, either analytically (ie. American) or holistically (ie. Asian cultures)
7
Q
2 key aspects to consider: transmitted culture & personality
A
- Individualism vs. collectivism
- Equality vs. Inequality/status
8
Q
Transmitted culture: individ/collec vs. eq/ineq result in these 4 outcomes
A
- Vertical individualism: focus on individualism & inequality/status
- Vertical collectivism: focus on inequality/status & collectivism
- Horizontal individualism: focus on individualism and equality
- Horizontal collectivism: focus on equality and collectivism
9
Q
self-enhancement
A
- Tendency to describe and present oneself using positive or socially valued attributes (ie. Kind, smart)
- North Americans tend to maintain a more positive evaluation of themselves and of their own group compared to outsiders (likely because other cultures ie. Asians genuinely feel less positive due to their cultural values)
10
Q
Santos et al study: is individualism on the rise?
A
- examined 51 years of data about individualistic practices (ie. Living alone) and values (ie. Having children develop independence)
- Saw an increasing level of individualistic practices in most countries (incl. Canada and the US)
- Saw an increasing level of individualistic values in most countries (Canada was higher than US, China was exception -> decreased individualistic values)
- As countries grow economically and reduce pathogen prevalence, they typically experience increase in individualism
11
Q
Malala case study: is evoked or transmitted culture more important to her personality?
A
Transmitted -> vertical culture (influence of parents on her)
12
Q
Malala case study: in what was were different aspects of transmitted culture at odds with each other in her life?
A
Taliban saying girls should not go to school (oblique transmission) vs. Her parents saying girls should go to school (vertical transmission)
13
Q
acculturation
A
- The process of cultural adaptation upon arriving in a new culture
- Research examining acculturation in individualistic (Western) cultures suggests an impact on self-construal via transmitted culture
- 2 main factors of self-contrual: independent (how you set yourself apart) & interdependent (how you’re affiliated with the group)
- independent is common in individualistic cultures and vice versa
14
Q
Combos of 2 main factors of acculturation result in these 4 different types
A
- Bicultural: strong independent, strong interdependent (Malala)
- Western: strong independent, weak interdependent
- Traditional: weak independent, strong interdependent
- Culturally Alienated: weak independent, weak interdependent
15
Q
Acculturation of big 5 study (Japanese Americans)
A
- collected Big 5 ratings of Japanese Americans and compared them to European Americans and Japanese women
- Higher participation in American culture led to personality profiles that were more “American” and less “Japanese”
- Became more similar in neuroticism (lower), openness (higher), and conscientiousness (lower)
16
Q
Do cultures differ in the Big 5?
A
- Overall, not much
- Across 51 different cultures, the largest difference was seen in extraversion
- North Americans, Australians, and Europeans scored slightly higher than Asians and Africans
- There is a lot more variation within cultures than between cultures
17
Q
cultural universals (and 3 important aspects)
A
- Features of personality that are common to people in all cultures (“human nature”)
- 3 important aspects that appear to be culturally universal:
- Emotional expression
- 5-factor model/Big 5
- Beliefs about men and women
18
Q
Emotional expression
A
- all humans feel the same emotions, but express them differently or label them differently based on culture (ex. everyone feels schadenfreude, but only Germans have a word for it)
- However, some are universal -> 6 original universal emotions: Anger, fear, disgust, surprise, happiness, sadness
- Research done at UBC shows that pride may also be universal
19
Q
Universal Traits (Big 5)
A
- 5-factor model (Big 5) helps to explain variance in many cultures; trait terms (in general) appear to be universal
- Transport and test theory shows that dimensions used for personality evaluation show high degree of cultural universality; replicable across cultures
- exceptions: indigenous people of Bolivia, Chinese people, and some European countries
- all factors except openness are highly consistent; openness is replaced by something else in some cultures
20
Q
Big 5 exceptions: indigenous people of Bolivia
A
- Big 5 didn’t replicate
- Found support for 2 principal factors that may reflect socioecological characteristics common to small-scale societies:
- Prosociality
- Industriousness
21
Q
Big 5 exceptions: Chinese people
A
- factor analysis revealed 4 dimensions:
- Dependability -> neuroticism/stability
- Social potency -> extraversion
- Individualism/accommodation -> agreeableness
- Interpersonal relatedness (ie. Harmony, reciprocity in relationships) -> none of the big 5
- – Replicated in Asian American, Korean, and Japanese samples; also in European Americans, but seems to be less salient to them
22
Q
Big 5 exceptions: European countries
A
- Across 7 countries/languages (Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Polish), Ashton et al. found evidence for 6 dimensions rather than 5:
- Extraversion
- Agreeableness
- Conscientiousness
- Emotionality
- Intellect/Imagination/Unconventionality
- Honesty-Humility
23
Q
Williams & Best study: Beliefs about men & women
A
- Examined 30 countries for 15 years, including countries in Western Europe (e.g., Germany, Netherlands, Italy), Asia (e.g., Japan, India), South America (e.g., Venezuela), and Africa (e.g., Nigeria).
- University students examined 300 trait adjectives (e.g., aggressive, emotional, dominant) and indicated whether each trait is more often associated with men, women, or both sexes.
- RESULTS: Many trait adjectives were associated with one or the other sex (likely due to combo of innate and social factors); there was tremendous consensus across cultures.
24
Q
cultural variation
A
- within-group similarities and between-group differences
- ex. Eating beef (deemed okay in Canada, not in India)
25
3 key goals of cultural personality psych
- discover principles underlying cultural diversity
- discover how human personality shapes culture
- discover how cultural understandings shape our psychology
26
examples of evoked culture: evoked cooperation, evoked mating strategies & evoked aggression
- evoked cooperation: in high-variance environments, it's helpful to be egalitarian (ex. cooperative food-sharing)
- evoked mating strategies: if children experience rejecting/inconsistent parents in early life, they'll have sex earlier and have more sexual partners (unpredictable early environment taught them they can't rely on just 1) and vice versa -> different strategies are more common in certain cultures (ie. many partners more common in Sweden than China)
- evoked aggression: in cultures of honour, insults are viewed as public challenges -> more aggression (ex. Southern US people more aggressive than Northern)
27
self-definition and culture
- People in individualistic cultures more likely to describe themselves using internal characteristics (ie. smart, fun, open-minded); more likely to see themselves as unique and special
- People in collectivist cultures more likely to describe themselves using social roles (ie. daughter, Jane's friend), preferences (ie. I like chocolate), and context-dependent activities (ie. I like watching TV on the weekend); responses are less consistent in different contexts
- people who have immigrated to Canada from collectivist countries more likely to place more emphasis on their ethnicity; more likely to only have high self-esteem if their ethnic group is positively evaluated by others (collective self-esteem)
28
culture and information-processing
- collectivistic cultures explain events holistically (attention to relationships and context between the focal object and field as a whole)
- individualistic cultures explain events analytically (object detached from context and people)
29
3rd factor of self-construal
- metapersonal self: the self within a broader context, (ie. humankind, the cosmos, etc.), related to all living things (biospheric values), a spiritual self
- characteristic of Eastern philosophies (ie. Buddhism)
- high metapersonal self-contrual = more resource sharing and environmentalism
30
cautions in generalizing cultural differences
- studies usually occur only in certain cultures; can't generalize to all others
- characterizations may be too general
- Though European American typically more individualistic, not always -> less so than African Americans and Latinos
- Though European Americans typically less collectivistic, not always -> no less so than Koreans or Japanese
31
within-culture variations
- social class: low-class = more obedient; high-class = self-directed, non-conforming
- historical era: growing up in great depression = more anxious, thrifty; growing up during sexual revolution of 60s-70s = more openness
- - one study showed increases in agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion & decrease in neuroticism in the Netherlands over 25 years
32
WEIRD research
- research done on Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies (and on WEIRD undergrads specifically) -> often generalized to entire population, but only based on small subset of it
- 70% of psych research done in US; many research assume their findings are generalizable both explicitly (saying x is a thing everyone has) and implicitly (not listing generalizability as a limitation)
- problematic because studies have shown differences in social and cognitive processes between small-scale and industrialized societies, Western and non-Western cultures, and Canadians and Americans (ie. Americans most individualistic of any western country), and undergrads and non-undergrads
33
Whorfian hypothesis of linguistic relativity
- states that language creates emotions and experiences; what we think/feel is limited by our language
- extreme view, contrasts research on universal emotional expression -> we all feel the same emotions, but express them differently depending on culture and context
