Culture and cognition Flashcards
Holistic perception
Attending to the relationship between the object and the context in which it is located
Culture as a knowledge system
Attention –> perception –> thinking
Attention
What kinds of stimuli in our environments, or in our minds, do we focus our attention to in the first place
Perception
How do we perceive the world around us
Do people of different cultures perceive the same physical realities
Thinking
How do we thing about the world
how do we categorize objects
Do we remember things in the same ways across cultures
Do we solve problems in the same ways across cultures
Analytic perception
context-independent and analytic perceptual processes that focuses on salient objects
Culture and perception
People’s perception of the world and the physical reality are not the same
- optical illusions: Muller-Lyer illusion, horizontal-vertical illusion and the Ponzo illusion
- carpentered world
- front-horizontal foreshorting: vertical lines represent long distances
- 2D/3D
Culture and thinking
Categorization:
- memory
- math
- problem solving
- creativity
- dialectical thinking: acceptance of contradictions –> positive logical determinism and naive dialectism
Positive logical determinism
Mutually exclusive categories (Western)
- black and white
Naive dialectism
Both true, middle ground
- grey
Culture and intelligence
- knowledge
- problem solving
- adaption
Unidimensional approach to intelligence
One general intelligence factor
–> Spearman’s g
Multidimensional approach to intelligence
Analytic, creative, practical, emotional, social, sexual etc.
Nature/nurture –> why are there cultural/group differences
- do people think differently?
- do people think at different levels?
- are the measurements inaccurate?
Guiding question: what is the role of genetics, environment and methods/bias?
Genes and ecology on intelligence
- intellectual abilities are inborn: biological programming/nativist view
- correlation test scores of identical twins raised seperately: r = .9
- certain conditions affect cognitive development
The bell curve
- Hernstein & Murray, 1994
- IQ is unchangeable
- IQ determines succes in life
–> pverty explained by low intelligence
But: - confounding of performance with potential: up to 30% cultural bias
- interventions underestimated
- ethnicity is confounded with social, educational and economic factors
Race and intelligence:
Lynn & Verhanen controversies
- men more intelligent than women
- claim that the average IQ in Africa is 70
–> but samples are not representative, measures questionable
Final thoughts on Culture and intelligence
Murray/Bell curve/Lynn & Verhanen: you are poor because you are not intelligent
- data is data, and the retraction due to public pressure is not good scientific conduct
- if there are methodological and statistical flaws, the retraction is good scientific conduct
Gender in intelligence
- average total scores the same
- overrepresentation of males in the extremes
Females: higher in verbal fluency, writing and preceptual speed
Males: higher in visual-spatial and (some) mathematical problem-solving
Flynn-effect
IQ gemiddelde blijft 100, maar IQ 100 nu is veel hoger dan IQ 100 20 jaar geleden
Reasons:
- education and test familiarity
- stimulating environment
- nutrition
–> reversed Flynn effect sine 1990’s in North and West Europe
Socioeconomic status on intelligence
- link between SES and cognitive test scores
- correlation of SES factors and test scores is higher in developing than in industrialized countries
- starting point: genetic influences are fully realized under advantageous SES conditions
Environment on intelligence
- availability of and access to resources
- educational opportunities and quality, curriculum
- beliefs, attitudes (stereotypes, low-effort syndrome), practices
- family climate
Distinguish between - cognitive potential
- cognitive skills
- score on a cognitive test
Culture free tests for intelligence
Raven’s progressive matrices
- minimal use of language
- even on this test, there are differences
–> culture as a proxy for familiarity with test
Intelligence in SA
- differences larger when cognitive complexity higher
- but differences may also be due to bias and cultural differences in valued tasks
–> how does content familiarity affect performance on tests differing in cognitive complexity?
Cognitive vs. cultural complexity
- intelligence in SA
- attention, short-term memory - small cultural differences
- working memory - moderate cultural differences
- fluid reasoning - biggest cultural differences
- classis interpretation: higher cognitive complexity shows larger cross-cultural score differences
