Culture and Cognition

Question 1

Culture as cognition

Answer 1

Human culture as unique meaning and information system
- attention –> perception –> thinking

Question 2

Carpentered world
- Muller-Lyer illusion

Answer 2

Suggests that people in urbanized, industrialized societies are used to seeing things that are rectangular in shape
- unconsciosly expect objects to have squared cornes

Question 3

Front-horizontal foreshortening
- Ponzo illusion

Answer 3

Interpretation of vertical lines as horizontal lines extending into a distance

Question 4

Analytic cognition

Answer 4

Western cognitive style
- analytic
- logical
- focused on cause-effect linkages among specific key variables or objects
- deterministic and precise
–> Context independend and analytic perceptual processes that focuses on salient objects

Question 5

Holistic cognition

Answer 5

East Asian cognitive style
- holistic
- focused on systems interrelationships, mutual interdependence
- multiplicity of explanations
–> Context dependend: attending to the relationship between the object and the context in which it is located

Question 6

Fundamental attribution error

Answer 6

A tendency to explain the behaviours of others using internal attributions but to explain one’s own behaviours using external attributions

Question 7

East-West differences in attributioonal styles

Answer 7

• a social explanations among Americans and Hindu Indians
• American respondents: general dispositions
• The Hindu Indians: duties, social roles and other situationspecific factors

Question 8

Attention in cognition

Answer 8

Analytic: field independent, narrow, focus on salient objects with intent to manipulate them
Holistic: field dependent. broad, focus on relationship of elements, background

Question 9

Categorization in cognition

Answer 9

Analytic: Taxonomic, focus on a single dimension or shared property
Holistic: Thematic, focus on functional relationship or overall similarity

Question 10

Attribution in cognition

Answer 10

Analytic: dispositional and traits and attributes of individuals determine events
Holistic: situational and external forces, context and situations determine events

Question 11

Reasoning in cognition

Answer 11

Analytic: analytic and use of formal logic Trends continue
Holistic: dialectical and middle way philosophy trend reversals are likely

Question 12

Social orientation hypothesis

Answer 12

States that analytic cognition matches with independent selves and holistic cognition is more interdependent

Question 13

Input on the social orientation hypothesis

Answer 13

• cultural differences in cognitive tasks may be situational
• attributional biases may be more universal than thought
• Locus of control analytic vs. holistic cognition
• some aspects of memory are likely universal
• effects of education
  –> not ancient systems associated with social orientation

Question 14

Race and intelligence

Answer 14

Lynn and Verhanen controversies:
- claim that average IQ in Africa is 70, based on 50 country study
- men more intelligent than women

Question 15

Lynn is racist

Answer 15

What is called for here is not genocide, the killing off of the population of incompetent cultures. But we do need to think realistically in terms of the ‘phasing out’ of such peoples

Question 16

Culture Fair tests

Answer 16

Cattell Culture Fair Intelligence Test
- minimal use of language
- but 27 out og 46 items administered were culturally biased
- scores incomparable to one another across cultures

Question 17

Nature: the bell curve
- nature vs nurture

Answer 17

• IQ is largely inherited
• IQ determines succes in life
• Difference between ethnic-racial groups partly genetic
  –> ethnicity and race are social constructs - do not correspond to genetic variation
  –> ethnicity is confounded with social, educational and economic factors

Question 18

Nurture: Flynn effect
- nature vs. nurture

Answer 18

IQ scores steadily rising over time and generations
- education and test familiarity
- stimulating environment
- nutrition

Question 19

Stereotype threat

Answer 19

• when widely known stereotypes exist about a group, this creates a threat for members of that group
• this stereotype threat might interfere with performance in the stereotyped domain

Question 20

Unidimensional IQ

Answer 20

One general intelligence factor –> spearmans g

Question 21

Multidimensional IQ

Answer 21

Analytic, creative, practial, emotional, social, sexual etc. (Sternberg)

Question 22

Cross-cultural meaning of IQ

Answer 22

The skill and abilities necessary to effectively accomplish cultural goals
- pursue a professional occupation with a good salary in order to support oneself and family –> cognitive and emotional skills and abilities to achieve this
- development and maintenance of successful interpersonal relationship –> emotional and social skills and abilities to achieve this