Culture & Development Flashcards

1
Q

Cross-cultural psychology

A
  1. culture as an independent variable
  2. generally compares different cultural groups
  3. uses measurements in an experimental setting
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2
Q

Cultural psychology

A
  1. culture as a medium of human life consisting of shared knowledge, symbols, and practices
  2. study between and within cultural groups
  3. uses ethnographic methods, derived from local practices
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3
Q

Conceptions of Culture: Edward Tylor

A

“father of anthropology”
o believed culture was the part of the environment humans created
• culture = patterns of behaviors that are passed from one generation to the next via extra-somatic means
o it is socially inherited
• cognitive revolution changed the way we see culture,
o no longer a background feature – only existing in the mind,
o now “culture-as-knowledge”
• knowledge, beliefs, present in the body and mind
o it is a feature one needs knowledge of in order to be accepted within a society
• attempt to by-pass the debate of culture being an idea vs. a material

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4
Q

Culture: Shweder and Weisner

A

o Shweder
• culture is both symbolic (mental) and behavioral (material)
o Weisner
• agreed with Shweder but added that cultural influences of the material aspect derived from routines of family life
• in addition, individuals and their activities involve reciprocal relationship

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5
Q

Culture: Vygotsky

A

• ideal-material dichotomy
• culture is a medium and is material and mental, and is constantly transformed by older generations via artifacts
• artifacts are both subjective (mental) and objective (material)
• allow for coordination between each other and the environment
o how to act, respond, behave
• since culture evolves with its people, “history is in the present”
o therefore, biology and culture have reciprocal relationship

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6
Q

garden metaphor of culture

A

o in order to develop crops (people), one needs the proper tools (artifacts) and knowledge
o one must be aware of the immediate environment, such as the garden bed (social environment) as well as the greater environment, which are independent

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7
Q

Developmental Niche, Super & Harkness

A

o a child’s location within the proximal socio-cultural-ecological environment
• composed of physical/social setting; local childrearing and socialization practices; psychological characteristics of parents

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8
Q

cultural evolution, as proposed by Tylor

A

cultures can be classified past sophistication, organization, etc
o believes in doctrine of psychic unity – everyone has the same potential for learning cultural traditions, but we are limited by surroundings

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9
Q

Boas proposal

A

o every culture is a combo of local developed features and some borrowed from surrounding cultures
• we can compare cultures, but must recognize we must view them within their context
• packed variable – the idea it is hard to investigate the origin of artifacts due to their complex consistency

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10
Q

The Socially Distributed Nature of Culture

A

• need to recognize the importance of cross-cultural differences
o such as Bronfenbrenner’s model of levels of the environment
• triple helix approach in order to truly understand a culture
o history = cultural evolution
o phylogensis = biological evolution
o ontogenesis = child development
• one most be aware of the bio-social-behavioral shifts across time

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11
Q

Culture at birth

A

o mother + child’s ontogeny → converts abstract culture into one that is concrete
• parent’s understanding of culture immediately begins to shape the child’s ontogeny, such as sticking to culturally-assigned gender roles
• culture is a continuum overlaps between generations

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12
Q

Culture & Infancy (birth to ~2.5 years)

A

o co-regulation of culture = continuous mutual adjustment of actions/intentions
• although evidence exists that infants seem to be “programmed” to accept any culture, but this changes via exposure to a specific culture
o language (one of the more obvious early cultural experience)
• culture gives meaning to formats and scripting of language
• “motherese” – simplified language that is present across all cultures

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13
Q

Attachment & Culture

A

• present within the phylogenetic timeline, influenced by biology and culture
• we learn best from those we are attached to
• includes verbal, social, and cognitive abilities
• cross-cultural differences in attachment
• evidence seems to state whether these differences can be blamed on an entire culture, since the ratio of attachment styles are found across cultures
o ratios first found by Ainsworth and Bowlby
• 21% type A
• 65% type B
• 14% type C
o although due to changes in parental-styles across time, these percentages have varied leading to,
• period of strict attachment = “epochal derailments”
• attachment styles
• type A = anxious-avoidant
• type B = securely attached
• type C = ambivalent-resistant
• type D = disorganized

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14
Q

Culture & Early Childhood (2.5 to 6 years)

A

o 2-3 yrs = “knee children” || 4-5 yrs = “yard children”
o from age 3, every day, the interactions are intended to prepare the child for school
• preschool period
• teacher intervention techniques are culturally based
o language
• Chomsky’s language acquisition device (LAD)
• “mental module” = specialized mental organ that handles a specific type of information (i.e. Broca’s area)
• “skeletal system” = referring to the biological constraints on language
• includes culture + neuroplasticity
o theory of the mind
• evident via “false-belief” tasks, where a child is able to understand a person’s beliefs despite the fact it contradicts the facts
• Whorfian hypothesis = one’s language determines one’s theory of the world
o SES
o understanding of biology
• naïve psychology (that a child is limited in identify complex differences due to lack of resources ) is wrong
• unfortunately, many advanced cultures tend to create a taxonomic hierarchy for different groups of people
o which limits child’s understanding

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15
Q

Culture & Middle Childhood

A

o school
• start of school, often viewed by many cultures as “age of reason”
• European model of institutionalized public basic school (IPBS) is most popular form of schooling
• graduation rate is just one factor that varies across cultures
• some cultures expect the child to help at home instead of attending school
• the more active the parent here, typically, the better the student
• parents begin to treat their children different when they start school
o development of cognitive processes, all influenced by culture
• logical operations
• though some falsely believe this could only be developed within a school
• memory
• ability to analyze language
• ability to classify

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16
Q

Culture and Cognitive Development – Michael Tomasello

A

• in order to understand culture we need to examine culture from an
o evolutionary approach
o ontogenetic approach
• examine chimps, and how they learn via observation
o they can learn how an action can effect an environment
• not how to perform an exact action = emulation learning
• human, on the other hand, can learn the precise techniques
o goal driven, while observing = cultural learning
• all learn via cultural transmission though, labeled “nongenetic transfer of information”
• for humans: cultural learning → cultural evolution → production of artifacts
o allows progression of our species
• one person invents, the next modifies and improves it for the species
• human cultural learning
o starts 9-12 months
• begin to engage in gaze following, social referencing, and imitative learning
o ~2 years old
• begin to make use of artifacts
• understanding the goal and the means to achieve it
o cultural learning requires infants to identify with adults
• not just mimic them, but understand them
• learning through others, not just from others
o autistic children have trouble understanding other’s intentions
• have trouble with imitative learning as well as cultural learning
o to learn a linguistic symbols, requires understand of
• generality, perspective, and function
• a deeper understanding is needed
• cultural cognition
o evolution has altered human social cognition and thereby has altered human cultural transmission
o allowed for the creation of advanced artifacts, including language, and social histories
o modern human cognition = evolution + culture

17
Q

The Cognitive Neuroscience of Aging and Culture – Denise Park and Angela Gutschess

A

• differences in cognitive functions can be blamed, at least partially, on culture
o interplay of experience (via culture) + neurobiology (via aging)
o the exact influence/role of culture on neurological decline is difficult to pinpoint
• behavioral evidence
o important to note similarities across all brains due to aging
• decreased efficiency, speed, working and long-term memory
• cognitive hardware or mechanics
• knowledge remains preserved
• cognitive pragmatics or software
o evidence of cultural impact varies
• neurocognitive functioning due to aging
o neurological functioning, comparing old and young
• some clear differences, and yet there are clearly similarities as well
• culture and neurological differences
o culture seems to function as a moderator variable during cognitive processing
o evidence of activation of different parts of the brain depending on culture
• are these differences hardwired, or simply reflect cultural strategy differences?

18
Q

early cultural interactions affect our future

A
  • the way the parents hold a child (facing the world vs. facing them)
  • a parent’s expectations of a child influences the world around him/her
  • parents selectively reinforce specific elements in the child’s world
  • attachment influences behaviors
  • attachment styles are then absorbed or repelled by the child later on in life
  • context, social climate, political climate, all influential
19
Q

Tomasello (general)

A

o culture is a ratchet
• locks knowledge base in place, to be built upon by succeeding generations
• encourages healthy development
• early example in humans, we copy the actions of others
o emulation = copying, but not perfectly
• involves understanding the outcome, but not the exact procedure
o language helps prepare us for the environmental interaction