culture perspective on personality Flashcards
what is culture?
a shared system of meaning that provide the standards for perceiving, believing, evaluating,communicating, and acting among those who share a language, a historical period and a geographic location
culture are game rules
does culture = race / ethnicity?
no
Culture and personality (Mead)
how we respond to a situation is due to personality, our personality if culture is understood
modern culture view
personality traits as products of biological and cultural evolution
culture>personality
personality is dependent with the meaning and practice of a particular sociocultural context(interactions)
a cultural psychological perspective implies that there is no personality without culture,there is only a biological entity (nature vs nature)
there is also no culture without personality
personality meaning in artifacts people use (living spaces,consumers preferences,preferred icons) and institutions they support{personality>culture}
the use and availability of these cultural products,in turn,perpetuates particular behavioral, affective , and cognitive tendacies (personality). [culture>personality}
reserch on cross-cultural differences in personality
-lexical approch
using natural languague as a window to study cultural universals/differences in personality
fundamental lexical hypothasis
those psychological constructuts that are the most salient and socially relevant in people’s lives will eventually become encoded into their language ; the more important the construct is
1- the more likely it is to be expressed as a word and more likely to have other words for it
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 measure
what are the limitation of this study ?
need a study that
-identifies the basic indigenous dimensions of personality description in Spanish
-assesses the overlap between these indigenous Spanish dimensions the American Big 5
combined etic/emic aproch
emic aproch
uses indegenous measures
-self-reports on 299 indegenous Spanish personality adjectives from the dictionary
Etic approch
imported measures
-self reports on spanish-translated Big 5 questionairs
traduzidos do ingles
7 indigenous spanish personality dimension #
positive valence
opness
Plesentness
Engagement
negative valence
contiaciousness
agrebleness
do emic and etic personality dimension overlap?#
plesentness for the imported big 7 is extraversion
engagement is neuroticism
what was the conclusion of the study ?
their is an overlap between the spanish grande 7 and American big 7
-exceptions:plesentness and engagement instead extraversion and neuroticism
also opness not quite the same (bohemian,mystical,quant,gossiping ,disclosing,nosy vs open minded …)
positive and negative valence seems fairly robust across these 2 cultures
cultural diferences in personality
individualism vs collectivism
extent to which the self defined as bound and separate on others around him/her
individualism(western culture)
focus on what you want
minimizes role of others in self’s behaviours
use self-descriptive traits to describe the self(ex:funny)
collectivism(easter culture)
emphasis on relationship witn the group
goal to fit in and promote group harmony
use interpersonal role to describe the self(I’m a sister,canadian)
criticisms of collectivist/individualistic approch
what countries are we talking about ?
almost all study evidence is us compared to japan
overgenaralization
people from each culture may be interdependent or independent
may also very by context
what are the cultural syndromes?
1-individualistic/collectivness
2-vertical/horizontal relationships - power difference
3.uncertainty avoidance
4.gender socialization
2.vertical/horizontal relationships
emphasis on hierchy and statues versus equality;egalitarism
ex:
vertical, individuaslistic = usa
vertical , collectivistic= india
individualistic,horizontal=sweden
collective ,horizontal-israli kibbutz
evoked culture vs egalitarism
evoked culture:cultural differences that emerge as a result of different environment
ex:climate,means of substance,affects on geography
Egalitarism (vertical vs horizontal)
is correleted with how variable the food supply is
less food supply> horizontal culture
-want to make sure you are friendly with others,cause they might share -
high food suply >vertical culture
culture of honor
in culture of honor,insults must be responded to with aggression
depends on economics :
-in culture based on (pastores) , must build reputation (honor) to prevent thivery
-in cultures based on agricultural(more settled),entire means of substance is less easily stolen
evidence of culture of honor
-USA north vs south
how people respond to insults ?
-south favor violence more than north
-south economy historically linked to herding
-south violence is specific to reputation insults
lab study that supports this idea,in which people were actually insulted by cofederents
-south people responded with higher cartisol and testosterone
-south show higher implicit association with valiont words,more aggressive respond
3.uncertainty avoidence
tolerance for ambigulity and confort in unstructured situations vs strong beliefs in rules,codes of conduct,safety and security
(follow rules/laws vs don’t follow rules/laws)
ex:Canada vs brasil
- gender socialization
men as dominant and competitive and women as narturing and caring vs lower differentiation between the sexes
ex:Iran vs USA
reserch on personality and cultural syndromes
-broad scope:33 nations
-each sample filled out questionnaire assessing the Big 5
-reserch question: How does personality correlates with the Big four cultural syndrome ?
How does personality correlates with the Big four cultural syndrome?
individualism(E+)
Power distances(E-,C+,O-)
Masculinity(O+,N+,A-)
Uncertainty avoidance (N+,A-)
personality is linked to culture
Cultural Syndromes Across Nations
Individualism: developed and Western countries
Collectivism: developing and Eastern countries
-Japan is mid-level
High Power distance: Latin, Asian, and African countries
Low Power distance: Germanic countries
High Uncertainty avoidance: Latin countries, Japan, German-speaking countries
Low Uncertainty avoidance: Anglo, Nordic, Chinese cultures
High Gender socialization: Japan, some European countries
(Germany, Austria, Switzerland)
Moderate Gender socialization: English-speaking countries
Low Gender socialization: Nordic countries, Netherlands,
some Latin and Asian countries (Thailand)
how does culture create national personality differences?
transmitted culture
transmitted culture
culture-specifc ideas,values and belifs that are transmitted to others within the culture
-through socialization,taught to children
ex: moral behaviour(culture differentiate morality)
does transmitted Culture Affects Subjective Well-Being?
Rice & Steele (2004) compared SWB of citizens in
20 nations with SWB of Americans who had
ancestors from those nations
-general social survey (GSS): us survey
taken all together,how would you say things are these days would you say they are:
-very happy
-pretty happy
-or not to happy
-world values survey (WVS): 20 nations survey
taking all things together,would you say you are
-very happy
-quite happy
-not very happy
what was the result
it was highly correleted how you feel with what others in the culture of your ancestors feel (not ancerstors though) - .62
what could be the cause of this connection ?
how often they go to church - the same church as their ancestors - more correlated they are to people who are in the same cultural group of your ancestors
how do individuals who have internalized more than one culture navigates between their different and opposing cultural identity?
two types of identities for bilinguals
-compatible cultural identity
-oppositional cultural identity
compatible cultural identities
-uneflicted identities
-co-exist
-‘‘im both’’
-‘‘american and mexican’’
-fluid view of culture
-complementary: biculture as an asset
oppositional cultural identities
-conflict identities
-choose one or the other
-im a Chinese in America
-essentialist view of culture
-dissociation(biculturalism as a burden )
reserch question
do bicultural individuals average across their different cultural orientation,switch between them or simply adopt one and abandon the other
cognitive perspective approach to culture
-culture as shared meanin-systems - sets of ideas,values,beliefs and emotions organized schemas
-individuals can possess more than one cultural meaning system
culture guides behaviour only when the relevant meaning system are cognitively Available,Accessible and Applicable
Cultural Frame-Switching in Biculturals:
Evidence
4 studies, Chinese-American bicultural samples from
Hong-Kong and US
Manipulation: Activation of US or Chinese cultural
meaning system through priming - images of each culture / whitten an essay about Chinese or American culture
showed a picture :liked the fish
Dependent Variable: internal (individualistic) vs.
external (collectivistic) explanations for an ambiguous
social event
result
prime american images > internal attribution-individualistic
priming Chinese images >external attribution - collective
overall
biculturals have multiple cultural
meaning systems and can move between
them in response to cultural cues
Without priming, biculturals’ baseline
cognitive attributions fall in between the
American and Chinese primed versions
