Development Across Cultures Flashcards
What is a collectivist and individualist culture?
Eastern culture: collectivist, importance of the group over the individual
Western culture: individualist, pursuit of the individual or personal goals are encouraged
How does farming differ between the east and west?
West: individual farms were allowed to support their families
East: people worked together to feed the whole community
How did philosophy differ between the west and east?
West: Aristotle, focused on the property of objects e.g. gravity and levity, the objects sunk or float in the water, he never mentioned the water specifically
East: saw actions occurred in a field of forces (water) understood concepts like tidal flows and magnetism long before the west did
What is a culture shock?
Phenomenon
Experience difficulty adjusting and understanding an unfamiliar culture
What is WEIRD?
Western
Educated
Industrial
Rich
Democratic
What types of people are likely to take part in psychological studies?
96% of samples in psychology studies come from countries compromising 12% of the world’s population
Undergraduate studies are more likely to be used in studies than other people
Why is WEIRD an issue?
Researchers assume their findings can be generalised to everyone
What study argues there’s no difference between cultures?
Ekman argued there’s 6 universal facial expressions: anger, disgust, fear, sad, surprise, happy
What is the procedure for Segall’s cultural, visual perception study?
Used the Muller Lyer illusion
Line A and B are the same length, A appears longer than B
Thought these illusions were universal
What are the results for Segall’s cultural, visual perception study?
Some tribes don’t see the lines as an illusion
Exposure to elements like carpentered corners which is found frequently in modern society perpetuate this illusion
What is Kung Infancy?
Largely hunter gatherers
Forging missions are frequent, adults work about 3 days a week
Spend time together
Engage in social contact
Objects are valued and shared
They don’t accumulate possessions
Children’s first words are usually ‘‘here take this’’ and ‘‘give it to me’’
What are the usual sleeping arrangements for a baby? How does this differ between west and eastern countries?
West: prepare a room for the baby, sleep in separate rooms with a baby monitor
Rest of the world: mothers sleep next to their infant in the same bed or the baby shared their parents room
Do Uganda infants experience different motor development to western infants?
Infants in Uganda sit, crawl and walk earlier than Western infants
Uganda infants stand at 7 months and take independent steps at 9 months
Why do Uganda infants develop earlier?
Earlier development is achieved through practises that stimulate those muscles
Earlier development of language, social behaviour and grasping
What are the motor development differences between Cameroonian infants and German infants?
Cameroonian infants show more accelerated development than German infants
Cameroonian infants are more likely to sit without support at 3 months old than German infants
Language development more accelerated in German infants
What are the types of attachment? What is most/least common in western society?
Secure: 62%
Avoidant: 23%
Anxious/Ambivalent: 15%
What happens in the secure, anxious/ambivalent, avoidant attachment types?
secure: distressed when a mother leaves, avoidant of stranger when alone friendly when the mother is there, happy reunion with mother
ambivalent: intense distress when the mother leaves, infant avoids stranger, when reunited with the mother the baby avoids contact but approaches mother
avoidant: no sign of distress when the mother leaves, plays normally when the stranger is present, shows little interest in mother when reunited
What is the most preferred and most observed attachment type across other cultures?
Germany: most preferred and commonly observed attachment type was the avoidant style
Israel: most commonly observed attachment is the anxious/ambivalent type
Japan and West Africa: no children showed avoidant attachment type
What colours did the Himba participants perceieve?
Himba in Namibia: don’t distinguish between blue and green colours, there’s no evidence for the discrimination between them
They show a discrimination between colour boundaries that English speakers don’t
Himba toddlers showed the same results
How do positive self views differ between cultures?
Motivated to view ourselves positively
Above average effect: view ourselves as above average
Common in western countries
Mexico and Chile people, view themselves above average but negatively
East Asian people view themselves as below average
What are the American outliers?
Educated Americans appear different to uneducated Americans
Americans are more individualistic than non-college Americans
Conformity motivations are weaker among non-college Americans
Working class Americans are more independent and holistic than middle class people
Do the west or east perceive more holistically?
West: focus on salient objects, organise the environment based on the categorical rules
East: holistic, contextual information, use perceptual similarities
What is change blindness? What type of people are faster at noticing this?
When someone doesn’t notice a change in a visual scene
Can be a contextual or focal change
East is faster at noticing contextual change than West
What was the study by Masuda and Nisbet 2001 find?
20 second vignettes shown to Japanese and American adults
Asked to describe what they had scene
Americans started sentences with the object
Japanese described the field
Japanese made more comments about the relationship between object and field than Americans
Japanese adults made more errors when the context changed, whereas the Americans were unaffected
