Exam Guide

Question 1

What is Geert Hofstede’s Value Dimensions?

Answer 1

Geert Hofstede, assisted by others, came up with six basic issues that society needs to come to term with in order to organize itself. These are called dimensions of culture. Each of them has been expressed on a scale that runs roughly from 0 to 100.

Individualism versus Collectivism. This dimension refers to the degree to which cultures will encourage, on one hand, the tendency for people to look after themselves and their immediate family only, or, on the other hand, for people to belong to ingroups that are supposed to look after its members in exchange for loyalty.

Power Distance. This dimension refers to the degree to which cultures will encourage less powerful members of groups to accept that power is distributed unequally.

Uncertainty Avoidance. This dimension refers to the degree to which people feel threatened by the unknown or ambiguous situations, and have developed beliefs, institutions, or rituals to avoid them.

Masculinity versus Femininity. This dimension is characterized on one pole by success, money, and things, and on the other pole by caring for others and quality of life. It refers to the distribution of emotional roles between males and females.

Long vs. Short Term Orientation. This dimension refers to the degree to which cultures encourage delayed gratification of material, social, and emotional needs among its members.

Question 2

What is Social and Emotional Wellbeing?

Answer 2

The term social and emotional wellbeing is used by many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to describe the social, emotional, spiritual, and cultural wellbeing of a person. The term recognises that connection to land, culture, spirituality, family, and community are important to people and can impact on their wellbeing. It also recognises that a person’s social and emotional wellbeing is influenced by policies and past events.

Question 3

Factors that impact your social and emotional wellbeing?

Answer 3

There are many different factors that can impact on a person’s social and emotional wellbeing. These can range from normal everyday stresses to major life events.

For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, a number of events in the past have had a serious ongoing impact on their social and emotional wellbeing. These include dispossession from their lands (loss of lands), and the impact of the policies and actions that followed, such as the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families and homelands.

Professor Helen Milroy, an Indigenous psychiatrist, describes three important themes to come from an analysis of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history. They include: ‘the denial of humanity, the denial of existence and the denial of identity’ (see Zubrick et al., 2005).

Question 4

Factors that protect SEWB?

Answer 4

Connection to land, culture,
spirituality and ancestry
-Importance of land and the ‘country’
one belongs to;
-Maintaining a spiritual, physical and
emotional connection to the land is
intrinsic to many Indigenous people’s
beliefs about mental, social and
emotional wellbeing.

Kinship
- Bonds of reciprocal affection,
responsibility and caring are
inextricably linked to an individual’s
wellbeing.

Self-determination, community
governance and cultural continuity
-Community leadership and
governance as a primary driver of
human development in Aboriginal
communities.

Question 5

What is cultural competence?

Answer 5

Cultural competence is a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes and policies that come together in a system, agency or professional and enable that system, agency or professional to work effectively in cross-cultural situations.

Question 6

What is Cultural Destructiveness?

Answer 6

People and organizations who demonstrate cultural destructiveness will actively try to harm others. They believe they are superior to others. They may disregard
the rights of others. Around the world and through the ages there have been crimes committed that have cultural destructiveness at their roots. In some
cases, these crimes are large and affect many. At other times, they are directed towards individuals and carried out by individuals or small groups. Unfortunately,
these types of crimes are not uncommon.

Question 7

What is Cultural Incapacity?

Answer 7

People and organizations/employers who demonstrate cultural incapacity have little understanding about their own prejudices. They believe false and unkind
information about others.

The following are the types of stereotypes that people who demonstrate cultural incapacity might believe:
þ Gay men are child molesters.
þ African-Americans are less intelligent than European-Americans

Question 8

What are the 6 values and ethics to work with Indigenous Australians?

Answer 8

Spirit and Integrity
Reciprocity
Respect
Equality
Survival and Protection
Responsibility

Question 9

What is the value of Reciprocity?

Answer 9

A mutual obligation exists among members of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and communities to achieve an equitable distribution of resources, responsibility and capacity and to achieve
cohesion and survival of the social order.

Question 10

What is the value of Respect?

Answer 10

Respect for human dignity and worth as a characteristic of relationships between people, and in the way individuals behave, is fundamental to a functioning and moral society.

Question 11

What is the value of Equality?

Answer 11

One of the values expressed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and cultures is the equal value of people.

Question 12

What is the value of Responsibility?

Answer 12

Central to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander societies and cultures is the recognition of core responsibilities.

These responsibilities include those to country, kinship bonds, caring for others and the maintenance of harmony and balance within and between the physical and spiritual realms.

Question 13

What is the value of survival and protection?

Answer 13

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples continue to act to protect their cultures and identity from erosion by colonisation and marginalisation.

Question 14

What is the value of Spirit and Integrity?

Answer 14

This is an overarching value that binds all others into a coherent whole. It has two components:

• The first is about the continuity between past, current and future generations.
• The second is about behaviour, which maintains the coherence of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander values and cultures.

Any behaviour that diminishes any of the previous five values could not be described as having integrity

Question 15

What is Berry’s Model of Acculturation?

Answer 15

• An individuals acculturation style can be described depending on the response to two questions
  1. Do I value and want to maintain my home cultural identity and characteristics?
  2. Do I value and want to maintain relationships with people from a host of cultures as well?

PEOPLE WHO ANSWER 1. Y 2. N: SEPARATORS
- Live in own immigrant communities interact with own home culture friends, speak home language, minimal contact with host community

PEOPLE WHO ANSWER 1. N 2. Y: ASSIMILATORS
- Reject home culture and assimilate to host culture

PEOPLE WHO ANSWER 1. N 2. N: MARGINALIZER
- Reject both home and host culture ‘living on the friges’

PEOPLE WHO ANSWER 1. Y 2. Y: INTEGRATORS
- Able to move from one cultural context to another, switching cultural styles in accordance with cultural systems they are in

Question 16

What is bronfenbenners ecological model of human development?

Answer 16

Argued that it is only by examining the child ‘within context’ that we can understand how the child developes

4 levels

• Microsystem: Immediate enviroment
• Mesosystem: connections between microsystems
• Exosystem: Indirect enviroments
• Macrosystem: Social and cultural value
• Chronosystem: Transitions over the life course

Question 17

What did Ross Wiliiams suggest in his ‘why should i feel guilty’ article? and what are the two types of guilt he identitified?

Answer 17

• Suggested that white attitudes to the Australian aboriginal population are strongly influenced by guilt.
  1. Reponses along the lines of ‘I dont feel guilty/I feel some responsibility’ polarity, which attempt to deal rational with the essentially irrational feeling of being blamed. No direct accussations of racism or even insensitvity werfe ever made in the class, nor would they have been justified but internalised accusers may of been active.
  2. Depressed group mood associated with feelings of helpless regret in relation to historical events. This often occured after a bout of blaming directed at goverments, racists, religions or educational institutes and the like.

Question 18

What is transgenerational truama?

Answer 18

Is trauma that is transferred from the first generation of truama survivors to the second and further generations of offspring og the survivors via complex PTSD mechanisms.

Question 19

What is the impact of transgenerational truama?

Answer 19

Majority of people screen positive for loss and grief, PTSD and depression

Also suicidal ideation

Question 20

What is the Marumali healing program?

Answer 20

• The program aims to support Indigenous people who have experienced trauma as a result of past removal policies.
• The program is only a guide
• Each individual journey is different
• Some may choose to reject their aboriginality altogether
• Aboriginal counsellors are important

Healing journey may include:
o Learning about removal policies
o Making sense of memories as they come up
o Taking stock of what has been lost
o Accessing files and reports written about us
o Putting all the pieces together to find out what really happened and why

Question 21

What are the 3 types of burden of trauma associated with forcible removal?

Answer 21

The primary burden of trauma associated with forcible removal has been borne by those who directly experienced forcible removal during the years from 1910 to 1972. Nationally, an estimated 10,625 (or one-in-ten) people aged 45 years or older report being forcibly removed.

The secondary burden of trauma associated with forcible removal lies with those other than the individuals forcibly removed, such as their families and communities. Nationally 43 per cent, or an estimated 92,300 of those aged 15 years or older, report a relative was removed.10 The children (second generation) constitute 28 per cent of the 43 per cent who reported their relatives were removed (estimated to be 25,844 people, most of whom would be aged 30 years or older). The third generation (grandchildren) constitute 44 per cent of the 43 per cent who reported their relatives were removed (estimated to be 40,612 people aged 15 years or older).

The future burden is the ongoing legacy of not adequately addressing the burden of trauma in the population of people who directly experienced it, and the transgenerational transmission of social, emotional and spiritual wellbeing problems as a result of connections that were severed or attenuated by past government policies.

Question 22

What is validity?

Answer 22

Validity refers to whether or not a scale, test, or measure accurately measures what it is supposed to measure

Question 23

Can you use a measure that is valid in one culture and use it in another?

Answer 23

NO
One of the things that we have learned is that cross-cultural researchers cannot simply take a scale or measure that was developed and validated in one culture and use it in another. This is because even if that scale was validated in one culture, there is no reason to assume that it is equally valid in any other culture. It would have to be equivalently valid in all the cultures it was to be used; else, data derived from its measurement would not be comparable across cultures.

Question 24

What are validation studies?

Answer 24

Cross-cultural validation examine whether a measure of a psychological construct that was originally generated in a single culture is applicable, meaningful, and most importantly psychometrically equivalent (that is, equally reliable and valid) in another culture. These studies do not test a specific hypothesis about cultural differences; rather, they test the equivalence of psychological measures and tests for use in other cross-cultural comparative research, and they are important to conduct before cross-cultural comparisons.

Question 25

What is a bias?

Answer 25

Bias refers to differences that do not have exactly the same meaning within and across cultures.

In its strictest sense, if there is any bias in any aspect of a cross-cultural comparative study, then the comparison loses its meaning (and may in fact be meaningless). Bias (or lack of equivalence) in a cross-cultural study creates the proverbial situation of comparing apples and oranges. Only if the theoretical framework and hypotheses have equivalent meaning in the cultures being compared—and if the methods of data collection, management, and analysis have equivalent meaning— will the results from that comparison be meaningful. Apples in one culture can be compared only to apples in another

Question 26

5 types of bias?

Answer 26

conceptual bias, method bias, measurement bias, response bias, and interpretational bias.

Question 27

What is conceptual bias?

Answer 27

A major concern of cross-cultural research is the equivalence in meaning of the overall theoretical framework being tested and the specific hypotheses being addressed in the first place. If these are not equivalent across the cultures participating in the study, then the data obtained from them are not comparable because they mean different things. If, however, the theoretical framework and hypotheses are equivalent across the participating cultures, the study may be meaningful and relevant.

Question 28

What is method bias?

Answer 28

Sampling Bias There are two issues with regard to sampling bias, which refers to whether cross-cultural samples can be compared. One concerns whether the samples are appropriate representatives of their culture. Most cross-cultural studies are, in fact, not just cross-cultural; they are cross-city, and more specifically, crossuniversity studies

A second question concerning sampling bias concerns whether the samples are equivalent on noncultural demographic variables, such as age, sex, religion, socioeconomic status, work, and other characteristics.

Question 29

What is measurement bias?

Answer 29

Perhaps the most important arena with regard to bias and equivalence may concern the issue of measurement. Measurement bias refers to the degree to which measures used to collect data in different cultures are equally valid and reliable. As mentioned above, validity refers to whether a measure accurately measures what it is supposed to measure; reliability refers to how consistently a measure measures what it is supposed to measure.

Question 30

What is response bias?

Answer 30

In addition to the methodological issues concerning bias and equivalence described above, cross-cultural researchers need to be aware of the fact that different cultures canpromotedifferenttypesofresponsebiases.Aresponsebiasisasystematictendency to respond in a certain way to items or scales. If response biases exist, then it is very difficult to compare data between cultures because it is not clear whether differences refer to “true” differences in what is being measured or are merely differences in how people respond using scales. There are, in fact, several different types of response biases. Socially desirable responding, for instance, is the tendency to give answers that make oneself look good (Paulhaus, 1984), and it may be that people of certain cultures have greater concerns that lead them to respond in socially desirable ways than people of other culture

Question 31

What is interpratable bias?

Answer 31

In testing cultural differences on target variables of interest, researchers often use inferential statistics such as chi-square or analysis of variance (ANOVA) and engage in what is known as null hypothesis significance testing. These statistics compare the differences observed between the groups to the differences one would normally expect on the basis of chance alone and then compute the probability that the results would have been obtained solely by chance. If the probability of obtaining the findings they did is very low (less than five percent), then researchers infer that the findings did not occur because of chance— that is, that the findings reflect actual differences between the cultural groups from which their samples were drawn.

Question 32

What are cross cultural fallacies?

Answer 32

A mistaken interpretation in cross-cultural comparison studies. Cultural attribution fallacies occur when researchers infer that something cultural produced the differences they observed in their study, despite the fact that they may not be empirically justified in doing so because they did not actually measure those cultural factors.

Question 33

List some barriers to ethics groups seeking out services?

Answer 33

Language barriers
Stigma and mistrust
Beliefs on health and illness
Social structures and policies

Question 34

What is Indigenous healing?

Answer 34

Many indigenous methods of healing differ widely from Western notions of healing. For instance, many indigenous treatments are rooted in religion and spirituality, not biomedical science. Indigenous healing shares several commonalities. One is the heavy reliance on family and community networks as both the context and instrument for treatment. For instance, family and community are used in Saudi Arabia to protect the disturbed individual, in Korea to reconnect and reintegrate the individual with members of the family, and in Nigeria to solve problems in the context of a group. Another commonality is the incorporation of traditional, spiritual, and religious beliefs as part of the treatment—for instance, reading verses from the Koran, opening treatment with a prayer, or conducting treatment in religious houses or churches. Finally, another commonality is the use of shamans in treatment.