Final Exam Flashcards
Definition of Culture (Matsumoto & Juang, 2008)
a unique meaning and information system, shared by a group and transmitted across generations, that allows the group to meet basic needs of survival, pursue happiness, well-being, and derive meaning from life
Tight Cultures
have many strong norms and low tolerance of deviant behavior
Loose Cultures
have weak social norms and high tolerance of deviant behaviour
Definition of the Self: (Markus & Kitayama)
“The me at the centre of the experience”: a continually developing sense of awareness and agency that guides action and takes shape as the individual, both bran and body, becomes attuned to the various environments it inhabits. -> Always situated (always in a context)
Independent Self
refers to individual attributes (own qualities)
Interdependent Self
relies on relationships with others
Subjective self-awareness
You see yourself as you are from the inside.
Objective self-awareness
You see yourself as others see you.
true or false: Children from collectivist cultures predict their own behaviour more accurately
true
true or false: Asian-Canadians have more 3rd person perspective memories
true
Stability of the Self
the self includes so many people that are ingrained within. The self does not have tone super consistent (with each person, “I” can be relatively different).
The self is incremental
you can become a different person, such as talent, which is improved. Associated with collectivism, where traits and attributes are malleable.
Entity theory of the self
associated with individualism, where a persons trait and attributes are fixed and innate.
Features of Holistic thinking
Context as a whole, associative way of thinking, thematic categorisation
Features of Analytic thinking
Objects & their attributes, objects perceived independently, taxonomic categorisation
Results in study of self-concept by Zhu et al on brain activation..?
Chinese individuals use MPFC to represent both the self and the mother, whilst Westerners use MPFC to represent the self.
conclusion from Points on Whence Differences in Value Priorities? by Fischer and Schwartz
Evidence for strong consensus across countries ( ́universal values ́ related to autonomy, relatedness and competence AND Best candidate for measuring culture as shared meaning system: Conformity values
Cultural dimensions are usually empirically derived from/ verified with
country scores. -> These country scores cannot be applied to describe individuals.
Ecological Fallacy (Robinson):
erroneous conclusion in the interpretation of statistical data where inferences about the nature of individuals are deduced from inference for the group to which those individuals belong.
Cultural dimensions cannot be applied to describe individuals, why?
Cultural dimensions are usually empirically derived from/ verified with country scores.
These country scores cannot be applied to describe individuals. If based on individuals = ecological fallacy. It is the relationship between 2 variables at country-level, not individual-level.
Hofstede’s cultural value dimensions:
- Individualism/ collectivism
- Power distance
- Uncertainty avoidance
- Masculinity/ Femininity
Individualism (value dimension):
loosely-knit social framework. Individuals take care of only themselves and immediate families
Collectivism (value dimension):
tightly-knit social framework. Individuals expect the relatives or members of in-group to look after them in exchange for loyalty.
Power distance (value dimension):
degree to which the less powerful members of a society accept and expect that power is distributed unequally.
Uncertainty Avoidance (value dimension):
degree to which members of a society feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity (e.g. company rules should not be broken even when the employee thinks it is in the best company’s interest)
Masculinity (value dimension):
preference in society for achievement, heroism, assertiveness, and material reward for success (Japan, Venezuela, Mexico, Italy, Ireland)
Femininity (value dimension):
preference for cooperation, modesty, caring for the weak and quality of life (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Netherlands, Denmark)
Limitations of Hofstede’s cultural value dimensions:
Developed over 40 years ago. Characterises nations, not individuals. Based on survey with IBM employees. Interpretation of factor solution: selection of item to be analysed.
What are The Values Approach (Schwartz) (6):
- Autonomy: individuals are encouraged to pursue positive experiences for themselves and their own ideas.
- Embeddedness: priority on social relationships, traditional order, maintenance of status quo.
- Egalitarianism: equity, and mutual concern and cooperation.
- Harmony: social and natural world in accepted as it is and emphasis is put on harmony.
- Hierarchy: legitimacy of a hierarchical social order and unequal resource allocation.
- Mastery: active control of the social and natural environment.
Egalitarianism from Schwartz:
equity, and mutual concern and cooperation.
Embeddedness from Schwartz:
priority on social relationships, traditional order, maintenance of status quo.
Mastery from Schwartz:
active control of the social and natural environment.
Postmaterialism Theory (Inglehart):
understand modern culture, from materialist values (desire to fulfil material needs) to post materialist values (non-material goals like self-expression, autonomy, gender equality…)
Scarcity Hypothesis:
materialistic (survival) goals are more important when there are scarce resources
Socialization Hypothesis:
values don’t change immediately, cohort experiences are crucial, cohort replacement can lead to value change.
Define Cultural Values as Shared Meaning System:
Cultural Dimensions should show: within-country consensus AND between-country variability.
Intersubjective Culture:
assessing sharedness by asking people for their subjective estimates of which values are shared in their culture. Sharedness is assessed as a psychological phenomenon (individual) and not statistically as in culture-level studies.
Subjective Normative Pressures:
Asking respondents how strongly a series of norms is endorsed within their society.
Prescriptive values
what do people strive for/ should value (asking individually but not personal values)
Non-isomorphism
extend to which psychological constructs and instrument that measures it, have the same meaning and dimensions at individual and national level. Not having the same meaning/form.
Non-Homology:
Effect of within and between groups. E.g.expressing negative emotions can be helpful as an individual but toxic as a country. Extend to which a psychological measure has the same association with another variable at the individual and nation-level.
Define Etic
Universals: consistent across different cultures. Tidying culture from the outside as an external observer & comparing (individualism-collectivism etc).
Define Emic
culture-specifics: aspects from inside the culture (language, “jeitinho Brasileiro”…) usually qualitative
CFS method (Cultural Frame Switching): (Top down approach)…
in which a cultural mindset is activated by presenting cultural icons (e.g., symbols architecture). Showing people things associated to their culture and seeing what is activated in them. This activates the whole culture within the individual.
I-C method: (Bottom-up approach)
individualism/collectivism priming. There is no specific cultural country assumption, just priming a collectivist of individualistic mindset. Here you can primely one component, such as self-concept.
Bicultural individuals are people who have..
internalised two cultures and both cultures are alive inside of them. The other culture does not necessarily replace the original one. Biculturals may switch between the two cultures (frame switching)
Cultural mindsets: (Oyserman)
does not have a fixed feature. The differences in self-construal are a result of what “cultural mindset” is chronically accessible.
Each society has practices associated with either the collectivist or the individualistic mindset. People are sensitive to these cues, hence collectivist and individualistic mindsets can be primes (if available).
The normative approach: (Kohlberg)
Morality defined as what is fair, just and causes no unjustified harm. “If you just think hard enough about it you can just come to a conclusion of what’s right and wrong” (Kant). Relevant everywhere and does not depend on culture
Kohlbergs Stage Theory of Moral Development (3)
Level1: (preconventional) Will I be punished for what I’m doing? YOUNG
Level 2: (conventional) What would others say?
Level 3: (postconventional) Judge based on whether principles are violated or not. ADULT
(Turiel) Criticises Kohlberg and proposes Social Domain Theory…
1-Personal Domain: completely up to you (personal preference).
2-Social Conventional Domain: how to address a teacher (1st or 2nd name) - authority.
3-Moral Domain: Hit another person = morally wrong. “What were should do/ how we should interacts with other people.
Only moral issues are perceived as obligatory/ unalterable, universal, deserving punishment and very serious.
Codes of ethics: (Scweder) (3)
1 Ethic of Autonomy
2Ethic of Community
3Ethic of Divinity
Social Intuitionist Approach to Morality (Haidt) “gut feeling”/Moral intuitionism
When judging if something is right or wrong, we first get a gut feeling. Yet people find it difficult to explain why it is wrong (especially if no one is harmed) = moral dumbfounding.
Gut feelings are very important when judging if something is wrong or right. Then comes moral reasoning, a post-hoc justification for one’s moral intuition.
Moral Foundation Theory: (Graham, Haidt) creates 5 foundations based on literature review and Shweders model, they are…
- (Individualizing foundation):
- Harm/care: whether or not someone suffered.
- Fairness/Reciprocity: whether or not some people were treated differently from others.
- (Binding Foundation):
- Ingroup/ loyalty: whether or not someone did smh to betray his group.
- Authority/respect: whether or not someone showed a lack of respect for authority.
- Purity/sanctity: whether or not someone did smh disgusting.
(Morality) The Synthesis Hypothesis: (Haidt)
There are both moral universals and culture-specifics:
Universals gave an evolutionary advantage (how to treat others; harm/fairness) AND culture-specifics develop as their specific moral values facilitate the group survival in certain contexts (how to be part of a group).
EVIDENCE for Synthesis Hypothesis: (Vauclair)
morality
- personal sexual moral issues (abortion, homosexuality, divorce, suicide): Collectivists are stricter because of authority and in-group purity. Evidence for culture-specifics.
- dishonest illegal issues (cheating, not paying for train ticket): issue of justice/fairness, no culture promotes unfair behaviours. Little difference between countries, or ind/coll. values. Supports the idea of moral universals.
Contemporary Relevance: (Skitka & Mullen)
Strong moral attitudes = moral convictions: lead to more intolerance, prefer social and psychical distance, lower level of cooperativeness, greater inability to generate solutions, actively discriminated.
Moral convictions are linked to moral identity. Explain
(self-conception as good person), seen as non-negotiable, and lack a common ground (no understanding for the others viewpoint).
Etic Approach: OCEAN: (The big five). Whats does OCEAN stand for?
Openness to Experience Conscientiousness Extraversion Agreeableness Neuroticism
what is 1+1 (still awake?)
2
The world at 7 PM (Guillaume et al 2015) conclusions
Participants described (using a questionnaire) what happened to them the previous evening at 7 PM. The overall experience was similar within and between countries and largely pleasant. Some kinds of situations correlated with individualism, country level Openness, Neuroticism and gross national product.
National Stereotypes of Conscientiousness are associated with
rapid pace of life, longevity, and per capita Gross Domestic Products (GPD).
Why National stereotypes tend to be inaccurate?
E.g. nation stereotypes of conscientiousness were associated with rapid pace of life, longevity per capita GDP.
Can you really impose a scale derived from American English vocabulary to other cultures?
EMIC approach in South African personality inventory:
Developed using free descriptors. The social-relational aspects were represented in 4 clusters
- Facilitating: quality of being a good guide
- Integrity: dealing with moral values
- Relationship Harmony: preservation of harmony in interpersonal relationships
- Soft-Heartedness: altruism and empathy
Triguna - a traditional personality system in India assuming 3 traits: (Singh)
- Rajasic: ambition, friendliness, humility
- Tamasic: egoism, mean mindedness, concealment
- Sattvic: competence, impartiality, sober, harmonious
Collectivist vc Individualistic personality traits:
In individualistic cultures…
personal oriented traits, more likely to attribute behaviour to individual traits.
Collectivist vc Individualistic personality traits:
In collectivistic cultures…
social-oriented traits, show less straitness, more likely to attribute behaviour to external conditions.
The Sapir-Worf Hypothesis: STRONG version
language determines what and how we think = linguistic determinism
The Sapir-Worf Hypothesis: WEAK version
language influences what and how we think = linguistic relativism (Linguistic Relativity: different societies with different languages live different world/realities.) CONTEMPORARY VIEW
Evidence from color perception:
Languages differ in the way they…?
cut the color spectrum (Berlin & Kay). People think in categories. But colors are a continuum that we cut in different manners . The same applies to language.
The Danis = This is evidence against the STRONG Whorfian hypothesis. Explain
The Danis have originally have only black and white.
- When Dani speakers are shown color chips, they recognise focal colors quicker (as do English speakers).
- When Dani speakers are taught 16 new color terms (8 focal and 8 non-focal), they learn focal colors 3 x quicker.
- Dani speakers can recognise an remember a color even if there is no term for it in their language
Evidence for the WEAK Whorfian hypothesis: (Roberson)
- Speakers of languages that do not distinguish between blue and green (e.g., the Bering tribe), when given a categorisation task, tend to categorise green either as a shade of blue or a shade of yellow.
- Quicker learning of focal colors was not replicated in other traditional cultures (e.g., comparing the Berinmo with British participants).
🔴Evidence from space perception: (Levinson) cite study (Guugu)
- Guugu language spoken by Hopevale people (Australia) doesn’t have words like left and right or front and back. Its speakers always describe locations and directions in absolute terms (north, south, east, and west).
- Stimuli were shown to Dutch speakers and Guugu speakers in a room facing North. Then, participants were brought to another room facing South and asked to arrange stimuli to match the earlier order.
🔴Language shapes cognition:
Notice that small children differentiate phonetic distinction, and they produce phonemes that are not found in their language environment. That capacity of creation disappears in development, and the same happens for categorisation = CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN COGNITION DEVELOP AS LANGUAGE IS ACQUIRED.
Study based on the premise that language shapes cognition: (Japanese & English babies)
babies at 14 months, both English and Japanese are equally sensitive to whether someone is walking across a bounded space or an unbounded space (grassy field). In Japanese there are verbs for these two actions but not in English. At 19 months the Japanese babies still have sensitivity to these actions but not the English ones.
Contextualizing/Decontextualizing practices: (Kashima)
In Japanese the context is given first: holistic thinking - this makes no sense in English.
-Study: in Australia & Korea. Participants had to describe themselves. Koreans used contextual qualifications more than English speakers.
The predicate: (Kashima)
Adjective that proposes the assumption that someone is always like that (he is talkative, he likes to talk)
Australians -> use more adjectives = essentializing
Koreans -> use state verbs = contextualising (he likes to talk)
The acquisition of language =
acquisition of cultural meaning
Talking and thinking: (Heejung S. Kim)
Why is Holistic thinking is hard to translate into words?
“Talking is connected to thinking” is not an assertion shared in the East.
In Raven’s progressive matrice test it was concluded that Holistic thinking is hard to translate into words because you are talking sequentially by nature. East Asian Americans went down on performance about what they were doing, but could recite the alphabet perfectly; however, in European Americans the opposite happened.
Scientific theories of intelligence: Spearman’s G:
general intelligence; a single underlying dimensions that is behind human performance on different kinds of tasks. Initially conceptualised as a property of the brain. “Being good at one thing may mean you may score better on a specific test”.
Scientific theories of intelligence: The Flynn Effect:
Evolution of intelligence overt ime. It’s not only that they know more, it’s also that they process better. Cultural values, nutrition, complexities of realities, education, are factors that influence that. Includes “culture fair” tests such as Raven’s matrices.
Why are culture fair tests unfair?(Sternberg)
Because culture and language affect even basic cognitive processes.
and….
Because tests are taken in very different physical conditions.
Because tests use categories that may not be equally familiar to people in different cultures.
Because people are not equally familiar with the very situation of taking a test.
Because tests use categories that are not equally relevant in different cultures (and overlook the relevant ones).
Sternberg’s Successful Intelligence:
Intelligence: ability to adapt to the environment, to think and learn, to understand oneself & others”.
Intelligence should be culture-relevant.
Implicit theories of intelligence:
- In different cultures, different skills are adaptive valued.
- In different cultures, different things are understood by intelligence.
- Western conceptions: speed of processing, speaking out, technological intelligence…
- Non-Western conceptions: depth, knowing when not to speak out, social intelligence, work and effort.
….Think of intelligence in Buddhist tradition, as a form of enlightenment.
Emotions: James-Lange Theory:
Stimulus -> specific physiological response (=emotion) -> interpretation. “Fear is a specific arousal”. = emotions are universal
Emotions: Cannon (aka the Two-Factor Theory):
Stimulus -> unspecific physiological response -> contextual interpretation (=emotion). Not so specific - you cannot tell just by the heart rate if its fear. Context has to be known (context-dependent).
Universals in facial expressions: Study of facial expressions:
(Ekman et al) asked ppl in New Guinea to imagine how they would feel corresponding an emotion. Some emotions seem to be very similar = universal by people across the world/cultures.
Evidence for cultural variability:
People recognise quicker the expressions of those inhabiting the same culture.
Ingroup bias can read emotions better through eyes.
People are able to guess whether target is from their group based on emotion display.
Display Rules: (Heine)
the culturally specific rules that deem which emotional expressions (and how intense) are appropriate or not.
- Collectivist: more restrained emotional expression than individualistic.
- Less pain expression in Anglo backgrounds than Jewish or Italian backgrounds.
Emotions and the self: Interdependent self =
interpersonally engaged emotions (connecting w/ others; grief, respect)
Emotions and the self: Independent self =
more interpersonally disengaged emotions (distinguishing oneself from others: pride, shame)
Anger & Shame - Coll. vs. Ind.?
- Anger is more normative in individualistic cultures.
- Shame is more normative in collectivist cultures.
Differences in Shame & Anger between individualistic countries: (Boiger) (US and Belgium)
- U.S.: competitive individualism: value of standing out amongst others, high self-esteem (anger as individual entitlement)..
- Belgium: egalitarian individualism: integrity of the individual in equal rights network (shame as concern for others).
Intrinsic motivation:
- I chose to do that because I wanted to, I needed to, it mattered to me.
- Independent Self: “good”behaviour is acting autonomously , feeling in control…
Extrinsic motivation:
- I chose to do that because I was expected to.
- Interdependent Self: “good” behaviour requires keeping relationships, shared fate, accommodating needs of others…
Self-enhancement motivation:
- Non-WEIRD samples have lower self-esteem (e.g. Mexican-American, Chinese, Japanese..)
- Americans compensate for their failure by inflating their self-assessment in other domains and discounting importance of the task, while Japanese do the opposite.
Prevention vs. Promotion Orientation: (Heine)
remember face
East-Asian notion of the face - “the amount of social value others give you”. They focus on prevention (correcting their own shortcomings as a measure to avoid failure), while Westerners are focused on promotion.
East-Asians have a stronger motivation for self-improvement, Westerners do the opposite.
Primary and Secondary Control: Primary:
adjusting the environment to the goals of the self (individualistic cultures). (Americans remember more situations in which they influenced someone or something)
Primary and Secondary Control: Primary: Secondary:
adjusting the goals of there self to the environment (collectivist cultures) (Japanese remember more situations in which they adjusted themselves to someone or something)
Ethnocentrism means..
- Perceiving one’s own culture as standard of comparison
* Tendency to judge people from other cultures by comparing them to our culture
Intercultural Personality Traits: (5)
- Cultural empathy: empathising with the feelings/thoughts/behaviors of individuals from a different culture.
- Open-mindedness: open, unprejudiced atitude toward cultural differences. Be able to postpone judgment.
- Social initiative: actively approach social situations rather than wait and watch.
- Emotional Stability: stay calm under novel and stressful conditions, not scare away from intercultural sit.
- Flexibility: Seeing novel sit as positive challenges and adapting to these.
Cultural Intelligence: (Earley) (4)
- Metacognitive CQ: processes by which individuals acquire & understand cultural knowledge.
- Cognitive CQ: general knowledge about culture.
- Motivational CQ: magnitude and direction of energy applied toward functioning in cross-cultural sit.
- Behavioral CQ: the capability to exhibit appropriate actions when interacting with ppl of different cultures.
Intercultural Adjustment Potential Scale (ICAPS): (Matsumoto)….
- Emotion regulation: ability to monitor one’s emotional experiences & channel emerges in constructive ways.
- Openness: ability to encounter novelty.
- Flexibility: ability to assimilate new experiences into one’s own.
- Critical Thinking: ability to think outside the box in creative ways.
Stress-buffering traits:
emotional stability, flexibility (relevant in initial stages of intercultural transition)
Psychology Is WEIRD… why?
- difficult to determine what processes are universal or culturally variable.
- Lack of data to assess generalizability.
Nationology is not Psychology (Bond, 2002, 2013)
The goal of cross-cultural psychology should be to identify sources of variation that would permit individual-level analyses of cultural differences
