HC 1 cultural psychology Flashcards
Content based definition culture?
A unique meaning & information system, shared by a
group and transmitted across generations, that allows the group to meet basic needs
of survival, pursue happiness and well-being, and derive meaning from life”
–> many different content-based definitions
Functional definition culture?
culture is a pair of glasses that we are constantly looking through
–> a schema to help us evaluate and organize information
Cultural psychology?
a subdiscipline within psychology that examines the culturalfoundations of psychological processes and human behavior.
- includes theoretical and methodological frameworks that posit an important role for culture and its
influence on mental processes behavior, and vice versa
Goals cultural psychology?
- Transport and test hypotheses and findings to other cultural settings
- Explore other cultures to discover cultural and psychological variations
–> creating a body of knowledge about people - Integrate findings into a more universal psychology
Why do we use cultural psychology?
- Psychological research is based on studies among WEIRD samples –> not representative for mankind
- What we know about psychology is from countries with only 12% of the world’s
population and 99% of research is done on universities
WEIRD?
Western,Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic
Cross-cultural research?
Research methodology that tests the cultural
parameters of psychological knowledge, comparing psychological processes between
two or more cultures, and also between humans and nonhuman animals
Where does culture come from? –> Group life
- People have always lived in groups because it increases chances for survival and is
efficient through division of labor to accomplish more. - Downside is social conflict and chaos, as people are different
Where does culture come form? –> environment?
- Groups live in specific environments, which influences how they live
–> depend on climate, arable land (land that can sustain food etc.), population density, diseases etc.
Where does culture come from? –> resources
- The amount of resources available like food or water fosters certain psychological characteristics and attributes to the community whether there is plenty or whether people need to work together to gain these resources
Basic human needs and motives?
- psysical needs (eating, sleeping, security) = universal
- social needs –> related to reproductive succes (matches, raising children etc.)
Universal psychological toolkits?
= set of basic psychological skills and abilities that people can use to meet their needs.
What is in the universal psychological toolkit?
- cognitive abilities: language, complex social cognition, memory, hypothetical reasoning, problem solving etc.
- emotions: basic emotions, self-conscious emotions, moral emotions
- personality traits: extraversion, neuroticism, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness
Why do people come to the world pre-equiped with an evolved naturally selected set of abilities?
- Because it allows them to adapt, survive and create cultures
–> to achieve social order, coordination and group harmonu cultures of life and systems are created
Why is human culture different from animal culture?
Human culture had knowledge, tools and technology and continues to improve.
Society?
A system of interrelationships among people
–> structure of relationships among
individuals
Culture?
Refers to the meanings and information that are associated with those social networks
Aspects of culture?
nationality, language, ethnicity, sex, disability, sexual orientation
Nationality?
A person’s country of origin –> has an effect on a person’s culture because countries usually have boundaries and have one main culture
Language?
Different language groups typically have different cultures
Ethnicity?
One’s racial, national, or cultural origins
–> culture makes ethnic group differences meaningful
Sex?
= male or female
–> gender = the behaviors that society or culture deems appropriate for men and wome (gender differences are cultural differences)
Disability?
The unique psychological and sociocultural characteristics of disabled
individuals
Sexual orientation?
Tthe particular psychological outlook and characteristics that are shared by and unique to each orientation –> may be cultural
Why is race not culture?
race is more of a social construction than a biological essential –> culture gives race its meaning
Why are personality and culture not the same?
Culture is a group level construct, personality is the unique combination of traits in an individual
Why do have popular culture and culture similarities but mostly differences?
Culture is a system of rules across attitudes, values, opinions, beliefs, norms, etc. that is stable over time,
and pop culture does not involve a way of life and is more temporary
Objective elements?
Objective, explicit elements that are physical
- Architecture, clothes, food, art, advertising, television, music
Subjective elements?
All parts of culture that do not survive people as physical artifacts, including psychological
processes as attitudes, beliefs, values and behaviors
Subjective element: values?
guiding principles that refer to desirable goals that motivate behavior
–>can be personal and cultural
–> Hofstede and Schwartz look at the cultural values
Subjective elements: beliefs?
proposition that is regarded as true –> known as social axioms
(= general beliefs and premises about oneself, the social and physical environment, and the
spiritual world)
Subjective elements: norms?
generally accepted standards of behavior for any cultural group –> tightness
versus looseness (= dimension that refers to the variability within a culture of its
members following the norms)
Subjective elements: attitudes?
Evaluations of things occurring in ongoing thoughts about those things or stored in memory
Subjective elements: cultural worldviews?
culturally specific belief systems about the world also how we think about the self (self-concept)
babies learn via enculturation, what is that?
= process by which the individual learns and adopts the ways and manners of their specific culture
Etics?
aspects of life that appear to be consistent across different cultures
Emics?
Aspects of life that appear to differ across cultures
Individualism (Hofstede)?
= Pertains to societies in which the ties between the individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after himself or herself and his or her immediate family
Collectivism (Hofstede)?
= As its opposite pertains to societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into
strong cohesive in-groups, which throughout people’s lifetime continue to protect them in
exchange for unquestioning loyalty
^classic dimensions Hofstede’s model about individualism/collectivism?
- power distance
- individualism/collectvism
- masculinity/femininity
- uncertainty avoidance
- long-term/short-term orientation
- indulgence
Criticism on Hofstede’s model?
- Assessment and face validity –> does the questionnaire measure what it wants to
measure? - How much of the aspects is explained by the Hofstede framework?
- Reliability of the measures
- Understanding and interpretation of the new dimensions
Issues with reliability Hofstede’s model?
- Power distance (amount of acceptance of differences in a society) is not a separate
property but part of individualism/collectivism - Uncertainty avoidance is not reliably measured
- Femininity/masculinity does not predict criteria
- The Hofstede model is supposed to be used at the national level of analysis, not at
the individual level, but most dimensions fail this test
Expansion on Hofstede’s model: cultural syndromes: vertical collectivism?
Vertical collectivism: includes perceiving the self as a part of a collective and accepting inequalities within the collective
China, Korea, Japan
Expansion on Hofstede’s model: cultural syndromes: horizontal collectivism?
Includes perceiving the self as a part of the collective, but seeing all members of the collective as the same
–> equality is stressed
Rural communities in Central America
Expansion on Hofstede’s model: cultural syndromes: vertical individualism?
includes the conception of an autonomous individual and acceptance of inequality
The US, Great Britain, France
Expansion on Hofstede’s model: cultural syndromes: horizontal individualism?
includes the conception of an autonomous individual and emphasis on equality
Sweden, Finland, New Zealand
Schwartz 7 cultural values that are universal?
- Embeddedness: the degree to which cultures want to keep solidarity of the group
- Hierarchy: the degree to which cultures emphasize getting ahead in mastering the
environment - Mastery: the degree to which cultures emphasize ambition and success
- Intellectual autonomy: the degree to which cultures emphasize the individual to
pursue their own intellectual directions - Affective autonomy: the degree to which cultures emphasize the promotion of
positive experiences - Egalitarianism: the degree to which cultures emphasize promotion of welfare of
others - Harmony: the degree to which cultures emphasize fitting in
Markus & Kitayama interdependence?
How other people are overlaps with how you see yourself, sees itself as being imbedded in
other people
markus & Kitayama: independence?
Internal aspects are most important, sees itself as distinct from others
–> The self is a mediator of cultural differences: its construal differs across cultures
–> The importance assigned to so-called public, relational and private, inner aspects of
the self can vary by culture
Western: being different from others
Eastern: being connected to other
Criticism on independence/interdependence as a tool?
- Little empirical support
- Most researchers use Markus and Kitamaya’s concepts to characterize cultures
–> data on dividual level is needed for more elaborated models of causality and
mediation - These concepts have been used dualistic, but could be regarded as dimensional
The model was created based on the culture and used when looking at the country –> no mediator
Tight cultures? (Gelfand)
Strong norms, low tolerance for deviant behavior
Loose cultures? (Gelfand)
Weak norms, high tolerance for deviant behavior
- Cultures that have faced threats are most often become tighter
- Non-weird studies based on non-industrial societies have shown that threats leads
the cultures to become tighter
What sort of explantation provided the studies bij Henrich et al.?
How psychological phenomena reported on for decades are taken as universal, without evidence
Modern industrialized vs. small scale societies: muller-lyer illusion?
–> Modern industrialized perceive the illusion and small scale society does not perceive the illusion.
–> explanation: carpented world hypothesis: Industrialized societies are dominated by such angles and learn to process information in a certain way
Americans vs. other Westerners?
Americans: on average highest scores in individualism/most egocentric
- rarely attribute their succes to something not in their control
Educated vs. non-educated Americans?
Highly educated Americans occupy an even more extreme position than lesseducated Americans
Cognitive dissonance?
(justifying a decision): evaluate two
products, then choose between the products
1. Easy choice (one is better than the other): little change in evaluation
2. Hard choice (items are similar): much change, evaluation of chosen item becomes
positive
State of affairs?
Call for larger and more diverse samples
Does culture influence behavior, 4 ways of seeing culture?
- Independent variable: certain factors vary with culture and influence psychological phenomena
- Confounding variable: psychological phenomena are supposed to be universal (Piaget’s cognitive development theory, attachment theory)
- Genuine psychological phenomenon: every psychological phenomenon takes
place in a cultural context, culture is inside one’s head - Placeholder: specific contextual differences instead of large, overarching differences
Culture explaining behavior: can culture be crediited for this?
Not the culture but the readily preparation for disasters because they are raised like this.
Hierarchy of interpretation by Poortinga? Van boven naar beneden belangrijkste
- Culture values/traits
- Historical/political context
- Cultural conventions
- Other person/own person (group)
- Situation
- Behavior
–> when looking at what is going on, look at the most inexpensice explanation and closest to the behavior you are exploring.
Pen paradigm: option of 5 pens of which 4 are similar and 1 is different Independent self-construal reaction?
Independent self-construal: most likely chooses the different pen because it values
uniqueness
Pen paradigm: option of 5 pens of which 4 are similar and 1 is different Independent interdependent self-construal reaction?
Most likely chooses the similar pen because otherwise
they would take it away from others and would like to be similar to others
Three levels of state ideologies?
Societal, interaction & individual –> constant exchange
Plural societies?
= different cultural groups residing together within a shared social and political framework
Two views on a society?
- Melting pot: minorities adapt to the mainstream
- Multicultural (salad bowl): ethnocultural groups remain identity but do form a whole
State integration policies in the interactive acculturation model, what is this about?
Ideologies are about how the legal status of people is in a country –> depends on the relation between host & new cultures
Interactive acculturation model: pluralism ideology?
–> the immigrant will adopt the public values of the host country, and privately can keep their own culture
–> The state has no mandate in defining/regulating the private values of the citizens, as long as it does not invalidate the public values
–> Crimes and certain human rights rules are followed as the host country set them and
immigrant will have to value these rules
–> Canada, who actively values all ethnicities and promotes multiculturalism
Interactive acculturation model: civic ideology?
–> immigrant will adopt the public values of the host country, and privately can keep their own culture, but no state fund or endorsement can be granted for the maintenance of promotion of the private values of particular groups of individuals
–> United Kingdom, where ethnic groups cluster together and don’t mingle as it does not
promote multiculturalism
Interactive acculturation model: assimilation ideology?
–> immigrant will adopt the public values of the host country, and immigrants are expected to abandon their own cultural and linguistic distinctiveness in order to adopt the culture and values of the dominant group
–> Can be voluntary or imposed
–> Setting: state apparatus serves the interest of a particular class or ethnocultural
group
–> France, as the pressure to learn French is very high and as an immigrant being accepted into the mainstream culture is very hard (even when you speak the language)
Interactive acculturation model: ethnist ideology?
–> immigrant will adopt the public values of the host country, and the state has a right to limit the expression of certain aspects of private values
–> No expectation to assimilate because of no intention of ever accepting immigrants
–> Germany: Germans living outside of the German borders who were allowed to go back to Germany after WWII even though they did not have German culture, in contrast to other immigrants without German blood who have difficulty entering the
country
–> Japan: severe discrimination of foreigner
Host acculturation orientations?
= what the host wants for the immigrants
–> Segregation: immigrant group stays separate and the host does not want to mingle
–> Individualism: host wants immigrants to see themselves as individuals
Multiculturalism?
= acceptance of and support for culturally heterogeneous society
–> psychology: multiculturalism is an ideology
Study turkish-dutch people: understanding which of the two group endorsed multiculturalism more?
–> dutch group is quite neutral
–> turkish group is scores higher
–> Turkish-Dutch make a distinction between public & private –> more adoption is public
–> dutch want assimilation in private & public but Turkish-Dutcj want integration in public and separation in private
Multiculturalism may have suffered from certain events, like 9/11, what can you say about that?
- depending on the types of questions you ask = wanting immigrants to participate in society received most support
