Lecture 1

Question 1

What is culture?

Answer 1

Culture is any idea, belief, technique, habit, or practice acquired through social learning of others. Cultures are groups of people that exist within some kind of shared context.

It is a set of implicit and explicit guidelines/information that individuals acquire as a member of a particular society or context, regarding:
- How to view the world
- How to experience emotions
- How to behave
- Supernatural believes of God etc.
This implicit part of culture can be seen as a ‘lens’ through which the individuals perceive and understand the world.

Question 2

Enculturation

Answer 2

Culture provides a way of transmitting the cultural guidelines and believes to the next generation.

Question 3

Challenges of defining culture

Answer 3

• The boundaries of cultures can not be clearly defined.
• Cultures are dynamic and change over time.
• Within a culture there is great variation between individuals.

Question 4

3 levels of culture

Answer 4

3. Tertiary level: clearest, explicit and most visible to outsides (traditional clothes, cuisine etc.)
4. Secondary level: underlying shared beliefs and rules, social norms. Known by insiders, but unknown by outsiders.
5. Primary level: deepest level, rules that are known to all, obeyed by all, but implicit and often out of awareness. (Hidden, stable and resistant to change)

Question 5

Ethnocentrism

Answer 5

Perceiving one’s own culture as a standard of comparison. Causes the tendency to judge people from other cultures as negatively by comparing them to your own culture.

Question 6

Absolut approach of cross-cultural psychology

Answer 6

Psychological phenomena are the same across cultures, but the behavior varies.

Question 7

Relativist approach of cross-cultural psychology

Answer 7

Psychological processes are shaped by experiences, but all humans share the same biological influences / constraints.

Question 8

General psychology

Answer 8

Focusses on universals and tries to control for cultural variation.

Question 9

Cross-cultural psychology

Answer 9

Assumes that mind and culture are entangled and that thoughts are shaped by context. Aims to better understand the full distribution of human psychology, and the implications of cross-cultural variation. Learning about cross-cultural variation helps us to interact in a globalising world, especially in multicultural societies.

Question 10

Universality vs. variability

Answer 10

Whether a process is universal or culturally variable depends on the level of definition. Abstract definitions generally lead to evidence supporting universality. Concrete definitions generally lead to evidence supporting variability.

Question 11

Non-universial

Answer 11

A cognitive tool that is not found in all cultures. This is a cultural invention that only exists in some cultures.

Example: abacus (calculating tool).

Question 12

Existential universal

Answer 12

A cognitive tool found in all cultures, BUT is used differently and is NOT equally available everywhere.

Ez: de existence is overal gelijk –> existential universal (maar het wordt anders gebruikt).

Question 13

Functional universal

Answer 13

A cognitive tool found in ALL cultures that serves the SAME function in all cultures, BUT is accessible to DIFFERENT degrees in different cultures.

Ez: de functie is overal gelijk –> functional universal (maar het is niet overal verkrijgbaar in dezelfde mate).

Question 14

Accesibility universal

Answer 14

Strongest case for universality. A cognitive tool that is found in ALL cultures, AND with the same function in all cultures, AND accessible to the same degree.

Ez: accesilibity is overal gelijk –> accesibility universal (EN functie is overal hetzelfde).
Ez: A = A-game

Ex: social facilitation

Question 15

Cultural dimensions theory (Hofstede)

Answer 15

Cultures can be distinguished according to 5 dimensions (PLUIM):
1. Individualism - collectivism
2. Uncertainty avoidance (how do people deal with ambiguity)
3. Power distance (how hierarchical a culture is)
4. Long vs. short-term orientation: connection with tradition and economic orientation.
5. Masculinity - femininity: how distinct are the gender roles.

Question 16

The color-blind approach

Answer 16

Emphasises common human nature, ignores cultural differences. Even trivial distinctions between groups often lead to discrimination.

Question 17

Multicultural approach

Answer 17

Recognises that group identities are different and making room for different cultural backgrounds, because ignoring these differences can lead to negative consequences.

Question 18

Methodological equivalence

Answer 18

The concerns which making sure participants from different cultures understand the research questions or situations in equivalent ways.
How easily can you apply measures across cultures? Cognitive tests, physiological measure, naturalistic observations? This is why extensive piloting and validation is needed!

Question 19

Central themes in cultural psychology

Answer 19

• Universality of a specific trait
• Influence of a specific trait on thinking and behaviour
• Studying a culture as a whole rather than individual
• Comparisons: what are the right contexts?

Question 20

Questionnaire translation

Answer 20

Difficult and sensitive process of forward and backward translation to achieve equilibrium. Repeated if necessary, and validated in new population! (n>300).

Question 21

Response bias

Answer 21

Different cultures can have different ways of answering questions.

Question 22

Moderacy bias

Answer 22

Witholding strong opinions. Can be solved by:
- Forced choice answers
- Standardisation
- Reverse-scoring items

Question 23

Reference group effects

Answer 23

The responses to questions may depend on the group that one is using for reference. Can be solved by:
- Using objective measures
- Concrete definitions

Question 24

Deprivation effects

Answer 24

The tendency for people or cultures to report to the value they would LIKE and not what they HAVE.

Question 25

Experimental methods in cultural psychology

Answer 25

Culture is not a trait that can be manipulated, because between-group manipulations need random assignment over conditions and within-group manipulations need everyone to be exposed to all conditions. The dependent variable can come from behavioural responses or psychological measures.

Question 26

Unpacking (of culture)

Answer 26

Identifying underlying variables that create cultural differences. Can be done by:
1. Studying an existing theory about possible underlying variables.
2. Prove that an underlying construct is present.
3. Demonstrate the relationship between the cultural difference and the underlying construct.

Example:
1. Japanese people are more easily ashamed than Americans.
2. Theory: this is because Japanese people are more interdependent.
3. Interdependence leads to shame.
4. Investigating interdependence in Japanese people.
5. Positive correlation between interdependence and shame.

Question 27

2 steps of situation sampling

Answer 27

1. Participants from each culture (at least 2) generate situations during which they experience some psychological phenomenon.
2. Another group of participants assesses this list of situations from the other cultural group and reflect how they would feel in that sutation.

This causes examination of different responses to the same situation and different experiences in different cultures.

Question 28

Cultural priming

Answer 28

Inducing cultural ways of thinking that were not enculturated by the participants cultural group.

Ex: priming individualism by forcing participants to use first-person singular pronouns.

Question 29

Mixed method approach

Answer 29

Using multiple, different methods is the best method.

Question 30

Belief-perseverance effect

Answer 30

Holding on to your own beliefs, while there is conflicting evidence.

Question 31

Confirmation bias

Answer 31

Expectations lead to thinking you see confirmatory evidence.

Question 32

Availability bias

Answer 32

Overestimation of events that are salient / easily visible.

Question 33

Representative bias

Answer 33

Faulty categorisation based on inaccurate features. The idea that the past will persist and new information is based on past experience.

Ex: smoking doesn’t cause lung cancer, because my grandma smoked her whole life and doesn’t have lung cancer.

Question 34

Fundamental attribution error

Answer 34

Attributing something to internal causes of behaviour, instead of external causes.

Question 35

Challenges of cross-cultural health research

Answer 35

• Language barriers
• Limitations of practical settings
• Types and prevalence of disorders can differ
• Communications about health can differ
• Translation, adaptation and validation of measures is time-consuming and costly