Lecture 29- Cultural Psychology 2

Question 1

What are the two ways in which we can break down the world around us?

Answer 1

Field Independence (Analytical)
Field Dependence (Holistic)

Question 2

According to Hein (2020) how do processing styles differ between western and eastern cultures?

Answer 2

Western Style
• Focus on objects and properties
• Analytical

Eastern Style
• Emphasizing contexts and relations between elements
• Holistic

The idea is that the way in which we typically view ourselves (i.e. individualistic for western) extends to how we view objects and our enviroment

Question 3

What is the rod and frame test by Ji, Peng & Nisbett (2000)?

Answer 3

• There is a rod/ line within a frame
• The rod rotates around (as does the frame- separately) and it is the task of the participants to say when the rod is completely vertical
• What was found was that Americans had a lower error rate cause the could easily focus on just the rod as opposed to the whole context including the frame which confuses things (in other words had field independence).

Question 4

What is the framed line test by Kitayam, Duffy, Kawamura & Larsen (2003)? How is it an expansion on the rod and frame test?

Answer 4

• Similar to rod and frame test but is an expansion because participants don’t just have to perceive the stimulus they have to reconstruct what is going on
• Specifically, there is two tasks they can perform. Either the absolute task where they have to draw the line just as big as the original stimulus no matter the size of the surrounding frame or the relative task where they need to draw the line in relation to the new frame size (i.e keep the same ratio)
• It was found that Americans were better at the absolute task (had less areas), while Asians were better (had less errors) at the relative task (draws on the same ideas as before about field independence for western cultures and field dependence for eastern cultures)

Question 5

What is imitative learning?

Answer 5

-The learner precisely copies a ‘model’
-The learner internalizes something of the model’s goals, intensions and
behavioral strategies
-We think if someone is doing something a certain way there is probably a reason and so we copy

Question 6

What is Emulative learning?

Answer 6

-The learner tries to figure out things for themselves
-The learner focuses on the environmental events involved, such as how the
use of object could potentially cause changes in the state of the environment
-Doesn’t focus on others intentions

Question 7

Which type of learning: imitative or emulative learning is better at maintaining cultural norms/ values over long time periods?

Answer 7

Imitative: we make use of existing information and pass on traditions

Question 8

What did Nagell et al. (1993) show in regards to imitative or emulative learning in young children + chimps?

Answer 8

Children and chimps observe human model using a ‘rakelike’ tool to get a desired object (food/toy)

• Two groups

1. Rake was used in the most effective (teeth up)
2. Rake was used in less effective way (teeth down)

• Chimps emulated (naturally tried to figure it out on their own: have understanding of course + effect), children imitated (just followed the model no matter what: sometimes advantageous, sometimes not).

Question 9

What did Hermann et al. (2007) show?

Answer 9

-Compared the performance of 2.5 year old children, chimpanzees and orangutans on a range of:
• Physical problem-solving tasks
• Social problem-solving tasks

Found not much difference between groups in the physical/ spatial problem solving task

Showed children to be much better at the social problem- solving task where imitation was key to success.

Question 10

Explain the idea of cumulative cultural evolution and what enables it using the example of a tool…

Answer 10

Hammer is the end product of 1000s of years of accumulative cultural knowledge.
This is made possible via imitation making use of past knowledge to slowly adapt the tool to be more efficient through time. If just emulated would be limited to just using most basic form (round rock: most animals stuck at this stage cause just try solve the immediate problem).

Question 11

What does cultural psychology cast doubt on?

Answer 11

Universal claims about human psychology

Question 12

What are the three key aspects of cultural evolution i.e. what allowed it to occur?

Answer 12

Imitation

Language

Motivation to share

Question 13

According to Heine what are the four categories of psychological universals?

Answer 13

1. Non-universal
2. Existential universal
3. Functional universal
4. Accessibility universal

Question 14

What is a non-universal + example…

Answer 14

If the psychological process (or an adequate version of it) doesn’t exist in all cultures then it isn’t universal. These are cultural inventions.

Example:
• Abacus reasoning

Question 15

What is a Existential universal + example…

Answer 15

If the psychological process is in principle available in different cultures but it occurs in different ways or frequency then it is existential. The process is present but it is used in different ways and achieve different goals (qualitatively distinct)

Example:
• Success/failure as source of motivation

Question 16

What is a Functional universal + example…

Answer 16

If the psychological process is present and used in the same way across cultures, then it is functional. However, these are processes that are more accessible to people from some cultures more than others

Example:
• Punishment towards explicit inequality

Question 17

What is a Accessibility universal + example…

Answer 17

The psychological process exists across all cultures, solves the same
problems and is accessible to people from all cultures in the same
way and frequency.

Example:
• Mere exposure effect: tendency to experience positive affect towards familiar objects compared to unfamiliar objects

Question 18

What is a challenge for finding accessibility universals and what are potential solutions to this challenge?

Answer 18

• Very difficult to determine cause have to look in a lot of depth + a lot of different cultures
• Therefore, often compare to animals or use infants (not time for cultural differences to emerge?)