psych 307 - M2 Flashcards

1
Q

Cultural Values

A
  • guiding principles for how people in certain cultural environments interact with their physical and social environment
  • studied using value dimensions:
    • Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck’s Value Dimensions
    • Hofstede’s Value Dimensions
  • overlap between the value dimensions: relational v individualism and indulgence
    • most commonly studied
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2
Q

Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck’s Value Dimensions

A
  • “time” dimension: where in the chronological timeline do people focus on
    • past: ancestor worship, discussion of ancestors (East, South-East Asian)
    • present: not focused on planning, here and now (i.e. substance use)
    • future: planning and thinking about the future
      • linked to higher academic achievement
  • “nature” orientation: human’s place in the cosmos – how we interact with the environment
    • subjugation to nature: higher levels of helplessness, cannot change the environment
    • harmony with nature: humans are extension to nature, meant to take care of it
    • mastery over nature: can fully exert agency to shape environment however they want to (i.e. land reclamation)
  • “human nature” orientation: what is the nature of humanity
    • good: humans are good by nature, but is easy to stray away > have to continue to cultivate to refine “chi”
    • evil: people are born with sin
    • mixed: people have capacity for good or bad, not not innately good or bad
  • “relational” orientation: nature of the relationships between people
    • collateral: power sharing, equality between individuals, horizontal collective hierarchies
    • linear: hierarchy, decisions made at the top and filtered down
    • individualistic: making decisions for me, by myself
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3
Q

Hofstede’s Value Dimensions

A
  • power distance: whether people in a group (particularly those at the bottom), accept and expect unequal distributions of power in society
    • low: lower rates of corruption, equal distribution of wealth and income, children given more autonomy [Western European]
    • high: rampant corruption and scandals, uneven distribution of income, children taught to respect authority [Eastern European, Southeast Asian]
  • uncertainty avoidance: whether people in a group are comfortable with ambiguity and unstructured interactions
    • low: tolerate different opinions, dislike rules and norms, teachers can say “idk” [East Asian, South American]
    • high: different opinions seen as dangerous, emotional need for rules for clarity and structure, teachers should have all answers [English-speaking, Nordic]
  • masculinity: whether men and women in a group have differentiated gender roles (assertive, ambitious v modest, caring)
    • fem: minimum gender role differentiation, many women elected into politics, sexuality is not a moral issue [Nordic]
    • masc: maximum gender role differentiation, few women elected into politics, sexuality is highly moralized [Eastern European, Asian]
  • individualism: whether people are integrated into a cohesive group rather than a loose collection of individuals
    • collect: strong emphasis on maintaining harmony, breaking rules leads to shame, born into complex network of extended relationships [Central American, East Asian]
    • indiv: strong emphasis for speaking one’s mind, breaking rules lead to guilt, primary relationships involve immediate family [Western countries]
  • indulgence: whether people in a group value / control gratification of one’s desires and happiness
    • restrained: little concern for freedom of speech, personal life seen through helplessness, less likely to remember / think about positive emotions
    • indulgent: great importance on free speech, people see personal life as controllable, more likely to remember / think / talk about positive emotions
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4
Q

self schema / concept

A
  • self schema: cognitive schema that contains beliefs about the self (= self construals)
  • 2 types of self-construals (Markus and Kitayama (1991))
    • everyone falls somewhere in-between the two: independent v interdependent self-construal
    • instead of seeing it as binary / high-low, speak in terms of which end they are closer to
  • self-concept serves key functions = understanding how people view themselves allows us to make predictions about how specific psychological processes vary cross-culturally
    • how we relate to others
    • attainment of personal goals
    • organize information we have about ourselves
    • direct attention to information considered relevant
    • shapes the concerns we have
    • guides choices of relationship partners and kinds of relationships we maintain
    • influences how we interpret situations and the emotional experiences we have
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5
Q

Independent Self-Construal

A
  • main separation between self and others
  • linked to higher individualism (more emphasis on the self)
  • attributes are basis of the individual’s identity
  • diagram:
    • circle around individual do not overlap with significant relationship circles
      • attributes are self-contained
      • arises from individual, not from interactions with others
      • individuals feel obligated to publicly present themselves consistently with these attributes
    • X lie inside the circle within the individual:
      • unique to the individual
      • significant for regulating behaviour
    • circle around individual has solid border: experiences are stable, and do not change from situation to situation
    • circle around in-group has dotted line border: boundary between in-group and out-group is permeable
      • people view themselves as closer to in-group than out-group, but do not view them in fundamentally distinct ways
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6
Q

Interdependent Self-Construal

A
  • main separation is between in-group and out-group
    • linked to collectivism
    • important aspects of self sits at relationships with others (X)
    • aspects of identity based on internal characteristics (x) are less central to their identity
  • diagram:
    • circle around individual overlaps considerably with significant relationships
      • behaviour depends on perception of others’ thoughts, feelings and actions
      • individual is not perceived as separate entities, but as participants in a larger social unit
    • X lies in intersections between individual and their significant relationships
      • identities are grounded in relationships with others – people take particular roles that govern how they feel and behave towards their partners
    • circle around individual has dotted line: identity is fluid and permeable
      • the role the person occupies will vary
    • circle separating in-group and out-group has a solid line: significant and stable
      • relationships with in-group are self-defining
      • people do not easily become in-groups
      • in-groups do not easily become out-groups
      • views in and out-groups distinctively, and will behave differently
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7
Q

Independent v Interdependent self-construals

A
  • definition of self:
    • free from social context
    • tied to social context
  • structure of self
    • stable, bounded, unitary - individual is own entity
    • variable, flexible, fluid
  • primary tasks
    • uniqueness, self-expression, realization of internal attributes, promotion of personal goals
    • fitting in, self-restraint, assuming one’s proper place, promotion of others’ goals
  • basis of self-esteem:
    • ability to express oneself and one’s internal attributes
    • ability to restrain oneself and maintain harmony with others
  • in-group and out-group relationships
    • [ind] several close relationships with in-group, but relationships are less self-defining
    • perceives selves as functioning separately from social environment
      • relationships can form and dissolve without much impact on identity
      • more wiling to form new connections, maintain large networks
    • [inter] more solid and stable in-group and out-group boundary
    • close relationships are especially important
      • serves to direct behaviour
      • people have obligations to these relationships
    • study: Asian Americans more accurate in identifying emotions of close friends, European Americans more accurate in recognizing emotions of strangers and have higher levels of general trust to strangers
      • problem in conducting research: studies usually assess behaviour with strangers – interdependent people may feel especially distant and would act differently than Westerners
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8
Q

differences associated with self-construals

A
  • [1] self descriptors: how people describe themselves (“i am ___”)
    • through Twenty Statements Test
    • [ind] describes you as a general person, focus on personal characteristics (abstract, global, stable)
    • [inter] describes you in the relation of your relationships, focus on social identity (social categories, affiliations, social roles)
  • [2] self-consistency: structure of the self
    • measured through self-concept clarity scale:
      • strong relationship between self-concept confusion = lower self-esteem for European Canadians with self-esteem, weak relationship for East Asians
    • built into languages / society (i.e. Korean uses different words)
    • [ind] more fixed – you are the same person no matter where or who you are with
      • conformity seen as negative and immature (have not developed self)
      • people who adapt to situations are seen as “fake” / not genuine
    • [inter] more variable and fluid
      • conformity seen positively, as sign of maturity (insistence on non-conformity is immature and stubborn)
      • maturity = able to overcome urges, read social situation and act accordingly
    • cognitive dissonance: distressing feeling when we observe ourselves behave inconsistently, or against our own sense of self-consistency
      • to reduce: act more consistently / dissonance reduction: change our attitudes (after decision) so we don’t appear inconsistent
      • North Americans aspire to be self-consistent (rationalize for own decision), while East Asians aspire to be consistent with others (rationalize for decision made for others)
        • East Asians are not less consistent, just in a different way
  • [3] implicit theories of self
    • [ind] entity theory of self = abilities are fixed and reflect innate qualities because the self is stable and bound
      • deal with failure: blame lack of ability > will withdraw from task
    • [inter] incremental theory of self = abilities are malleable and can be changed with effort because the self is malleable and fluid
      • deal with failure: blame lack of effort > will redouble efforts and be less likely to give up
    • North Americans less likely to hold incremental view than Asians (can see difference in kinds of exams created: aptitude v knowledge)
  • [4] self-esteem
  • [5] brain activation patterns
    • Westerners show different regions of brain activation between themselves and their mothers
    • Chinese show activation patterns in the same brain regions
      • shows that significant in-group relationships form core part of self-concept
      • activation occurs in medial pre-fontal cortex: linked to self-concept
  • [6] self awareness
    • subjective self-awareness: consider ourselves from inside out perspective
      • concerned with outside world, unaware of ourselves
      • American: self-evaluations unaffected by whichever score other people know about = evaluations based on own standards
    • objective self-awareness: consider ourselves from the outside in perspective
      • looking at ourselves objectively the way we perceive the rest of the world
      • Hong Kong: self-evaluations affected by score confederate saw = evaluations are product of others’ thoughts
    • affects how you think:
      • first v third person perspective (habit of considering perspective of others > objective perspective of self)
      • accuracy of one’s self-view (more accurate in predicting own future behaviour because of objective perspective of self)
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9
Q

Individualism v Collectivism

A
  • self-concept and cultural practices make each other up
    • self-concept is shaped by cultural practices to direct individuals on what to focus on, value, believe and attain
    • cultural practices are shaped by self-concept of a culture’s members
    • [indiv] engage in thoughts and behaviours that foster independence, feel distinct from others, emphasize being self-sufficient
    • [collect] engage in thoughts and behaviours that foster interdependent self-concept = close relationships and group memberships
  • issue: collectivistic cultures make up > 80% world population, but most research is done in independent cultures
  • individualism varies with social class
    • higher SES: have more independent selves from poorer backgrounds
    • exception: impoverished people = experience social isolation and report fewer close social relationships
    • middle-class parents emphasize teaching children self-direction // working-class parents put greater value to conforming to authority
    • economic growth is linked to greater rates of independence, recession is linked to greater rates of interdependence
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10
Q

Gender and Culture

A
  • 4 underlying factors: agency, assertiveness, collectivism, relatedness
    • cultural differences:
      • Western score higher on agency and assertiveness
      • Eastern score higher on collectivism and relatedness
    • gender differences:
      • independent self-concept more characteristic of men, interdependent self-concept more characteristic of women
      • but women score on relatedness [no differences for other factors]
      • suggests women are more interdependent than men in feelings and concerns, while other factors have no differences
  • gender norms
    • part of cultural discourse: men and women share similar views, but men have more traditional views than women
      • Northern = more egalitarian, Southern = more traditional
      • Urban = more egalitarian
      • Christian countries = more egalitarian, Muslim = more traditional
    • roots in agriculture: societies who historically did plowing have more traditional norms and fewer women in the work force today
      • shifting cultivation (work done by women) v plow cultivation (work done by men)
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11
Q

Personality

A
  • personality: one’s characteristic pattern of thought, emotion and behaviour, along with accompanying psychological mechanisms
  • cultural differences:
    • some see as fixed, some as entity that can change
    • universality: all cultural groups possess terms to describe enduring characteristics
      • personality exists everywhere, but for some cultures may need to re-conceptualize as something existing within relationships
    • variability: some languages pay a lot to attention and have many words to describe it
      • some cultures conceptualize as trans-situationally stable, others do not discuss being stable across situations
      • some argue that the study of personality is simply an extension of studying Western individualism
  • personality traits tend to cluster: influence of daily interactions / demands of environment / people move to places with like-minded others
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12
Q

How to study personality?

A
  • lexical approach:
    • look for dictionary entries with trait adjectives
    • eliminate synonyms, physical descriptors (i.e. muscular), temporary states (i.e. tired), unfamiliar terms (uncommonly known)
    • give list to people to rate themselves
    • do a factor analysis: determines how many factors underlie a construct
  • example: 2 factors from 6 questions
    • factor 1: answer question 1, 3, 4 similarly (if high for 1, will be high for 3, 4)
    • factor 2: answer question 2, 5, 6 similarly
  • results in 5 factor model = OCEAN
    • openness to experiences
    • conscientiousness: how responsible / dependable
    • extraversion: how active / dominant
    • agreeableness: how warm / pleasant / friendly
    • neuroticism: emotional instability / unpredictability
  • OCEAN shows universality and coverage for personality variations, but it is not shocking if the 5 factors are yielded from one language
    • must take lexical approach to other cultures
    • Tagalog yielded 7 factors
      • intellect: clever / sensible (= openness)
      • conscientiousness: dependable / religious
      • gregariousness: liking company of others (= extraversion)
      • concern for others: humble / not violent (= agreeableness)
      • self-assurance: brave / assertive (= neuroticism)
      • temperamentalness: emotional reactivity / hotheaded
      • negative valence: sadistic / crazy / social deviance
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13
Q

Measures and Questions of universality

A
  • emic measure: a measure created within a culture, and used to assess people from within the culture
    • would see more variability
  • etic measure: a measure created from one culture and exported for use in another culture
    • would see more universality (it is what the test is designed to reveal)
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14
Q

Self Esteem (last difference associated with self-construal)

A
  • self esteem: how positive one’s overall / global evaluation of oneself
    • measured using Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale: European Canadians > South Asian Canadians > everyone else > East Asian Canadians
    • [ind] strong emphasis on having and maintaining high self-esteem
    • more likely to engage in self-enhancement: tendency to view selves positively and socially desirable
      • self-serving bias: tendency for people to exaggerate their positive characteristics
      • motivated by desire to bolster self image and demonstrate unique attributes
      • try not to think about discrepancy between actual and ideal self > predictive of depression symptoms
    • [inter] strong emphasis on social categories, affiliations, social roles
    • more likely to engage in self-effacement: tendency to view selves in a critical manner and think of shortcomings
      • find failures more memorable (think of them more)
      • motivated by desire to fit in and self-improve
      • experience more actual-ideal discrepancy (not as concerned)
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15
Q

Strategies for self-enhancement

A
  • downward social comparison: compare ourselves to those who are worse off than us (“at least I didn’t get 50% like that person”)
    • v upward social comparison: compare ourselves to those better than us
  • discounting: downplay the importance of the attribute (“i don’t really care about this course anyways”)
    • v value task even more
  • external attributions: attribute failures to others than than ourselves (“the prof’s instructions were unclear”)
    • v make external attributions for success (instead of failures)
  • compensatory self-enhancement: focusing on and exaggerating how good you are at something unrelated (“but I am a really good clarinet player”)
    • v tendency to exaggerate negative self-view
  • basking in reflected glory: emphasizing connections to successful others from a group you belong to (“we won!” - about university football team)
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16
Q

Result for self-enhancement

A
  • more ambition: more likely to try for less-likely outcomes due to positive view of self
  • ignore adversity: believe in ability to handle adversity due to unrealistically positive view of self
  • better physical health (less stressed)
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17
Q

Modesty Norms

A
  • alternative explanation to self-enhancement v self-effacement > explain away cultural variability
  • culture norms to be modest stops people from self-enhancing (= don’t self-enhance when giving answers)
  • studied self-enhancement through overconfidence (= overestimation, overplacement and overprecision)
    • overestimation:how well you think you did v how well you did
    • overplacement: estimating how you did in relation to others (what percentile rank are you)
    • overprecision: how certain are you in the absence of information
  • results: have to be specific, cannot give blanket statement
    • with incentives, all cultures do self-enhancement, but some more than others
    • less cultural variability for overestimation
    • more cultural variability for overprecision
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18
Q

Origin of cultural differences for self-enhancement

A
  • people learn motives for self-enhancement as they grow up
    • parents’ stories about child’s past behaviour
      • European American: focus on previous successes
      • Taiwan: focus on child’s past transgressions
    • parents’ view on self-esteem
      • American: self-esteem is central to child rearing, is a positive quality, and should be cultivated by parents
      • Taiwan: seen negatively, too much self-esteem leads to frustration in adversity
  • [1] Protestant Reformation stimulated growth of self-enhancing motivations
    • predestination: before birth, it is pre-determined whether someone will go to Heaven / Hell
    • motivated people to interpret events in life as a sign of favor from God
  • [2] as cultures become more individualistic, people have to learn to take care of themselves
    • needs increased self-esteem to do that
    • as individualism increases, self-esteem and self-enhancement also increases
  • [3] income inequality - people want to think of themselves as better than others when there are pronounced differences
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19
Q

Face and Self-Improvement

A
  • self-improvement: identifying potential weaknesses and work on correcting them
  • face: amount of social value others give you if you live up to standards associated with your position
    • higher social position = greater face
    • face can be shared by groups
    • very important in hierarchical, collectivist societies
  • characteristics of the face
    • [1] more easily lost than gained
      • prevention orientation: defensive, cautious approach to protect self from negative outcomes > avoid bad things
        • more interested on things they did poorly = less likely to fail in the future
      • promotion orientation: advancing oneself and aspiring for gains > strive at advancements
        • more interested on things they did well = more likely to provide opportunity for success
    • [2] involves person’s concern with how they are being considered by others
      • only maintained through others’ evaluations
      • another strategy: present oneself to others in a way that enhances face (i.e. brand-name products) > maintain / increase face
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20
Q

Agency and Control

A
  • different cultural environments will foster different ways of exercising control
    • implicit theory of self: can I change?
      • if yes = incremental theory of self: belief that abilities are malleable and can be changed with effort
      • if no = entity theory of self: belief that abilities are largely fixed, and reflects innate self
    • implicit theory of the world: can the world change?
      • if yes = incremental theory of the world: the world is flexible and responsive to our efforts of change
      • if no = entity theory of the world: perspective that the world around you is fixed beyond your ability to change it
  • group agency
    • Americans: events are caused by individuals involved (i.e. CEO’s fault)
    • Japanese: group is responsible for events (i.e. company caused the scandal)
  • differences in control and agency is associated with differences in choice-making
    • independent self-construal: important decisions must be made by ourselves (made by myself, for myself)
    • interdependent self-construal: important decisions are made by close others (with others / by others)
21
Q

Type of Control

A
  • primary control: internal locus of control
    • incremental theory of the world + entity theory of the self + independent view of the self
    • exercising agency to make changes in environment to suit own needs
    • influences people / objects around them
  • secondary control: adjustment / external locus of control
    • entity theory of the world + incremental theory of the self + interdependent view of self
    • exercising agency by adjusting goals and desires to control psychological impact of reality
    • adjust and adapt yourself to be suitable to the world
  • everyone experiences both primary and secondary control, but cultures differ in extent people engage in it
    • collectivistic: power and agency is concentrated in groups/leaders of groups/mandated by roles
22
Q

Making Choices

A
  • paradox of choice: don’t like too much or too little
    • too many: overwhelming choices deplete mental resources
      • European-Americans will prefer to have many choices than little, but actually fare better with fewer
    • too little: learned helplessness
  • learned helplessness: person feels powerless and unable to control or avoid unpleasant events
    • caused by less direct control over events
    • income positively correlates with feelings of control
      • working-class has fewer choices: learned that what people encounter in life is beyond their control = learn to accept and cope with unchosen situations
        • good way to maintain independence is to emphasize one’s integrity and resilience
        • when making decisions, influenced by opinion of others
      • middle-class: raised to favour freedom of choice and expressing themselves through decisions = learn to respond negatively when they don’t have choice
        • when making decisions, largely ignore others’ choices, assuming their selections would be the same as their own
23
Q

Individualism v Collectivism in Choices

A
  • more choices are available when acting alone v part of a network
    • [indiv] less dependent on others’ actions
    • [collect] more concerned with goals of their group and more willing to adjust behaviours = reduce their choices
      • decisions appear to be more difficult for collectivists
      • in-group member making choice for them is an opportunity to promote harmony and belonging
  • individualistic:
    • if someone tried to influence their decision, would assume they are doing this selfishly (v altruistically)
    • less likely to go along with decisions made by an influencer (v more likely)
    • respond negatively when deprived of choice (v not responding negatively)
    • the more important the action, the more likely it is identified as a personal choice (v less likely a personal choice)
    • choices reflect personal preferences (v deferring to views of authority’s expectations)
    • more motivated when making own choice (v more motivated when trusted other made the choice for them)
24
Q

Conformity v Uniqueness

A
  • Behaving in a group is decided by
    • fitting well with others: increases group harmony at expense of individual distinctiveness
    • standing out: highlight uniqueness at risk of not getting along with group
  • why do people conform?
    • social costs (i.e. laughed at)
    • cultures that are more socially cohesive (social cost of dissenting is high, adults see children who conform as intelligent)
  • people may be driven to stand out due to independent self-construal
    • sees identity as grounded in individual qualities (need to perceive themselves as unique)
    • want to express uniqueness by making unique choices
    • seen through ads: unique messages more common (v conformity messages)
25
Q

Emotion and its theories

A
  • emotion: psychological and physiological state in response to some stimulus
    • psychological: subjective component + cognitive component (emotions tend to accompany thoughts)
    • physiological: your body’s reaction in response to stimuli
  • James-Lange Theory of Emotion: emotions are a physiological response to stimuli in the world
    • event occurs > creates physiological change > we recognize those responses > emotion
    • physiological responses are the product of the autonomic nervous system designed to indicate the proper reactions to facilitate survival
    • each emotion is a description of a different bodily state
    • emotions should be universal due to physiological similarity of all humans
    • facial feedback hypothesis: by manipulating physiological changes, one can produce distinct emotions
      • problem: assumes 1-on-1 mapping of emotions and physiological response (multiple emotions can have similar expressions)
  • Two-Factor Theory of Emotion:
    • physiological change + cognitive appraisal = emotions
    • emotions are more than physiological changes: as physiological change occurs > we come up with cognitive appraisal on the context > response
    • emotions should vary across culture: different cultural and belief systems results in different interpretations of physiological responses
    • cognitive appraisal could lead to misattribution of arousal (is heart rate increase due to the scary movie, or because you’re on a date?)
26
Q

Emotional universality

A
  • [1] emotional antecedents: what leads to people feeling certain emotions?
    • antecedents: perception of events that lead up to / elicit certain emotions
    • substantial overlap across cultural environments of emotions (i.e. death = sadness, threat = fear)
  • [2] physiological response associated with emotions
    • ergotropic responses: physiological responses that reflect actions of the sympathetic nervous system
      • about expending energy and preparing your body for action (cardiovascular, muscular, perspiration)
    • trophotropic responses: physiological responses that reflect actions of the parasympathetic nervous system
      • about relaxing you (gastric disturbance, crying)
    • felt temperature responses: temperature one feels in their bodies when they are experiencing emotions
      • anger: high ergotropic, low trophotropic = hot
      • sad: low ergotropic, high trophotropic = cold
  • [3] emotional appraisal: antecedents don’t automatically elicit emotions, but people (universally) go through stimulus evaluation checks = expectation, pleasantness, fairness
    • anger = highly unexpected + highly unpleasant + highly unfair
    • happiness = highly pleasant + highly fair
  • [4] emotional expression
    • basic emotions: anger, happy, sad, surprise, disgust, fear
    • regardless of upbringing, people recognize these emotions across culture
27
Q

Emotional variability

A
  • [1] variability of emotional expression
    • when people share one ethnicity, but differ in nationality = express emotions differently
      • large universal component in recognizing facial expressions, but have small cultural specific component
      • people are 9% more accurate in judging facial expressions of people from their own culture v from another culture
    • caused by display rules: culturally specific rules that govern appropriateness and intensity of facial expressions and even “ritualized” displays
      • amplification: expression > experience
      • de-amplification: expression < experience
      • neutralization: expression = 0
      • simulation: expression > 0, experience = 0
      • masking: expression ≠ experience
      • qualification: expression = experience + smthg else
    • East Asians experience fewer and less intense emotions
      • strong emotions ruin group harmony / seems not genuine
      • Americans experience emotion longer and more intensely (blood pressure)
    • more heterogenous population, more expressive population (= requires explicit communication)
  • [2] variability of emotional lexicon
    • some languages have unique words for unique emotions
    • Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: language affects how we think, but is not deterministic
      • lack of words hinders our ability to remember / discuss experiences
      • happiness and sadness emerge as reliable clusters, but need to consider cultural component for other emotions
  • [3] kinds of emotions
    • people with different self-construals interpret situations differently
      • [ind] events are opportunities to distinguish themselves
      • [inter] events as influencing relationships w others
    • kinds of emotions that arise are different (i.e. defending honor)
      • Turks: anger and shame
      • Japanese: shame (no anger)
      • Americans: anger (no shame)
    • kinds of daily emotional experience
      • cause of feeling positive is different
      • Japanese: positive interpersonal engaged emotions = when emotions allow them to connect with others
      • Americans: positive interpersonal disengaged emotions = when emotions enable them to distinguish themself from others
28
Q

Happiness

A
  • pursuit of happiness is universal, but have substantial cultural differences in average levels of happiness reported
  • money and happiness = curvilinear pattern — curve flattens after reaching certain point of money
  • what does happiness mean?
    • happiness has become more of an individual concept
    • culture varies in terms of the importance ascribed to happiness
    • Euro-Canadians show preference for fun game, while Asian-Canadians were close call between both
    • happiness-boosting activities do not seem as effective as it is for Westerners
29
Q

Subjective Well-Being

A
  • subjective well-being: feeling of being satisfied with one’s life
    • countries with higher score: Northern European, wealthy, respect human rights, more income equality, less corruption
  • but many countries have scores that depart from predictable patterns due to cultural differences
    • [indiv] base satisfaction on how many positive emotions they were experiencing
    • satisfied when living in ways consistent with inner attributes
    • [collect] more likely to pursue happiness through social engagement
    • feel good if lived lives up to others’ standards of being a good person
  • another factor that influences life satisfaction: personal theory of how happy they think they should feel
    • European Americans: remember having a much better week than Asian Americans did
      • operate under theory that they should be happy > more likely to say ideal life is dominated by happiness
    • Asian Americans: remembered the week as good as they experienced it
      • operate under theory that emotional experience should be balanced > less likely to emphasize positive emotions, more readily experience mixed emotions
30
Q

Kinds of Happiness

A
  • hedonism: concerned with satisfaction, happiness and subjective well-being
  • eudaemonia: living a good life
    • measured by meaning of life: more meaning = more purpose, life matters, existence is significant
    • negative relationship between wealth and meaning of life
    • countries who are more religious tend to have a more meaningful life
  • contrast of happy v meaningful
    • focus on present v focus on past and future
    • fun times with friends v with family
    • basic needs satisfied v religiosity and spirituality
    • sufficient money v expressing self
    • positive feelings v difficult struggles
31
Q

Dwelling on negative feelings

A
  • cultures vary in extent people strive to enhance positive feelings and avoid negative feelings
  • North Americans: more positive = less depression and health problems reported
  • East Asians: positive feelings and depression / health is uncorrelated
  • Russians: famous for wanting to wallow in their despair
  • Russians brood more than Americans
    • Americans who ruminate were more depressed
    • no difference in depression for Russians
  • America: cultural message that people should be happy
    • happiness is related to expectations
    • related to internal / external self-construals
32
Q

Ways to consider happiness

A
  • [1] total sum of all happy feelings you experienced
  • [2] how you retrospectively evaluate your happiness
  • the remembering self is the one that makes decisions in life [how you remember > how you actually experienced it]
  • Euro-Americans more likely to possess theory that they are happy (when their daily reports are not)
    • Asian Americans not as committed to the idea that life should always be happy
33
Q

Ideal Affect

A
  • ideal affect: the kinds of feelings people desire
    • will structure their lives in order to maximize the opportunity to experience them
  • culture variation in kind of affects people want to have > guides behaviour
    • East Asians: prefer low arousal positive states (calm, relaxed, peaceful)
    • North Americans prefer high arousal positive states (enthusiastic, excited, elated)
34
Q

Happiness conclusion

A
  • some things universally predict happiness: minimum level of wealth, human rights, income equality
  • there is variation in levels of happiness
    • pursuit of happiness: people from different cultures are not all striving for the same kinds of good feelings
  • people view happiness and positive emotions in different terms
    • Westerners: subjective well-being associated with positive feelings (v associated with appropriate role behaviours)
    • operate under implicit theory that opportunities for happiness should be maximized (v balance between positive and negative is normal)
    • positive emotions protect against depression (v do not protect)
    • high-arousal positive emotions are preferred (v low-arousal)
35
Q

perspectives on emotion

A
  • evolutionary theories: focused on universality
    • emotions are hard-wired: automatic responses are tied to our nervous system
    • culture plays a minimal role
    • physiological changes are antecedents to emotion, not consequences (James-Lange Theory of Emotion)
  • appraisal theories
    • universality in biological features
    • cultural variability in evaluative process
      • allows for individual variability in appraisals
      • culture plays important role in emotional experience due to influence on appraisals and interpretations
36
Q

Bio-Cultural Model of Emotion

A
  • input (= event) > appraisal > core system > response tendencies > display/feeling rules
  • core system: scans for information to find patterns matching pre-determined situations
    • results in response tendencies: facial expressions, subjective experience, autonomic responses
    • if something hits pattern, things are triggered really quickly
    • if not, it may take a while for things to come out
37
Q

Impact of Culture and Emotion

A
  • impact of culture depends on emotional complexity
    • aspect of emotion: high intensity floods system = culture does not come in
    • type of emotion: culturally-based emotions are less rooted in survival functions, based more on socialization
    • emotional context: presence of cues indicate appropriate emotional expressions
    • the individual: extent of cultural identification
38
Q

Emotional Expressivity

A
  • historical heterogeneity: extent to which a country’s modern population comes from migration from other countries in the last 500 years
    • results in adaptive over-expressivity
    • people from high historically heterogenous countries are more expressive
    • possibility of misunderstanding = adaptive to be overly-expressive to produce emotions accurately recognized by others
  • high context cultures: rely more on contextual information than explicit information
    • more certainty: people have more things in common > implicit understanding of others’ mental states, require less explicit information
  • low context cultures: do not rely on contextual cues and implicit information
    • more uncertainty in communication, especially in emotional states
    • hinders cooperation, requires explicit information
39
Q

Sensation v perception

A
  • sensation: sensory signals reach the detectors in our bodies, reaching our brain (i.e. sound waves hitting ear drum)
  • perception: process by which the brain selects, organizes and interprets the sensory information that it receives from the sensory organs (i.e. not hearing background sound)
    • what matters is what we think is happening in our mind, not reality → predicts our reactions
40
Q

Perception

A
  • susceptibility to optical illusions
    • caused by difference in physical environment
    • i.e. Müller-Lyer Illusion → carpentered world hypothesis
    • i.e. i.e. Horizontal-Vertical Illusion: foreshortening hypothesis (sees line as existing beyond into the horizon)
  • pictorial depth perception
    • perceiving 3D images from 2D requires sensitivity to depth cues:relative size of object, object superimposition, vertical position, linear perspective, texture gradient
    • Western education promotes sensitivity to depth cues
  • object v field focus
    • difference in producing perspective on a 2D medium
    • one-point perspective v oblique perspective
41
Q

Analytical v Holistic Thinking

A
  • analytic thinking: perceive objects focusing on specific elements rather than contexts, and use fixed abstract rules to explain and predict behaviour
    • more common in Western cultures
    • associated with field independence: tendency to separate focal object from its environment/background and attend to attributes of the focal object
  • holistic thinking: people perceive scenes and situations as an integrated whole — paying more attention to the context
    • more common in non-Western cultures
    • associated with field dependence: tendency to attend to the context that surrounds focal object and relationships among objects in the environment / separate objects from their background fields
  • importance of horizons
    • differs in whether people focus on “object” or “field”
    • East Asian: drew higher horizons (more space to show relations between objects)
    • East Asian: smaller head in portraits = more space
    • Asian: drew more than just 5 criteria items
      -
42
Q

Attention (in regards to worldviews)

A
  • attention: the act or state of applying the mind to something / directing cognitive activity in a certain way
  • analytic thinkers: focus attention on separate parts of a scene (specific items of interest)
    • describe Rorschach based on single aspect
    • recognized fish across conditions (despite different background)
    • more activation of object-processing brain regions
  • holistic thinkers: direct attention across an entire scene
    • describe Rorschach based on whole picture
    • made more references to background elements
    • did not recognize fish – saw fish and background as bounded together
    • eye gazes have saccades: shifting of the gaze from one fixation point to another
43
Q

3 domains of analytical and holistic thinking

A
  • [1] attributions
    • fundamental attribution error: tendency to put too much focus on someone’s internal dispositions as attributions for one’s behaviour, underestimating impact of external / contextual factors
    • [ana] dispositional attributions: explaining behaviour in terms of a person’s underlying qualities
    • more likely to conceive people in terms of abstract personality traits (”she’s friendly”)
    • American: more dispositional attribution as they got older (shows effect of socialization)
    • [hol] situational attributions: explaining behaviour in terms of contextual factors
    • more likely to describe others in terms of concrete behaviours (”she brought cake”)
    • Indian: more situational attribution as they got older (shows effect of socialization)
  • [2] categorization (i.e. dog, rabbit, carrot)
    • [ana] focus on internal traits and dispositions > leads to tendency to categorize objects based on common traits
    • [hol] focus on relationships between objects > leads to tendency to categorize objects based on their connections and relationships
  • [3] dialecticism
    • Western: no tolerance for contradiction
      • law of identity — whatever is, is
      • law of non-contradiction — nothing can both be and not be
      • law of excluded middle — everything must either be or not be
    • East Asian: relatively higher acceptance of contradiction > puts more value on the past because predicting future is complicated
      • principle of change: change is the only constant
      • principle of contradiction: as change is constant, contradiction is also constant
      • principle of relationship: as everything changes, it changes everything else
44
Q

Gaps of economic inequality

A
  • knowledge gap: how do we get people to think differently about inequality, and the consequences of inequality: health, education, crime rates, etc?
  • desirability gap: how do we get people to think differently about what we really want?
  • action gap: how do we take these things and actually do something about it?
45
Q

Economic Inequality

A
  • economic inequality: difference in people’s economic well-being within a group, measured using:
    • income inequality: uneven distribution of income within a population
    • wealth inequality: uneven distribution of assets within a population (i.e. income, property, cars, businesses)
46
Q

Consequences to inequality

A
  • [1] authoritarianism: obedience to authority figures
    • the more income inequality → the more power differential in society
    • the more experience with power difference → the more acceptance and perceived naturalness
    • acceptance of authoritarianism has implications on political activity and activism
  • [2] democratic political engagement
    • more acceptance of authoritarianism → more fatalism about one’s situation → less political engagement amongst those with less power
    • less political engagement > less political interest, discussion and electoral participation → increases political inequality
  • [3] socioeconomic status
    • rich tend to have:
      • more independent self-construal (v interdependent)
      • more dispositional attributions i.e. self made (v situational attributions i.e. barriers)
      • more sense of personal control (v lower engagement and benefit from opportunities)
      • more unethical behaviour (v empathy and helping behaviour)
    • people from lower SES more likely to engage in behaviours that exacerbate situation (i.e. too many children, harmful health behaviours)
      • more present-oriented and less future-oriented
47
Q

Talking and Thinking

A
  • Western: act of self-expression → bound to thought
  • East Asian: little emphasis on talking
    • less talking does not mean less communication
    • the closer the relationship, the more people are likely to rely on nonverbal communication
  • European Americans: talking and thinking are very related
  • Asian American: perform better if they are thinking quietly to themselves (solving problems require nonverbal thoughts)
48
Q

Cultural difference for talking and thinking

A
  • analytical v holistic thinking
    • analytic thinking: focus on separate parts
    • holistic thinking: involves attention to the whole, and how various parts are interrelated
      • when speaking, cannot describe multiple things at once
  • high v low context culture
    • alternative explanation: something about certain languages requires people to listen to tone
  • Whorfian hypothesis of linguistic relativity
    • language we speak influences how we think > helps obliges people to think about certain ideas
    • seen through colour perception (influenced by categories in language), odor perception (do better if language has more words for odor), perceptions of agency (active v passive construction), spatial perception (left-right v north-east), numerical cognition (think about numbers logarithmically, not linearly)