RM- cultural origins of behavior and cog

Question 1

“RM- cultural origins of behavior and cognition

Answer 1

ISSUE: WHen investigating the cultural origins of behavior and cognition, we often have to look at indviduals or groups from different cultures. As culture and how this affects our behavior is very complex, this makes it very hard to find the different factors that can affect our behavior. But, because its all about the study of culture, we need to have studies that reflect real life situations. Thats why both experiments and questionnaires are v important
QUestionnaire: Hofstede
GOOD
Quantitative data, provide objective scientific support for theories
Some behaviour hard to observe in real life or replicate in experiment, can use questionnaires to ask how they would act in real life - more valid than controlled environment in lab
Easy to answer, send out to many people to make results generalisable to cultures
Easy to analyze - harder to interpret behaviour in real life
BAD
Not in depth - no space to say personal views not asked on questions
A big issue w hofstede’s work is that its good for explaining a general view of cultures, but not on indv levels
These generalisations could lead to inaccurate/ sometimes untrue assumptions when investigating cultural origins of behavior and cognition
Some people might think people’s behavior is attributed to what their culture is like, leads to stereotypes and prejudice
Really reliant on self report data

Lab experiment: Kashima and Triandis
STRENGTHS
WHY do we use controlled experiments in SCAB (sociocultural affects on behaviour)
We don’t know what the reason for people’s behaviours are
In real life, you can’t predict environment
Hard to repeat in exact same environment - unreliable - experiments can control social interactions and behaviours which we can’t normally do in real situations - allows us to repeat experiments
HOWEVER, we’ve controlled situations so much to prove what we want, it may not be reliable or apply to the real world
GOOD
Manipulate IV, measure DV - reductionist methodology, isolate variable, show cause and effect
No extraneous variables
Good internal validity - testing what we want to test
Reductionism - reduce explanation to simplistic faster e.g “intelligence is only based on genetics” reduce complex problem into simple explanation by isolating single variables and repeatedly testing variables. It allows us to test one aspect, and can show how our cultural origins can affect a specific type of behavior or cognition
BAD
Culture complicated - e.g conformity, behaviours different amongst cultures
Not same situation in real life, behaviour repeating, not reliable if can’t replicate
Real world unpredictable