Short intro to Cultural Psychology

Question 1

What is culture?

Answer 1

There is not one particular definition, there is a variety. They are diverse and emphasize different things. They share some similarities but also differences.
* Herskovits (1948): The man-made part of the human environment
* Kluckhohn (1954): Culture is to society what memory is to individuals
* Geertz (1973): A historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life
* Berry and colleagues (1997): A shared way of life of a group of people
* Chiu & Hong (2006): network of shared knowledge that is produced, distributed, and reproduced among a collection of interconnected individuals
* Leung & Cohen (2011): a constellation of shared beliefs, values, behaviors, practices, and so on that are organized around a central theme

Question 2

Culture meaning and facts

Answer 2

“A unique meaning and 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”

• Culture is something that is rational and logical. It combines different elements of our psychological reality. It’s shared by a group.
• Allows different behaviours but feelings and thoughts can play a role.
• They have a meaning and purpose.

Question 3

Culture is not just countries, what are the different ways you can approach culture?

Answer 3

• Geographic Places & Regions
• Socioeconomic Groups
• Racial & Ethnic Groups
• Gender Groups
• Education Levels

Question 4

There are many different perspectives and models on how cultures may differ from each other, what are these?

Answer 4

• Self & Groups: Individualism - Collectivism (e.g., Nisbett & Miyamoto, 2005)
• Norm Adherence: Tightness – Looseness (e.g., Gelfand, Nishi, & Raver, 2006)
  tight- put an emphasis on adhering to your social norms eg. japan- strong ways of human behaviour
  loose- latin American
• Self & Relationships: Independence vs Interdependence (e.g., Markus & Kitayama, 2000)
• Cultural Logics: Dignity – Face – Honor (e.g., Leung & Cohen, 2011)
• Guiding Principles: Schwartz Basic Values (e.g., Schwartz, 2012)
• Regulatory Focus: Promotion vs Prevention Focus (e.g., Elliot et al.., 2001)
• Hierarchy: Power Distance (e.g., Hofstede, 1982)

Question 5

Culture challenges

Answer 5

Challenge 1: Cultural boundaries are not always clear cut and can be unclear.
* Unclear geographical boundaries, but also conceptual boundaries
* Intersectionality: People frequently belong to more than one culture.

Challenge 2: Cultures are dynamic and can change over time.
* Examples: Increasing Global Individualization, Generational Differences within a country

Challenge 3: There is much variability among individuals that belong to the same cultural group.
* Example: For cultural values, Fischer & Schwartz (2011) found more variation within than between countries

Question 6

Does culture impact us?
What are the domains of psychology where culture has been found?

Answer 6

» Attention & Perception (e.g., Nisbett & Miyamoto, 2005)
» Memory (e.g., Cohen & Gunz, 2022)
» Relationship Styles (e.g., Hiew et al., 2016)
» Concept of the Self (e.g., Vignoles et al., 2016)
» Emotional Experience & Concepts (e.g., Boiger et al.., 2013)
» Motivational Focus (e.g., Elliot et al.., 2001)
» Information Processing (e.g., Ji et al.., 2004)
» Psychopathology (e.g., Marsella, 2003)

Question 7

Example: Memory & Culture
Procedure

Answer 7

» Caucasian and Asian students were asked to describe the memory of various situations and rate their mental perspective (either first-person or third-person- external observer)
» Situations given also varied in whether the person was at the center of the situation (e.g., giving a
presentation) or not (e.g., watching a movie)

Question 8

Example: Memory & Culture

Answer 8

Easterners- mattered whether they were in the center- social norms are importasnt

Westerners- didn’t matter if they were center of attention or not

Culture can play a role in basic psychological processes

Question 9

Cultural psychology facts

Answer 9

Cultural Psychology is a scientific approach that studies the role of (cultural) context in psychological phenomena

It develops a more mindful approach, it’s more about how you study things than what you are study eg. what sample you use

It’s about the idea that behind them that is important

Question 10

Universal/ General psychology

Answer 10

• the mind is like a computer unit
  » Assumes that the mind operates independent of context or content under a set of universal and natural laws
  » Implicit or explicit focus on universals between cultures
  » Context is unwanted noise that obscures our ability to understand the mind and its components.
  Find pure, universal insights about the mind

Question 11

Cultural psychology
- assumptions about the mind
- focus on?
- what is essential to understand differences in the mind?

Answer 11

» Assumes that the mind does not operate independently of the context in which one is doing the thinking (mind and culture are entangled with each other, or “make each other up”)
» Explicit focus on systematic variation between cultures (as well as universals)
» Context is essential information to understand universals and differences in the mind
Acknowledge, examine, and explain contextual variation

Question 12

Example: Basic Emotions

Answer 12

Emotions prepare us for threat
Once they’re triggered, they’re always unfold in the same way

Question 13

The Emotion Recognition Studies

Answer 13

» Emotions as universal, hard-wired “affect programs” in our head
» Example: Anger is a basic emotion and the events that cause it, the subjective experience, and our response to it are fairly similar to everyone
» Research question: Does a particular emotion occur across cultures or not?
pp’s would select one of the images
» General Design: Posed emotion expressions were shown to participants, who had to match the
expressions with emotion words from a list or a story
» Conducted with different national samples (Izard, 1968; Ekman, 1965), but also with secluded indigenous populations (Ekman & Friesen, 1969)

Question 14

A general / universalist perspective

Answer 14

» Does a particular emotion occur across cultures or not?
» Emotional expressions are recognized more frequently than what we would expect by chance (~12.5%)
» Therefore, participants must be familiar with these emotions, supporting the idea that we all share the same affect programsIzard (1968)

Question 15

A cultural psychology perspective

Answer 15

» What are the universal and varying elements of emotion expression and experience across cultures?
» Emotions are recognized above chance, but there is A LOT of variation in the rates and they are far from perfect

Question 16

The recognition rate from 9 different cultures and basic emotions on the left

• what did they say?
• recognition rate?
• what perspective is different?
• what was the highest?

Answer 16

They said you have one emotional expressions and 8 different words. Everything was chance, there was no recognition of these emotions.

They were recognised more than chance level, they should be recognised by people from our cultures. Our hypothesis is correct.

Cultural psychology perspective is different- trys to understand universality but also cultural differences

Anger, joy and surprise, all highest- if you compare this with japenese- joy and surprise are still high but anger is one of the lowest compared to one of the best in the American

Question 17

Research & Culture

Answer 17

Out of all experiments reported in psychological articles, how many % do you think use Western samples (i.e., from the U.S. or Western Europe)?

Question 18

Non-representation in Psychology

Answer 18

96% use western studies- this 96% made up only 15% of the world population

Question 19

What does WEIRD stand for?

Answer 19

Western
Educated
Industrialized
Rich
Democratic

Question 20

What will the majority of studies you will encounter in your psychology career be and what does this limit?

Answer 20

» will take an explicit or implicit universalist perspective,
» will not use culturally diverse or representative samples,
» will not explore (or explain) cultural or contextual variation.

This limits our understanding of human universals and differences, but also limits psychology from being an inclusive science for everybody and to apply our findings for the benefit of all (not just W.E.I.R.D) people.

Question 21

Mental Health & Culture

Answer 21

“All interviewing and counseling is multicultural. Each client comes to the session embodying multiple voices from the past.” Paul Pedersen
» More and more therapeutic relationships also reflect cross-cultural relationships
» Most counselors are Anglo-American/Western European, most tools and interventions are developed with Western samples
» Culture may influence the therapeutic relationships, but also the shape of well-being or mental health issues (Suh & Oishi, 2011)
» Cultural empathy and knowledge have thus been identified as key competencies for future counselors (Pedersen and Pope, 2016)

Question 22

Example: Depression & Culture
The Case of Chinese Somatization

Answer 22

» Early cross-cultural work found that rates of depression reported in China were about 5-times lower than in the U.S., but…
» Chinese report depression differently, with a greater focus on somatic (bodily) symptoms than psychological ones (Kleinmann, 1995)

Question 23

Possible cultural reasons: (Ryder & Chentsova-Dutton, 2011)

Answer 23

» Psychiatric stigma
» Cultural Differences in Self and Emotion
» Strategic Reporting
» Historical and philosophical differences

Question 24

Education & Culture

Answer 24

“The higher education sector has become increasingly aware of how the increasing diversity in
society affects their institutions. The student population has become more diverse and future
employers increasingly require students who are trained to meet [these demands].”
Vos, Velik, & De Vries (2016)
» Classrooms and schools are increasingly diverse places (Banks, 2007)
» Students may bring different cultural norms and beliefs to the classroom when it comes to how to learn and study (Heffernan et al., 2010)
» Schools and universities may encompass an increasing number of culturally diverse groups
» Culturally sensitive school policies become increasingly important (Celeste et al., 2019)

» First-gen, working class students may enter university from very different cultural environments than continuing-gen, middle-class students
» Cultural mismatch may impair academic performance up to 4 years later at graduation

Question 25

Example: Cultural Mismatch

Answer 25

• Independent: first generation= 26, continuing generation= -8
• Interdependent: first generation= -12, continuing generation= 2

mean number of anagrams solved by student social class and condition in study 3:
* Independent message: first generation= 6.9, continuing generation= 9.2
* Interdependent: first generation= 8.8, continuing generation= 8.3

Mean number of tangrams solved by student social class and condition in Study 4:
* Independent message: first generation= 2, continuing generation= 3
* Interdependent: first generation= 3, continuing generation= 2.6

Question 26

The Workplace & Culture

Answer 26

“Diversity is a fact, but inclusion is a choice we make everyday.”
Nellie Borrero
» Cultural diversity in the workplace steadily increases (e.g., Colby & Ortman, 2016)
» Diverse teams often show advantages in decision making and performance (e.g., Levine et al., 2014; Diaz-Garcia et al., 2014)
» Yet, 78% of employees said their organizations lack diversity in leadership positions, and leaders are often hesitant to acknowledge cultural differences (Havard Business Review, 2022)

Question 27

Example: Gender Diversity at Work

Answer 27

» The Glass Ceiling: Women are generally underrepresented in higher leadership positions (Biletta et al., 2018)
» There exist cultural biases towards masculine (rather than feminine) traits many facets of the workplace, but also particularly in leaders (Koenig et al., 2011; Cheryan & Markus, 2020)
» Queen Bee Phenomenon: Senior women in male-dominated companies tend to describe themselves as more masculine than other women (e.g., Derks et al., 2011)
» Dismantling masculine defaults and cultural balancing by elevating feminine defaults can be a way forward (Cheryan & Markus, 2020)