Unpacking Culture Flashcards
What did Hofstede show?
A map of global differences in national culture, looked at cross cultural differences, since then research has occurred comparing nations which differ on one or more Hofstedes scores, focusses on individualism and collectivism
Lots of focus on USA vs east Asia - esp Japan
What were the concerns with Hofstede’s sampling?
Sampling of cultures is opportunistic rather than representative or theory driven
Culture treated as black box IV - see it as cultural symptoms, rather than looking at what drives the behaviour
Participants assumed to reflect cultural norms - need to measure culture of study participants rather than res o national scores
What is the problem of the sampling of cultures?
Hofstedes ranking of individualism, USA is 1st, Japan is 22nd, Guatemala is 53rd - so why are all the countries comparing USA with Japan when they are more individualist than others
Why are USA and Japan typically compared?
Because historically, there was an influx on Japanese students going to USA to study psychology. Therefore, lots of research looked at both of these
What is the problem with comparing USA and Japan?
There is so much cultural variation in the world, by only looking at these, not representative of everyone else
USA and Japan are quite similar on individualism collectivism, but differ in terms of monumentalism and flexibility. Japan are more flexible
What occurs when USA vs Japan was reconsidered?
People argue that Japan culture is not collectivist: the only reason people think this is because of social psychological processes. For example, it was explained as a collectivist culture when the country was under threat in war, so you would have tigher norms, conform more. People made FAE - believed this behaviour = national character, rather than the situation. Became a self-steteotype
Many disagree with this, still a contentious question
What does cultural syndromes refer too?
The idea of a black box - need to look at what is going on inside
Collectivism and individualism are cultural syndromes - they reflect shared attitudes, beliefs, categorises, roles and values, which are organised around a theme - found in people who speak a language and live in a particular region, during a historical period
What is the critique of viewing ind/collectivism as cultural syndromes?
Identifying clusters of shared attitudes, beliefs, norms, roles doesn’t explain why these variables co vary - is it syndrome or system
Same characteristics do not necessarily cluster together at an individual level - alternative explanation, theorise and measure culture orientation at a more specific level
What is the problem using nation level scores to characterise samples?
Many studies rely on students, but this are a minority of the people, especially in poorer countries
Unrepresentative of nations which they are drawn from
Misrepresent some nations more than others - nations not cultures, cultures can occur at different levels: e.g. uni culture, Brighton culture
How can you make representative sampling realistic?
Need a comparable sample
Measure cultural orientation at individual level
Unpackage differences within mediation level
What is the mediation model?
Cultural orientation mediates the relationship between national membership and outcome variable
Do differences in cultural dimension of interest account for differences in the outcome between samples or different nationalities?
What did Markus and Kitayama believe?
Looked at the theory of self-construals - central idea: western and non western cultures differ in relative prevalence of independent and interdependent self-construals
What are the two things the theory of self-construals believes?
People in different cultures have strikingly different construals of the self, of others, and of the interdependence of the two.
These construals can influence, and in many cases determine, the very nature of individual experience, including cognition, emotion, and motivation.
What is the difference between the independent self-construal and the interdependent self-construal?
Independent - characteristics of America - there is a self fixed boundary of self and then other people on the outside, main attributes of self are internal. Separate from social context, internal, private, unique. Self esteem is based on achieving ability to express self
Interdependent - characteristic of Japan, the self has boundaries, which overlaps with other people. Most important attributes are the ones you share with other people. More connected
What are the ways of being independent?
Be unique express self realise internal attributes promote own goals be direct self-evaluation social comparison
