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
What are the ways of being interdependent?
Belong wanting to fit in engage in appropriate action promote others goals be indirect relationship with others define self
What are the implications of self-construal for cognition?
Compared to Americans, South-East Asian participants typically show:
more interpersonal knowledge
more context-specific knowledge of self and other
more attention to interpersonal context in basic cognition
describe themselves in terms of the context, when making attributions make it based on the context
What are the implications of self-construal for emotion?
Emotions people experience differ across cultures
US important - ego-focused emotions = anger, frustration pride
Japan importance - other-focused emotions
sympathy, feelings of interpersonal communion, shame
What are the implications of self-construal for motivation?
Self-expression (independent) or self-restraint
Bases of achievement - independent is own personal achievement, interdependent, collectivist achievement
Self-enhancement or modesty - independent want to enhance the self
What is Markus and Kitayamas theory?
National cultues - values, attitudes behaviours, norms etc
predicts self constuals
which then predicts cognition, emotion and motivation
What did Markus and Kitayamas original evidence look like?
Only looked at country and its relationship with cognition, emotion and motivation
How can you measure self-construals?
Twenty statement test - write statements about yourself
Likert measures - state which one you like, based on independence or interdependence
but no control for acquiescent responding
What is the relationship between self-construal and embarrassability?
Singelis and Sharkey - 86 american and 417 Asian-American (Chinese, Japan, Korean) university students
Questionnaire measures: self construal scale and embarrass ability scale
Significant ethnogroup differences in embarrassment. Asian-Americans were more susceptible to embarrassment than Euro-Americans. Signifcant group differences in independent and interdependent self-construals. Asian-americans reported less independent and more interdependent self-construals than did Euro-Americans
Independent and interdependent self-construals were both significant predicts of susceptibility to embarrassment, but after controlling for self-construals, ethngroup membership didn’t predict embarrassability - shows mediation, culture = self construal = embarrassment
Who came up with the self-construal scale?
Singelis
What is the current evidence for self-construal theory?
Cultural contexts do not show differences in cognition, emotion and motivation doesn’t work that cultural groups predict self-construal
What is the problem with the ways self-construal has been measured?
In most studies, used self-report measures of independence and interdependence - western and eastern cultures do not differ as expected
why? inadaquate measures inadequate sampling need for implicit measures the theory is wrong
What is Kitayama’s revised perspective?
Cultural context - implicit model of selfhood - impacting self-construal
implicit measures impacting cognition, emotion and motivation - but self-construal doesn’t directly
What happened when revisiting the dimensionality of self-construal?
Study 1 - exploratory factor analysis
Study 2 - confirmatory factor analysis
New measure: there are separate ways of being independent and interdependent, in certain domains, you can be more independent or more interdependent
No support for two factor model, but support for the seven factor model
In different parts of the world, there are ways of people interdependent and independent - a lot more complex than found
Aspects of independence and interdependence found in all cultures - depends on what you look
Is the theory good?
Highly influential theory - few researchers willing to question theory, view of cultural differences, which level of analysis? depends at the way it is analysed - which level of analysis you look at
Why does the evidence remain problematic?
Very little evidence for mediation
Need for better sampling and measures
Need for multilevel research
Why self construals?
People in different cultures have strikingly different construals of the self, of others, and of the interdependence of the two
But theoretical focus is largely on self
Is self the key construct?
One alternative: Beliefs about personhood - only looks at the self
What are attribution studies?
People in Western cultures attribute ambiguous behaviour to dispositions rather than situation. Use the:
Correspondence bias (fundamental attribution error) - attribute behaviour to individuals
Assumed to be universal human nature
Bias reduced/absent in East Asian participants
Attribution to situation/context, rather than individual dispositions - more likely to make situational correction
Not-so-fundamental attribution error
Why are there little cultural difference in disposition?
Little cultural difference in dispositionism
Situationism
Perhaps relates to Confucian culture – focus on social positions and cardinal relationships
Implicit theories of group agency
Greater attribution to agency of group in Hong Kong newspaper articles and participants than in USA
What are the differences in cognitive styles in East Asian and westerners?
East Asians: holistic thinking
- “attending to the entire field and assigning causality to it, making relatively little use of categories and formal logic, and relying on ‘dialectical’ reasoning” - breaking things down, looking at things underlying
Westerners: analytic thinking
“paying attention primarily to the object and the categories to which it belongs and using rules, including formal logic, to understand its behavior” - look at how things relate
What do frame switching studies show?
Research among bi-cultural Hong Kong participants
“Two unrelated studies” paradigm
1. Priming with Western or Chinese images
2. Measure attributions
Western primes - make dispositional inferences
Chinese primes - makes situational inference
Shows that it is the situation
Many subsequent studies into “culture priming”
Why is culture known as situation cognition?
Culture more flexible than previously imagined
Attributed to activation of implicit theories
Differences in behaviour depend on accessibility rather than availability of cultural knowledge
Brings culture under experimental control - means you can experiment
What are the benefits and drawbacks
Can we all switch between meaning systems?
Role of symbols in cultural maintenance
How do researchers unpack culture?
Using mediation tests
What are the problems with research?
Discriminant validity of measures
Acquiescent response bias
Non-equivalence of meaning
Is psychological internalisation of cultural priorities the whole story?
Does culture operate within individual or is it a context we inhabit – might be something external
