week 1

Question 1

What is culture?

Answer 1

A unique meaning and information system, shared by a group and transmitted across generations, that allow the group to meet basic needs of survival, pursue happiness and well-being, and derive meaning
from life. (boek)

• Culture is also a pair of glasses that we are constantly looking through a schema to help us evaluate and organize information

Question 2

Goals of Cross-Cultural
Psychology

Answer 2

1. Build a body of knowledge about people
   a) Transport and test hypotheses and findings to other cultural settings
   b) Explore cultures in order to discover cultural and psychological similarities and
   differences
   c) Integrate findings into a more universal psychology
2. Improve people’s lives.

Question 3

WEIRD samples

Answer 3

(Western, educated,
industrialized, rich, and democratic)

Question 4

individualism

Answer 4

pertains to societies in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after himself or herself and his or her family.

Question 5

collectivism

Answer 5

as its opposite pertains to societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong cohesive in-groups, which
throughout people’s lifetime continue to protect them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty.

Question 6

Different greetings across
cultures

Answer 6

1. Absolutism – psychology is
   everywhere the same
2. Relativism – underlying processes are different
3. Universalism – underlying
   processes are the same,
   expressions may be different

Question 7

Ethnicity

Answer 7

groups characterized by a
common nationality, geogra

Question 8

Hofstede: Individualism/Collectivism

Answer 8

• Most cited general framework to classify cultural patterns on the country level
• Examination of work related values in employees of IBM during the 1970s
• Four (classic) dimensions
  1. power distance
  2. individualism / collectivism
  3. masculinity / femininity
  4. uncertainty avoidance
• Now 6 (after 2010)
  5. Long-term/short-term orientation
  6. Indulgence

Question 9

Criticism on Hofstede (5):

Answer 9

• Relatively low face validity: questions are loosely connected with a concept.
• No support for the differences that were predicted by the model.
• Power distance seems to be a part of individualism/collectivism.
• Uncertainty avoidance is not reliably measured.
• Masculinity/femininity does not predict criteria that were prespecified.

Question 10

Independence and Interdependence
Markus & Kitayama

Answer 10

• A difference between an interdependent self as being embedded into many other
  people, or an independent self that is perceiving the self as somebody that is distinct
  from others.
• The self as the mediator of cultural differences.
• The importance assigned to so-called public, relational and private, inner aspects of the self can vary by culture.
• Western: being different from others.
• Eastern: being connected to others.

Question 11

Criticism on Markus & Kitayama

Answer 11

Little empirical support, used as dualistic, but could be
regarded as dimensional

Question 12

Bond & Leung’s
social axioms

Answer 12

social axioms: General beliefs and premises about oneself, the social and physical environments, and the spiritual world; they are assertions about the association between two or
more entities or concepts.

Question 13

Dynamic Externality

Answer 13

Beliefs concerning external forces such as fate, a supreme being, and spirituality

e.g.“Belief in a religion helps one understand the meaning of life” and “good deeds will be rewarded, and bad deeds will be punished”

Question 14

Societal Cynicism

Answer 14

An apprehension or pessimism of the world

e.g. “Caring about societal affairs only brings trouble upon oneself” and “kind-hearted people usually suffer losses”

Question 15

Norms: Gelfand’s tightness-looseness

Answer 15

Tight: Strong norms, low tolerance for deviant behavior

Loose: Weak norms, high tolerance for deviant behavior

Question 16

Cultural syndromes (Triandis)

Answer 16

• Vertical collectivism
• Horizontal collectivism
• Vertical individualism
• Horizontal individualism

Question 17

Vertical collectivism

Answer 17

includes perceiving the self as a part (or an aspect) of a collective and accepting inequalities within the collective. You are part of a group but accept difference

Question 18

Horizontal collectivism

Answer 18

includes perceiving the self as a part of a collective but seeing all members of the collective as the same; thus, equality is stressed. Everybody has the same status.

Question 19

Vertical individualism

Answer 19

includes the conception of an autonomous individual and acceptance of inequality.

Question 20

Horizontal individualism

Answer 20

includes the conception of an autonomous individual and
emphasis on equality. Everybody is on the same level.

Question 21

Subjective elements (5)

Answer 21

• Values
  –> Individualism/collectivism, Power distance, Long-term/short-term orientation
  HOFSTEDE’S CULTURAL VALUES
• Beliefs
  –> dynamic externality, societal cynicism, religions
  BOND & LEUNGS SOCIAL AXIOMS
• Norms
  –> rituals, etiquette and politeness, tightness vs looseness
  GELFAND’S TIGHTNESS - LOOSENESS
• Attitudes
  –> opinions, stereotypes, prejudice
  …
• Worldviews
  –> Self-concepts, Cultural wordviews, attributions
  MARKUS & KITAYAMA’S INDEPENDENT AND INTERDEPENDENT SELF

Question 22

ethics

Answer 22

Aspects of life that appear to be consistent across cultures, truths or principles

Question 23

Emics

Answer 23

aspects of life that appear to differ across cultures, truths or principles that are culturespecific

Question 24

contents of culture: objective elements

Answer 24

involve objective, explicit elements that are physical (architecture, clothes, food, arts, etc.)

Question 25

Contents of culture: Subjective elements

Answer 25

include those that do not survive as physical artifacts, but psychological processes (attitudes, beliefs, values=trans-situational goals that serve as a guiding principle in the life of a person/group, behaviors);