Week 1 - Introduction Flashcards
Culture, what is it?
a set of implicit and explicit
guidelines/information that individuals acquire as members of a particular society or context. (e.g., world-view, emotions, relations & behavior towards others, supernatural-forces/gods, natural environment etc.)
Enculturation?
a way of transmitting cultural guidelines to the next generation
Cultural:
1. Boundaries?
2. Stable or not?
3. Variations?
- not distinct, often unclear
- dynamic and change over time
- as many variations within cultures as between cultures!
Three levels of culture
- Tertiary level = “façade of a culture”
- Secondary level = “social norms”
- Primary/Deepest level = “roots”
Tertiary level = “façade of a culture”
explicit manifest culture, visible to the outsider;
- social rituals
- traditional dress
- national cuisine
- festive occasions
…
Secondary level = “social norms”
underlying shared beliefs and rules, known to
the insiders but rarely shared with outsiders
Primary/Deepest level = “roots”
rules known to all, obeyed by all, but implicit, and generally out of awareness (hidden, stable and resistant to change)
(Cross-)Cultural Psychology:
- Absolutist approach
- Relativist approach
- Absolutist approach: Psychological phenomena are the same across cultures, processes and behaviors vary
- Relativist approach: Psychological phenomena only exist within the context of a culture
Cultural psychology focuses on cultural variation in terms of the psychological consequences of culture
- different meaning systems originating from different environments
- mind and culture are entangled
- thoughts are shaped by contexts
‘Humans seek meaning in their actions, and the shared ideas that make up cultures provide the kinds of meanings that people can derive from their experiences.
Cultural meanings are thus entangled with the ways that the mind operates, and we cannot consider the mind separate
from its culture.’
Heine, 2016
(relativist)
Universality vs Cultural variability
- Abstract > Universality
- Concrete > Variability
Degrees of Universality x4
- Non-universal (cultural invention)
- Existential universal (variation in function)
- Functional universal (variation in accessibility)
- Accessibility universal (no variation)
Degree of Universality: Non-universal
Cognitive tool not found in all cultures (other criteria are thus irrelevant)
Degree of Universality:
Existential universal
Cognitive tool found in all cultures that serves different function(s) and is available to some degree in different cultures
Degree of Universality:
Functional universalism
Cognitive tool found in all cultures that serves the same function(s) but is accessible to different degrees in different cultures
Degree of Universality: Accessibility universal
Cognitive tool found in all cultures that serves the same function(s) and is accessible to the same degree
Cultural Dimensions Theory
(Hofstede, 2001)
• Individualism–collectivism (How interdependent is a culture?)
• Uncertainty avoidance
(How do people deal with ambiguity?)
• Power distance
(How hierarchical is a culture?)
• Long-term/short-term orientation
(Connection with tradition, also economic orientation)
• Masculinity/femininity
(How distinct are gender roles? Distribution of classical male/female traits)
Socio-economic status (SES): Differences in health behaviors within western cultures
- smoking
- alcohol
- food
• Smoking: lower SES predicts likelihood of smoking, higher
SES predicts recent attempts to quit
• Lower SES predicts higher alcohol consumption
• Higher SES predicts more balanced and healthy food
intake
Dealing with differences:
- Color-blind approach
- Multicultural approach
- Color-blind approach:
> Emphasizes common human nature, ignores cultural differences
> Research has demonstrated that even trivial distinctions between groups often lead to discrimination. - Multicultural approach:
> Recognizes that group identities are different (particularly minorities)
> Ignoring such group differences tends to lead to negative responses.
Ethnocentrism
Perceiving one’s own culture as standard of comparison
Error of Ethnocentrism
Tendency to judge people from other cultures negatively by comparing them to your own culture
Who is WEIRD?
• Western
• Educated
• Industrialized
• Rich
• Democratic
WEIRD countries only make up about 16% of the world’s
population!
- WEIRD subjects make up 96% of all psychology research
- 70% of participants are psychology undergraduates
- 99% of first authors come from Western universities
WEIRD = outliers?
differences appearing in…
• visual perception,
• fairness,
• cooperation,
• spatial reasoning,
• categorization and inferential induction,
• moral reasoning,
• reasoning styles,
• self-concepts and related motivations
• heritability of IQ.
