Chapter 1 to 3 summary

Chapter 1
CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY – PSYCHOLOGY WITH A CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE

Psychology essentially has two main goals. The first is to build a body of knowledge about
people.
- Psychologists seek to understand behavior when it happens, explain why it happens,
and even predict it before it happens.
The second goal of psychology involves taking that body of knowledge and applying it to
intervene in people’s lives, to make those lives better.
The two goals of psychology—creating a body of knowledge and applying that
Knowledge.

Cultural Psychology and Cross-Cultural Research

WEIRDOS—Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic cultures—is severely

limited because WEIRDOS aren’t representative of humans as a whole and that psychologists
routinely use them to make broad, and quite likely false, claims about what drives human
behavior
Cross cultural research – involves participants of more than one cultural background and
compares findings obtained across those cultures

Where Does Culture Come From?

-Ecology , People live in groups that exist in specific ecologies, and the kinds of places in which
groups of people live has a major impact on how they live.

It’s not just absolute temperature that affects cultural ways of living but it’s the deviation from
temperature climate.
Another ecological factor that influences culture is population density. This is the ratio of the
number of people that live in a specific area to the size of the area that can grow food and
sustain the population.

Resources Another factor that influences the creation of cultures is resources. These resources
can be natural, such as the presence or absence of water or land to farm to grow vegetables or
raise animals. A land void of natural resources may encourage teamwork and community spirit
among its members and interrelation-ships with other groups that have abundant resources in
order to survive.

People Group Living The first characteristic of people that contributes to the creation of culture
is the fact that humans are social animals, and have always lived in groups. Groups are also
more efficient because they allow us to divide labor. The division of labor allows the group to
accomplish more than any one person can, which is functional and adaptive for all the members
of the groups.

Needs and Motives The second characteristic of people that contributes to the
creation of cultures is the fact that humans have basic needs that are ultimately
related to reproductive success (Boyer, 2000; Buss, 2001). These include physical needs—the
need to eat, drink, sleep, deal with waste, and reproduce if they are to survive. And they
include safety and security needs—the need for hygiene, shelter, and warmth (remember the
discussion above about climate). These needs are universal to all people of all cultures.
Survival is related to the degree to which people can adapt to their environments and to the
contexts in which they live, and our basic needs are associated with social motives

Universal Psychological Toolkits Another important factor to understand about

people concerns the evolved human mind and brain. Human cultures co-evolved with the
cognitive capacities that evolved with the human mind and brain. Fortunately, nature and
evolution endowed humans with a universal psychological toolkit with which to address these
needs. This toolkit includes several tools—or more specifically, aptitudes and cognitive abilities
—that help people adapt to their environments to address their basic needs and social motives.

A Definition of Culture
The Function of Culture Putting the previous section all together, we know that people have
needs that must be met in order to survive. They come to the world equipped with a universal
psychological toolkit that gives them the tools to address those needs. But, they also live in
groups, and the groups exist in different ecologies, with different resources.
Those ways of living that groups create take advantage of our universal psychological toolkits to
meet our basic human needs

Is Culture a Uniquely Human Product?

There are three characteristics of human social and cultural life that differentiates it from those
of animals: complexity, differentiation, and institutionalization. For example, not only do
humans make tools. We make tools to make tools.

Groups that Have Cultures

Culture and Nationality - refers to a person’s country of origin, and countries have their own
cultures. This is because countries are associated with each of the factors that influence culture.
Culture and Language
Culture and Ethnicity - The word ethnicity is derived from the Greek ethnos, meaning people of
a nation or tribe, and is usually used to denote one’s racial, national, or cultural origins.
Culture and Gender Sex - refers to the biological differences between men and women, the
most obvious being the anatomical differences in their reproductive systems. Accordingly, the
term sex roles is used to describe the behaviors and patterns of activities men and women may
engage in that are directly related to their biological differences and the process of
reproduction
Culture and Disability - Persons with disabilities differ from those without disabilities in that
they share some type of physical impairment in their senses, limbs, or
other parts of their bodies.
Contrasting Culture, Race, Personality, and Popular Culture

Culture and Race

Culture and Personality Culture is a macro, social, group-level construct. Personality refers to
the individual differences that exist among individuals within groups. Culture is the social
psychological frame within which individuals reside, much like the structure of our houses and
homes. Personality refers to the unique constellation of traits, attributes, qualities, and
characteristics of individuals within those frames.
Culture versus Popular Culture From time to time, it is fashionable to refer to fads that come
and go as “culture.” This is also referred to as “popular culture” by the mass media and in
everyday conversation. Popular culture generally refers to trends in music, art, and other
expressions that become popular among a group of people.

Subjective Elements
Values- Values are guiding principles that refer to desirable goals that motivate behavior. They
define the moral, political, social, economic, esthetic, or spiritual ethics of a person or group of
people. Values can exist on two levels—personal values and cultural values. Personal values
represent transitional desirable goals that serve as guiding principles in people’s lives. Cultural
values are shared, abstract ideas about what a social collectivity views as good, right, and
desirable.
Hofstede suggests that there are five value dimensions that
differentiate cultures:
• Individualism versus Collectivism. This dimension refers to the degree to which cultures will
encourage, on one hand, the tendency for people to look after themselves and their immediate
family only, or, on the other hand, for people to belong to ingroups that are supposed to look
after its members in exchange for loyalty.
• Power Distance. This dimension refers to the degree to which cultures will encourage less
powerful members of groups to accept that power is distributed unequally.
• Uncertainty Avoidance. This dimension refers to the degree to which people feel threatened
by the unknown or ambiguous situations, and have developed beliefs, institutions, or rituals to
avoid them.
• Masculinity versus Femininity. This dimension is characterized on one pole by success, money,
and things, and on the other pole by caring for others and quality of life. It refers to the
distribution of emotional roles between males and females.
• Long vs. Short Term Orientation. This dimension refers to the degree to which cultures
encourage delayed gratification of material, social, and emotional needs among its members.
Values

• Individualism vs. Collectivism

• Power distance
• Sacred values, etc.

Beliefs

• Dynamic externality
• Societal cynicism
• Religions, etc.

Norms

• Etiquette and politeness

• Expressive behavior
• Tightness vs. looseness, etc.

Attitudes

• Opinions
• Stereotypes
• Prejudice

Worldviews

• Self-concepts
• Cultural worldviews
• Attributions

• Embeddedness. The degree to which cultures will emphasize the maintenance

of the status quo, propriety, and restraint of actions or inclinations that might
disrupt the solidarity of the group or the traditional order. It fosters social
order, respect for tradition, family security, and self-discipline.

• Hierarchy. The degree to which cultures emphasize the legitimacy of hierarchical allocation of
fixed roles and resources such as social power, authority, humility, or wealth.
• Mastery. The degree to which cultures emphasize getting ahead through active

self-assertion or by changing and mastering the natural and social environment. It fosters
ambition, success, daring, and competence.

• Intellectual Autonomy. The degree to which cultures emphasize promoting and protecting the
independent ideas and rights of the individual to pursue his/her own intellectual directions. It
fosters curiosity, broadmindedness, and creativity.
• Affective Autonomy. The degree to which cultures emphasize the promotion and protection
of people’s independent pursuit of positive experiences. It fosters pleasure and an exciting or
varied life.

• Egalitarianism. The degree to which cultures emphasize transcending selfish interests in favor
of the voluntary promotion of the welfare of others. It fosters equality, social justice, freedom,
responsibility, and honesty.

• Harmony. The degree to which cultures emphasize fitting in with the environment. It fosters
unity with nature, protecting the environment, and a world of beauty.

Beliefs A belief is a proposition that is regarded as true, and people of different cultures have
different beliefs. Recently cultural beliefs have been studied under the concept known as social
axioms

social axiom dimensions existed on the cultural level:

• Dynamic Externality. This dimension represents an outward-oriented, simplistic grappling
with external forces that are construed to include fate and a supreme being. It is the culture-
level reflection of the belief structures that form part of a psychological constellation that aids
citizens to mobilize psychologically to confront environmental difficulties. Cultures high on this
dimension tend to be more collectivistic, conservative, hierarchical; have high unemployment
levels,

less freedom, and fewer human-rights activities; and have aspirations for security, material
resources, and a longer life. There is a strong sense of spirituality in this dimension.

• Societal Cynicism. This dimension represents a predominantly cognitive apprehension or

pessimism of the world confronting people. Cultures high on this dimension believe that the
world produces malignant outcomes, that they are surrounded by inevitable negative
outcomes, and that individuals are suppressed by powerful others and subjected to the
depredations of willful and selfish individuals, groups, and institutions.

Norms - Norms are generally accepted standards of behavior for any cultural
group. It is the behavior that members of any culture have defined as the most
appropriate in any given situation.
Attitudes - Attitudes are evaluations of things occurring in ongoing thoughts about the things,
or stored in memory.
Worldviews - Cultures also differ importantly in cultural worldviews. These are culturally
specific belief systems about the world; they contain attitudes, beliefs, opinions, and values
about the world.

CHAPTER 2

TYPES OF CROSS-CULTURAL RESEARCH Method Validation Studies

All researchers are concerned with issues concerning validity and reliability of measurement.
Validity refers to whether or not a scale, test, or measure accurately measures what it is
supposed to measure. Reliability refers to whether it measures it consistently.

Indigenous Cultural Studies

- Another type of study conducted by cultural psychologists is indigenous cultural studies.
These are characterized by rich descriptions of complex theoretical models of culture
that predict and explain cultural differences.

Cross-Cultural Comparisons
- Cross-cultural comparisons are studies that compare cultures on some psychological
variable of interest.

TYPES OF CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISON Exploratory vs. Hypothesis Testing

- The first involves the distinction between exploratory and hypothesis-testing studies.
Exploratory studies are designed to examine the existence of cross-cultural similarities
and differences.
- Hypothesis-testing studies are designed to examine why cultural differences may exist.
Presence or Absence of Contextual Factors
The second dimension refers to the presence or absence of contextual factors in the design.
Contextual factors may involve characteristics of the participants (such as socioeconomic
status, education, and age) or their cultures (such as economic development and religious
institutions).

Structure vs. Level Oriented

Individual vs. Ecological (Cultural) Level

A fourth dimension underlying cross-cultural comparisons concerns individual vs. ecological

(cultural) levels of analysis. Individual-level studies are the typical type of study in psychology,
in which individual participants provide data and are the unit of analysis. Ecological- or cultural-
level studies use countries or cultures as the unit of analysis. Data may be obtained from
individuals in different cultures, but they are often summarized or averaged for each culture
and those averages are used as data points for each culture. Many cross-cultural researchers
have come to realize that just showing a difference between two cultural groups does not
demonstrate that the difference occurs because of any cultural difference between them.

Designs that Establish Linkages Between Culture and Individual Mental Processes and
Behaviors

Unpackaging Studies - Unpackaging studies are extensions of basic cross-cultural comparisons,

but include the measurement of a variable (contextual factor) that assesses the contents of
culture that are thought to produce the differences on the variable being compared across
cultures.
Individual-Level Measures of Culture Over the past few years, one of the more common types
of context variables used in research has been individual-level measures of culture. These are
measures that assess a variable on the individual level that is thought to be a product of
culture.

Personality- Any variable that is thought to vary on the cultural level and that
may be thought to affect psychological processes can be used as context variables. One such
possibility is personality.

Cultural Practices - Another important type of context variable that is important in linkage
studies are those that assess cultural practices such as child-rearing, the nature of interpersonal
relationships, or cultural worldviews.

Experiments - Another major type of linkage study is experiments. Experiments are studies in
which researchers create conditions to establish cause-effect relationships. Participants are
generally assigned randomly to participate in the conditions, and researchers then compare
results across conditions.

Priming Studies - Priming studies are those that involve experimentally manipulating the
mindsets of participants and measuring the resulting changes in behavior. These are interesting
because researchers have attempted to manipulate mindsets supposedly related to culture in
order to see if participants behave differently as a function of the primed mindset.

Behavioral Studies- Perhaps the most stringent experiments involve manipulations of actual
environments and the observation of changes in behaviors as a function of these environments.

BIAS AND EQUIVALENCE

Bias refers to differences that do not have exactly the same meaning within and across cultures.
Equivalence is a state or condition of similarity in conceptual meaning and empirical method
between cultures that allows comparisons to be meaningful.

Conceptual Bias
A major concern of cross-cultural research is the equivalence in meaning of the overall
theoretical framework being tested and the specific hypotheses being addressed in the first
place.

Method Bias

Sampling Bias - There are two issues with regard to sampling bias, which refers to whether
cross-cultural samples can be compared. One concerns whether the samples are appropriate
representatives of their culture.
Linguistic Bias - One arena in which potential bias in cross-cultural research becomes quickly
apparent is in language. Cross-cultural research is unique because it often involves collecting
data in multiple languages, and researchers need to establish the linguistic equivalence of the
research protocols.

Procedural Bias - The issue of bias and equivalence also applies to the procedures used to
collect data in different cultures.

Measurement Bias- Perhaps the most important arena with regard to bias and equivalence may
concern the issue of measurement. Measurement bias refers to the degree to which measures
used to collect data in different cultures are equally valid and reliable.
Response Bias- aware of the fact that different cultures can promote different types of
response biases. A response bias is a systematic tendency to respond in a certain way to items
or scales.

Two other types of response bias are acquiescence bias, which is the tendency to agree rather
than disagree with items on questionnaires, and extreme response bias, which is the tendency
to use the ends of a scale regardless of item content.

Interpretational Bias
Analyzing Data In testing cultural differences on target variables of interest, researchers often
use inferential statistics such as chi-square or analysis of variance (ANOVA) and engage in what
is known as null hypothesis significance testing.

CHAPTER 3 Enculturation

ENCULTURATION AND SOCIALIZATION

Socialization is the process by which we learn and internalize the rules and patterns of the
society in which we live. This process, which occurs over a long time, involves learning and
mastering societal norms, attitudes, values, and belief systems. The process of socialization
starts early, from the very first day of life. Closely related to the process of socialization is the
process called enculturation. This is the process by which youngsters learn and adopt the ways
and manners of their specific culture. There is very little difference, in fact, between the two
terms. Socialization generally refers to the actual process and mechanisms by which people
learn the rules of society—

CULTURE, PARENTING, AND FAMILIES

- The most important microsystem to a child’s development is the family
- By examining the way that parents interact with their children, we can see how cultural
rules and values are reinforced and passed on from generation to generation

Whiting and Whiting’s Six Cultures Study

 - The Six Cultures Study clearly demonstrated that variations in the natural and cultural
environment were linked to variations in child-rearing patterns and this, in turn, was
linked to children’s behaviors and personalities.

Diversity in Parenting as a Function of Economics

Parenting Goals and Beliefs - By studying parental ethno theories we see how parents’ cultural
belief systems motivate and shape what parents think is the “right” way to parent
their children.
Global Parenting Styles
- Authoritarian parents expect unquestioned obedience and view the child as needing to
be controlled.
- Permissive parents are warm and nurturing to their children; however, they allow their
children to regulate their own lives and provide few firm guidelines.
- Authoritative parents are sensitive to the child’s maturity and are firm, fair, and
reasonable.
- Uninvolved parents are often too absorbed in their own lives to respond appropriately
to their children and may seem indifferent to them. They do not seem committed to
caregiving, beyond the minimum effort required to meet the physical needs of their
child. An extreme form of this type of parenting is neglect.

Parenting Behaviors and Strategies

research suggests both differences and similarities across cultures in parenting and child
rearing. All of the studies have shown that parenting beliefs and practices tend to be congruent
with developmental goals dictated by culture; that is, cultural differences in specific values,
beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors necessary for survival are associated with different
developmental goals so that developing members of a society can carry on culture-relevant
work related to survival. It seems that all people are similar in that their developmental
processes are designed to meet cultural goals; people differ, however, in the specific nature of
those goals.

A Domain-Specific Approach to Parenting

This approach counters the global parenting style approach (Baumrind, 1971) reviewed earlier.
One major criticism of global parenting styles is that it ignores the fact that parents
tend to act and respond differently depending on the particular child, the situation, and the
context

- The domain approach emphasizes the complexity of the socialization process by

distinguishing between distinct types or domains of parent-child socialization. One
domain is protection. Especially in the first years of life, children depend on their
parents to protect them from harm. When children are distressed, an appropriate
parenting behavior is to respond sensitively and offer comfort. In doing so, children
learn to develop a sense of security and, eventually, learn how to regulate their own
distress. Another domain is control.
 - In addition to protection and control, other domains are reciprocity (learning how to
cooperate), guided learning (learning specific skills), and group participation (learning to
participate in social groups and cultural practices). Grusec and Davidov emphasize that
these five domains of socialization are universal (e.g., in every culture, children need to
be protected and disciplined), but that there are cultural variations:

Siblings
these findings speak to the important role that siblings play in children’s lives in areas such as
gender identity and delinquency. More research is needed to explore the ways in which siblings
contribute to other areas of children’s development across cultures.

Extended and Multigenerational Families

Extended and multigenerational families differ in their composition from one culture to another
but have in common a sharing of resources, emotional support, and caregiving (Crozier &
Davies, 2006). The experiences of a child growing up in these situations can be quite different
from those of a child in a nuclear family. Future research needs to focus on family members
other than parents and siblings to more accurately and comprehensively describe socialization
in the family context.

CULTURE AND PEERS

In post figurative
cultures, in which cultural change is slow, socialization occurs primarily by elders transferring
their knowledge to their children. In this case, elders hold the knowledge necessary for
becoming a successful and competent adult. In configurative cultures, in which cultural change
occurs more rapidly, adults continue to socialize their children, but peers play a greater role in
socializing each other. Young people may have to turn to one another for advice and
information. In prefigurative cultures, the culture is changing so rapidly that young people may
be the ones to teach adults. The knowledge that adults hold may not be sufficient for the next
generation, and adults may need to look to younger people for advice and information.

Exposure to Peer Groups

Peers and Bullying
- outlined three criteria to define bullying: (1) intentional physical or psychological harm,
(2) that is based on a power imbalance between the bully and victim and
(3) which is repeated over time. The imbalance of power can refer to differences in age,
physical size, having or not having a disability, or being of majority versus minority
status. Based on this definition, bullying can include hitting, name-calling, spreading
rumors, and social exclusion.

CULTURE AND EDUCATION

We first describe cross-national differences in math achievement and then illustrate how
children’s characteristics, along with key socialization agents in various ecological contexts
(parents, teachers, school systems), contribute to variations in math achievement around the
world.
Cross-National Differences in Math Achievement
Mathematics learning occupies a special place in our understanding of culture,
socialization, and the educational system.

Social and Cultural Factors that Influence Math Achievement

That cross-national differences in math achievement are related to secondary rather than
primary math abilities implies that social and cultural factors play a major role in producing
those differences. A number of possible contributing factors have been examined in the
literature, including differences in language, school systems, parental and familial values,
teaching styles and teacher-student relationships, and attitudes and appraisals of students.

- Language Cross-national differences among Chinese, Japanese, and American children in

counting and memory exercises may be a function of differences in the Chinese,
Japanese, and English languages related to counting and numbers
- School Systems Research has shown that the educational system in which children take
part plays an important role in producing cross-national differences in math abilities,
while at the same time imparting cultural values.
- Parental and Familial Values - Cultural differences in parenting beliefs about education
have an impact on children’s educational experiences
- Attitudes and Appraisals of Students A number of studies have examined cultural
differences between Asian or Asian American children and European Americans.
- Teaching Styles, Teacher-Student Relationships, and School Environment