When cultures meet

Question 1

Modernisation

Answer 1

• Economic development/industrialisation
  – Marx’ concept of ideology as ‘superstructure’
  – Changes in eco-cultural framework
  – Expect cultures to adapt to new context
• Prediction: cultural beliefs and values will become more secular (less religious) and more rational
  (Inglehart & Baker, 2000)

Question 2

Post-modernisation

Answer 2

• In context of economic prosperity/security
• Shift from manufacturing to service economy (where people work more in things like hospitality industry, financial services, advertising- occupation where you’re not making things but providing services to people)
• Prediction: cultural beliefs and values will become post-materialistic
  – Less focus on survival
  – Greater focus on self-expression
  (Inglehart & Baker, 2000)

Question 3

Testing cultural change
what survey and 2 things

Answer 3

• World values survey
  7 waves from 1981 to present
  Representative national samples in >75 countries
• Traditional → secular-rational values
  God less important, lower respect for authority, lower national pride, abortion more accepted, childrearing more focused on independence and less focused on obedience and religion
• Survival → self-expression values
  Self-expression and quality of life more important, economic and physical security less important, people report being happier, more people have signed or would sign a petition, homosexuality more accepted, people are seen as more trustworthy

Question 4

The Inglehart-Wezel World Culture Map (2020)

Answer 4

Bottom tradition- top secular

As countries become more economically developed, they would move from bottom to top and left to right

Question 5

Inglehart and Baker (2000) economic zones

Answer 5

• Looked at economical development in terms of GDP per captia
• Countries towards the top left tended to be poorer and countries towards the top right tended to be richer
• They also looked at change over time
• The regions of the world stay pretty much the same in relation to each other- movement of countries is often upwards and towards the left
• In times of economic stability you seem values getting more traditional

Question 6

Sources of intercultural contact

Answer 6

• Plural societies
  – Migrants
  – Sojourners
  – Refugees
  – Tourists
  – Indigenous people
• Why there?
  – Voluntary—forced
  – Sedentary—mobile
  – Permanent—temporary
• Global communications

Question 7

Acculturation
- Classic definition
- in practice, what does on group usually change?

Answer 7

• Classic definition:
  “Acculturation comprehends those phenomena which result when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact with subsequent changes in the original culture patterns of either or both groups” Redfield, Linton, & Herskovits, 1936, cited in Berry, 1997, p. 7)
• In practice, one group usually changes more
  – ‘Acculturating group’ vs. ‘receiving society’
  – Minority vs. majority (numerical or power/influence)

Question 8

Effects of intercultural contact

Answer 8

• Adaptation processes
  – Affective
  – Behavioural
  – Cognitive
• Acculturation strategies
  – Changes (or not) in practices, values and identifications
• Intergroup relations
  – Power differentials
  – Peaceful/hostile
• Cultural changes
  – Both groups
  – Can lead to emergence of new cultures

Question 9

Adaptation (ABCs)

Answer 9

• ABCs of coping with “culture shock” (Ward, Furnham, & Bochner, 2001)
• Affective
  – (a.k.a. “psychological adaptation”)
  – Psychological well-being vs. anxiety, stress, depression
• Behavioural
  – (a.k.a. “sociocultural adaptation”)
  – Learning effective social skills for new cultural environment vs. social difficulties in everyday functioning
• Cognitive
  – Beliefs, values, and cultural identity

Question 10

Outdated view of acculturation

Answer 10

SEPARATION (cultural maintenance)
vs.
ASSIMILATION (relationships with groups)

Question 11

Acculturation strategies
Berry’s (1990, 1997) theoretical model identifies TWO key questions…..

Answer 11

1. Is it considered to be of value to maintain cultural identity and characteristics?
2. Is it considered to be of value to maintain relationships with other groups?

Question 12

Acculturation strategies

Answer 12

• Assimilation
  ✔️ Relationships with dominant group
  ❌ Cultural maintenance
• Integration
  ✔️ Relationships with dominant group
  ✔️ Cultural maintenance
• Marginalisation
  ❌ Relationships with dominant group
  ❌ Cultural maintenance
• Separation
  ❌ Relationships with dominant group
  ✔️ Cultural maintenance

Question 13

Acculturation strategies

Answer 13

• Individuals’ strategies measured in terms of:
  – Preferences for contact
  – Preferences for cultural maintenance
  – Cultural identities
  – Language use and proficiency
  – Cultural practices (food, clothing, media, etc.)
  – Family and peer relationships
• Largest study to date:
  – 4000 young immigrants, 30 ethnic groups, 13 nations
  – Cluster analysis shows four predicted groupings (Berry, Phinney, Sam & Vedder, 2006)

Question 14

Acculturation strategies
In most samples surveyed…

Answer 14

– Participants tended to prefer integration to the other acculturation strategies
– Participants who adopted integration showed the best psychological adaptation / least stress
– Marginalisation is least adaptive (people who reported being marginalised tended to report poor well being as well)
– Assimilation and separation show intermediate and more variable outcomes, depending on context
(e.g., Berry, 1990, 1997; Berry & Sam, 1997; Berry et al., 2006)
BUT …

Question 15

What do we mean by integration?

Answer 15

• Living with multiple cultural identities
  (cf. frame-switching studies)
• Bicultural identity integration
  Perceptions: harmony or conflict?
  Strategies: blending or compartmentalising?
• Integration predicts well-being
  Especially harmony
  (Benet-Martínez et al., 2002)

Question 16

Settler vs. non-settler societies

Answer 16

• Berry et al. (2006) distinguished between
  “settler societies” (e.g. Australia, Canada, USA)
  “non-settler societies” (e.g., France, Germany, Sweden, UK)
• Some key results:
  – Integration more common in settler societies
  – Separation predicts psychological adaptation better in non-settler societies
  – Also varies with culture of origin

Question 17

Strategies of dominant group

Answer 17

Multiculturalism
Integration
Needs policy and values

Melting pot
Assimilation
Also ‘pressure cooker’

Segregation
Separation
Also ‘rejection’

Exclusion
Marginalisation
Extreme = ethnocide

melting pot- people should assimilate, people from different cultures of origns should blend together and form this new culture that everyone shares

‘pressure cooker’ asking for assimilation could push majority groups towards separation

Question 18

Cultures and identities

Answer 18

• Self-categorisation theory (Turner et al., 1987)
  – Intercultural context → cultural identities
  – Culture used to define self
• Social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979)
  – Striving for positive cultural distinctiveness
  – Also maintain cultural continuity against threat
  – Threats to majority and minority identities

Question 19

Majority group identity processes

Answer 19

• Cultural majority members MAY feel threatened
• Symbolic threats to national identity
  – Different cultural practices could undermine distinctiveness and/or continuity
  – Depending on how national identity defined
• Realistic threats to social dominance
  – Perceived competition or loss of privileges
• Reject minority members or identity expressions
  – Intergroup hostility, prejudice, discrimination
  – Assimilationist policies
  (reviewed by Schwartz, Vignoles, Brown & Zagefka, 2014)

Question 20

Minority group identity processes

Answer 20

• Minority cultures rejected by majority
• Perpetual foreigner syndrome (Wu, 2001)
  – Assimilation required but not possible
• Segmented assimilation (Portes & Zhou, 1993)
  – Assimilation to a pan-ethnic minority identity
• Reactive ethnicity (Rumbaut, 2008)
  – Rejection → identification → wellbeing (Branscombe et al., 1999)

(reviewed by Schwartz, Vignoles, Brown & Zagefka, 2014)

Question 21

Globalisation

Answer 21

• Intercultural relations on global scale
  – NB cultural contact no longer depends on geography
• All cultural groups inhabit broader global context
  – Global culture ≈ Western culture
  – Americanisation, Westernisation, McDonaldisation
  – But also Japanisation, World Music, etc.
• Local and global cultural identities
  (see Jensen, Arnett, & MacKenzie, 2011)
• Pressures to maintain cultural differences
  – Loss of distinctiveness would be loss of identity
  – Anti-globalisation movements (e.g. anti-capitalism protesters, fundamentalists, national separatists)
  – Tourist gaze values cultural ‘authenticity’
  – “Westernised” identity can also be distinctive

(see also Jensen, Arnett, & MacKenzie, 2011)

Might mean people work harder to maintain their global advantages

Question 22

What is the future of culture?

Answer 22

• Increasingly problematic to treat nations as self-contained sociocultural systems
  – International mobility (tourism and migration)
  – International mass communication
  – Changes in eco-cultural context
• Yet cultural differences persist
  – Development in parallel
  – Maintaining cultural distinctiveness

Question 23

Final thoughts about ‘culture’

Answer 23

• Cultures are contexts, not types of people
  – Dimensions of culture can be measured
  – Not reducible to individual differences
  – Ways of thinking and ways of doing
• Cultural systems “evolve” in response to socioecological pressures
• Intercultural contact → cultural identities
• Research still at an early stage!