Cross-Cultural Psychology Flashcards
(33 cards)
Define culture
“Systems of Shared meanings” (Smith & Bond, 1998, p. 69)
“The rich complex of meanings, beliefs, practices, symbols, norms, and values prevalent among people in a society.” (Schwartz, 2004, p. 43)
what are the two types of culture variables?
Objective culture: Explicit (e.g., buildings, Music, language) of interest to anthropologists
Subjective culture: More latent (e.g., norms, values, expectations, attitudes) of interest to psychologists
Outline the History of Cross-culutral psych
End of 19th century –birth of anthropology
1960’s –birth of cross-cultural psychology as a discipline
Why so late?
Lab studies
Non-western cultures seen as ‘primitive’
What contributed to forming a cross-cultural psychology?
Post WWII –many new nations
Higher mobility
international students
Larger research funds
define mainstream psycholgy
define cross-cultural psycholgy
“Mainstream” Psychology: The study of human psyche in one culture, assuming the findings can be generalized to all humans and not just those in the study.
Cross-cultural psychology: The study of cultural difference in more than one culture. The goal is to develop a universal psychology
is the “mainsteam” aspect of psychology justified?
68% of participants in published experimental research came from the US (2003-2007).
96% of participants came from Western industrialized countries, especially US and Europe.
80% of samples were composed solely of undergraduates.
Arnett, 2008
What does the acronym WEIRD stand for?
Henrich et al., 2010 W estern E ducated I ndustrialized R ich D emocratic Just another culture, not typical of the world
Are Western theories valid in other cultures?
give 2 examples
The answer: Not always
E.g., East-Asia: Traits, such as ‘friendly’, ‘curious’ are not such good predictors of behaviour
East-Asia: People do not strive for high status and prestige
example (Chiu, 1972) picture of cow, grass and chicken
Question: Which two go together?
Westerners: cow and chicken are both animals
Use rule:
Easterners: the cow eats the grass
Use relationship
Example: Description (Masuda & Nisbett, 2001)
Watched animations: Describe what you see
Americans: start describing with the focal object Japanese start describing the background
Japanese had more to say about the background (65% more)
Why?
Because they focus on the background. They’re less likely to focus on individual fish- brought up this way as they’re more of a collective society os pay attention to group and environment rather than individual
Westerners will focus on a goal.
What is the difference between an etic approach and an emic approach?
Emic: Focus on culture-specific phenomena, e.g., Behaviours Norms Values Customs Traditions ethnographical research, anthropology
Etic approach: Compares universal dimensions, e.g., Behaviour Norms Values Emotion Cross-cultural psychology
How do cultures differ from one another?
Triandis: Individualism-Collectivism
Eastern cultures are regarded as ‘collectivist’ with emphasis placed on importance of the group over the individual
Western cultures are regarded as ‘individualist’ where pursuit of individual or personal goals are encouraged
Affect and Well-Being
Affect (moods and emotions) –> life satisfaction.
More in individualistic cultures.
Cultural norms. –> Life satisfaction.
More in collectivist cultures (Suh et al, 1998)
explain the cross-cultural varaition to Asch’s paridigm
Conformity: Asch’s Paradigm
Presented as a ‘line judgement task’: Say which line (A/B/C) is the same as the target line.
Confederates give the same wrong answer.
Will the participant give the right or wrong answer?
One-third of participants changed their judgments due to group pressure.
Cross-cultural variations:
Smaller effect size in North America and Western Europe than in the rest of the world
they are correlated with cultures’ individualism and collectivism scores (Bond & Smith, 1996)
Negative connotation of conformity in the West (Friend et al, 1990)
Japanese didn’t conform when others were strangers (Williams & Sogon, 1984)
explain the links between Triandis and I/C culture
Private self vs. Public and Collective self Individualistic cultures emphasize the private self (internal attributes and separateness)
Collectivistic cultures emphasize the public and collective aspects of self (interconnected with other people and interdependent with them)
Explain the links between I/C culture and schizophrenia
Griffiths et al., 2006)
Col. Groups: Hard to return to the group once out of the group
Maximise differences in/outgroup
Japanese > Australian want social distance from schizophrenic
Col: Group importance
Japanese > Australian & British not talk about our schizophrenic relative outside the family, help them within the family (not professionals)
Outline the difference between independent and interdependent self.
Markus & Kitayama (1991):
Self is different in both collective and individualist cultures.
Independent Self
Separate from social context
Bounded, unitary, stable
Life tasks: Be unique, express self, self-actualization
Internal, private(feelings, thoughts)
Direct communication
Self-esteem depends on ability to express self, validate internal attributes
Interdependent
Self-Connected with social context: connected to expectations e.g. family
Flexible, variable External, public(roles, statuses, relationships) ahs to be flexible to the many expectations e.g. from amily or uni
Life tasks: belong, fit-in, engage in appropriate action, promote others’ goals
Indirect communication will express ourself in a different way. E.g. not being able to say no.
Self-esteem depends on ability to adjust, maintain harmony, restrain self
give some I/C self description research
Self Description Studies (reviewed in Smith & Bond, 1998)
Task: Answer the question: Who am I? Participants are given 20 lines.
People from Independent Cultures reported more generalized (i.e., context free) trait labels in describing themselves
People from Interdependent Cultures were more likely to describe their traits with concrete examples.
Collectivist cultures- will repond more to group needs than individualist cultures even when the person Is not originally from that culture.
GIVE research no how I/C cultures differ on placing imporance on uniqueness/commonness
(Kim & Markus 1999) American ads: uniqueness Think differently Chooseyour own views The internet isn’t for everybody. But then again, you are not everybody Saturn, a different kind of company
East Asian ads: conformity
Our ginseng drink is produced according to the methods of 500 year-old tradition
Bring a fresh breeze to your wife at home
Our company is working toward building a harmonioussociety
Seven out of 10 people are using this product
Do it for our children
American participants choose products that are unique, East Asians choose products that are common
Outline research into Love and Interdependent/independentself
Independent Self Separate from social context feelings, thoughts Life tasks: Be unique, express self, selfactualization Interdependent Self Connected with social context roles, statuses Life tasks: belong, fit-in, engage in appropriate action, promote others’ goals
Burgess & Wallin(1953): “In American society… love is the only right basis for marriage”
Hsu (1981): An American asks ‘how does my heart feel?’ A Chinese asks ‘What will other people say?
AND….In Chinese cultures (interdependent)
love seen as sad
Holding hands in public traditionally scorned
In traditional Indian literature (interdependent) infatuation and romantic love reported but not necessarily relevant to marriage
how does culture change prefernce?
Festinger: cognitive dissonance = inconsistency between any two cognitions
discomfort Heine & Lehman (1997) study:
1.Participants were promised a CD they like as payment for participation
2.Participants rated 10 CDs
3.Got choice of 5thor 6thof their rating
4.Rated CDs again. 5.Will the rating change? Changed more in Americans than Japanese
Outline the consistency in self appearances
Ideal Self-Actual Self: In cultures that emphasize interdependence (e.g., Japan), self-criticism is valued because group members are expected to strive continually to improve themselves.
For Japanese students, discrepancies between ideals and real self were larger than Canadian students, and were not as depressing as they were for Canadian students (see Heine & Lehman, 1999 UBC study).
Outline Hofstedes cultural dimensions
Hofstede used factor analysis to discover his v cultural dimensions
UK is low in power distance e.g. don’t have to agree all the time such as questioning lecturers
India is high in power distance
Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions
Uncertainty avoidance: a focus on planning and the creation of stability as a way of dealing with life’s uncertainties.
How tolerent is the culture towards uncertainties?
Low on uncertainty avoidance: much more open to changing rules and reconsidering order (UK)
What is power distance
theamountofrespect anddeferencebetweenthosein superiorandsubordinatepositions.
What is uncertainty avoidance
afocusonplanningandthecreationofstabilityasawayof dealingwithlife’suncertainties.
What are Hofstede’s cultural dimensions?
Individualism‐collectivism: whetherone’sidentityis definedbypersonalchoicesandachievementorby thecharacterofthecollectivegroupstowhichone ismoreorlesspermanentlyattached.
Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Masculinity‐femininity: the relative emphasis on achievement or on interpersonal harmony, a distinction that characterizes gender differences in values across many national cultures.
give the criticisms to Hofstede’s cultural dimension
Criticisms:
Not theoretically based why only these 4 what really are the differences?
Biased samples (117,000 employers of IBM, most of them were males) –> are they representative?
give some findings using Hofstede’s cultural dimension
Power Distance and acceptance of insults (Bond, Wan, Leung, & Giacalone, 1985):
Students read scenarios of an insult situation (either by superior or peer) Does it matter who the insult come from (superior or peer)?
Among Chinese (high power distance culture), an insult from a superior was perceived as much more acceptable than an insult from a peer.
Among Americans (low power distance culture), an insult from a superior was perceived as only slightly more acceptable than an insult from a peer.
Masculinity/Femininity and feeling good after crying:
In which cultures would men feel better after crying?
More in ‘feminine’ cultures (Bechts & Vingerhoets, 2002)
