Culture Flashcards
(45 cards)
1
Q
There is no consensus on a definition, but many similarities:
Rohner 1984
A
highly variable systems of meaning that are learnt and shared by people from one generation to the next in an identifiable population
2
Q
Berry et al., 2011
A
Cross-cultural psychology is the study of relationships between cultural context and human behaviour
3
Q
Why is Culture Important?
A
- Human behaviour does not exist in a cultural vacuum.
- Culture provides a context for understanding human development and behaviour.
- Existing research has challenged the universality of some prior findings.
4
Q
WEIRD Samples!
Henrich, Heine & Norenzayan (2010)
A
- 96% of samples in psychology come from countries representing only 12% of the world’s population!
- A randomly selected American UG is 4,000x more likely to be a participant than a randomly selected person from a country outside the West!
- Psychologists make claims about the generalisability of human behaviour based on WEIRD samples:
- Western
- Educated
- Industrialized
- Rich
- Democratic
5
Q
Henrich et al. (2010)
A
- researchers assume there is little variation across populations and that standard subjects are representative of the species.
- BUT… WEIRD samples are frequent outliers across a wide range of psychological domains!
6
Q
WEIRD Samples!
A
- Fairness in economic decision making – 1 example from Henrich et al. (2010):
- Ultimatum Game (UG)
7
Q
Characterising Cultures by Values
Hofstede (1980)
A
questionnaire to 117,000 managers of multinational companies in 40 countries.
8
Q
Factor analysis revealed:
A
- Power Distance
- Uncertainty Avoidance
- Masculinity-Femininity
- Individualism-Collectivism = most widely used dimension
- Time Perspective*
9
Q
Characterising Cultures by Values
•Hofstede (1980) –
A
- GB is individualistic and concerned with material success
- Denmark is individualistic and caring/egalitarian
- Hong Kong is accepting of power hierarchies and collectivistic
10
Q
Characterising People within Cultures
•IND-COL dimension can be measured at the individual level:
•Markus & Kitayama’s (1991) self-construal theory:
A
- Independent self-construal (IndSC): person’s identity is seen as a product of stable internal traits and is separate and unique from others.
- Interdependent self-construal (InterSC): person’s identity is intertwined with others and defined by those relationships.
11
Q
Characterising People within Cultures
A
Markus & Kitayama’s (1991)
12
Q
Characterising People within Cultures
•BUT…
A
Women in Western societies are more likely than men to define themselves in terms of their relationships!
13
Q
Relational self-construal (RelSC)
A
- individual difference in the extent to which people define themselves in reference to close personal relationships (e.g., spouse/close friend).
- NOT about group membership or social roles.
Cross, Hardin & Gercek-Swing (2011)
14
Q
The Measurement of Self-Construal
A
- Questionnaires – Self-Construal Scale (Singelis, 1994) is the most commonly used.
- 12 items on IndSC & 12 items on InterSC
- Likert scale – 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree)
15
Q
The Measurement of Self-Construal
•Twenty Statements Task – (Kuhn & McPartland, 1954):
A
- Participants complete 20 sentence stems that start with “I am…”
- Statements are coded into IndSC, InterSC and RelSC.
- The number of statements in each category then serves as a measure of self-construal.
16
Q
The Measurement of Self-Construal
•Priming Self-Construal – many different priming tasks.
A
•Trafimow, Triandis & Goto (1991) asked people to think of what makes them different from their friends and family (IndSC prime) or what makes them similar to their friends and family (InterSC prime).
- It assumes that people in all cultures have both the IndSC and InterSC.
- It allows cause-effect relationships to be investigated.
17
Q
Cross-Cultural Differences in Attention
A
- Masuda & Nisbett (2001): a link between self-construal & attention to visual scenes.
- East Asian individuals process holistically – perception of objects is bound to the social context.
- Westerners process the focal object.
- Assumed to stem from differences in Ancient Greek vs. Ancient Chinese societies.
18
Q
Cross-Cultural Differences in Attention
•Experiment 1: Masuda & Nisbett (2001, p.924)
A
- Participants saw 45 original objects & 45 novel objects.
- The background was manipulated: (a) original (b) none (c) novel
- Participants indicated whether they had seen the object (Yes/No).
- DV: number correctly recalled.
19
Q
Cross-Cultural Differences in Attention
•Experiment 1: Masuda & Nisbett (2001):
A
2 (culture) X 3 (background) ANOVA revealed no interaction, but planned comparisons found on “previously seen objects”…
20
Q
Masuda & Nisbett (2001):
Cross-Cultural Differences in Attention
A
- replicated findings in experiment 2 with real wildlife photos & reaction time data.
- Japanese participants made more errors compared to American participants with previously seen objects on novel backgrounds.
- Japanese more attentive to social context and relationships between objects.
21
Q
Cross-Cultural Differences in Perception
•Kitayama, Duffy, & Kawamura & Larsen (2003):
A
- Cross-cultural differences in cognitive processing may be differentially advantageous.
- Some tasks require absolute judgments (i.e., focal object is unaffected by context).
- Other tasks require relative judgments (i.e., focal object is dependent on context).
- Framed line task (FLT): non-social test of cognitive ability.
22
Q
Cross-Cultural Differences in Perception
•Kitayama et al. (2003) Experiment 1:
A
- 20 participants in USA & 20 in Japan.
- 5 combinations of FLT: x2 test frame > original; x2 test frame < original; x1 test fame & original = same size.
- 5 combinations given in a counterbalanced order.
- DV: Mean Error across FLT trials (measured in mm)
23
Q
Cross-Cultural Differences in Perception
•Kitayama et al. (2003) Experiment 2:
A
- Are these cognitive processing styles malleable or fixed?
- Japanese participants (in Japan or studying in US) & American participants (in US or studying abroad in Japan)
- 6 combinations given in a counterbalanced order.
- DV: Mean Error across FLT trials (measured in mm)
24
Q
Current Directions: Culture & Cognition
A
- Is culture hard-wired in the brain?
- Park & Huang (2010) reviewed research on cross-cultural differences in cognition. They conclude that there is substantial evidence that culture affects neural function – particularly in the ventral visual cortex.
•Research is starting to examine how cultural immersion in another (host) country affects neural processing (e.g., Lui, Rigoulot & Pell, 2016).
25
Culture & Attribution
* Sally jumped the red light, because Sally is an impatient and inconsiderate person.
* BUT... Is the correspondence bias more common in individualistic cultures?
26
Culture & Attribution
| Morris & Peng (1994)
* predicted cross-cultural differences in attribution would occur in social situations due to differences in socialization.
* Sudy 1: 100 Chinese & 100 American school children
* Participants watched animated displays of social events (fish swimming) and physical events (football moving).
* DV = ratings of the extent to which the object’s movement was influenced by internal and external factors (1-5 scale).
27
Morris & Peng (1994, p. 957): “Compulsion Display”
* No differences between Chinese & American students on causal attribution of physical events in any display set.
* Cross-cultural differences in explanation of social events…
28
Culture & Attribution
| •Morris & Peng (1994): replicated this finding in two more naturalistic contexts.
* Study 2: American newspaper made more dispositional attributions for a mass shooting, whereas Chinese newspaper made more situational attributions.
* Study 3: American participants judged dispositional factors more likely as the causes for the mass shooting, whereas situational factors were judged more likely for Chinese participants.
29
Culture & Attribution
•There is an attenuation of the correspondence bias in East Asian cultures (Choi, Nisbett, & Norenzayan, 1999).
•Why….?
* Is it due to differences in the use of dispositional cues?
* Is it due to greater sensitivity to the social context?
* A combination of the two?
30
Culture & Attribution
| •Choi & Nisbett (1998)
* 78 American & 94 Korean participants read a pro-capital punishment essay allegedly written by another student.
* Random assignment to:
* No choice condition
* Exposure condition
* Exposure & arguments condition
* DV = rated the extent to which the essay corresponded to the student’s real attitude (1-7 scale).
31
Culture & Attribution
| •Choi, Nisbett, & Norenzayan (1999):
* Dispositionalism is a mode of thinking that is seen across cultures.
* The attenuation of the correspondence bias in East Asian cultures is due stronger situationalism.
32
Limitations in Cross-Cultural Psychology:
| •Oyserman, Coon & Kemmelmeier’s (2002) meta-analysis of IND-COL research revealed:
* IND-COL differences often assumed without measurement
* Over-reliance on correlational studies
* Diversity of measures used to measure the same DV
* Lack of replication studies
33
Issues with Measurement:
| •Cross et al. (2011) have identified issues with self-report surveys:
* Two factor structure (IndSC & InterSC) is not a good fit
* Cronbach’s alpha reliabilities are adequate at best.
* Multiple versions of the Self-Construal Scale (Singelis, 1994)
* Face validity of some items questionable – “I value being in good health above everything” (IndSC item!)
* Reference group effect (Heine, Lehman, Peng & Greenholtz, 2002)
34
Issues with Measurement:
| •Cross et al. (2011) have identified issues with the Twenty Statements Test (TST):
* Researchers rarely provide a detailed description of their coding scheme.
* Researchers differ in their definition (& hence coding) of InterSC and RelSC.
* TST does not assess the importance of self-views to the person.
35
Conceptual Issues:
•COL/IND are reductionist labels.
Voronov & Singer (2002, p.461)
When a whole culture or society is pigeonholed in dichotomous categories (e.g., masculine-feminine, active-passive, or loose-tight), subtle differences and qualitative nuances that are more characteristic of that social entity may be glossed over. Such descriptive labels evoke unduly fixed and caricature-like mental impressions of cultures and societies rather than representative picture of their complexities.”
36
Conceptual Issues:
* Güngör et al. (2014) argued that while all interdependent cultures value interpersonal connectedness, the nature of the connection differs between face and honour cultures.
* ‘Keeping face’ cultures = respecting others by observing norms dictated by one’s position in the social hierarchy.
* Honour cultures = pride that is based on social image, reputation and others’ evaluation.
37
Güngör et al. (2014)
argued that while all interdependent cultures value interpersonal connectedness, the nature of the connection differs between face and honour cultures.
38
Keeping face’ cultures
respecting others by observing norms dictated by one’s position in the social hierarchy.
39
Honour cultures
pride that is based on social image, reputation and others’ evaluation.
40
Conceptual Issues:
| Güngör et al. (2014)
measured 2 forms of interpersonal agency - conformity & relatedness - in 163 Japanese and 172 Turkish students.
•Japanese participants described their agency more in terms of conformity than Turkish participants, whereas Turkish participants described their agency more in terms of relatedness.
•COL/IND distinction would have glossed over the nuances between two interdependent cultures!
41
Cohen (2009) There are many different types of culture:
* Religion
* SES
* Region within a country
•Psychologists need to expand definition & measurement beyond COL/IND and IndSC/InterSC.
42
Cultural differences in the construction of
Social identity
43
East Asian participants tend to process visual information
holistically. They attend more to the context than American participants.
As a consequence, East Asian participants are less likely to make the correspondence bias when the importance of the situational context is made salient.
44
Issues with conceptualization and measurement of culture needs
further attention.
45
Definition of culture
| Hogg & Vaughan, 2014
The expression of group norms and values at the national, racial and ethnic level
