Other things to learn for final

Question 1

2 main sources of cultural differences

Answer 1

1- Genetics: the way we look, the way our genes determine our personality to some extent; i.e., what is passed down to us from our parents (divided evidence for this)

2- Genetic temperaments: general tendencies that interact with the environment that we are in (we acquire some characteristics through a combination of genetics and the way we are socialized to behave) - more plausible than the first one

Question 2

Why do we say that universal brains develop into culturally diverse minds?

Answer 2

• Humans are not born with cultural knowledge or skills
• Humans are born prepared to learn from any cultural environment
  o Can adapt and modify our behaviours

Question 3

Freud psychosexual development; cont or not?

Answer 3

Discontinuous, because it happens in stages
* If you don’t get through one of those stages, stuck there

Question 4

Defence mechanisms; across cultures? cont?

Answer 4

Present across cultures? Yes
Continuous? Yes it could happen all at the same time, they’re not defined stages

Question 5

Erikson’s psychosocial theory; across cultures? cont?

Answer 5

Discontinuous, not present across cultures - it’s problematic to assume that those stages happen to everyone and deem that someone is abnormal for not going through them (ex: Identity vs confusion in adolescence; in some cultures independence is less valued and not necessary to develop who we are; could be seen as abnormal based on this theory)

Behavior description rather than process oriented

Question 6

Behavioural theories (pavlov, watson, skinner); across cultures?

Answer 6

Present across cultures; more of a biological basis

Question 7

Bandura social learning; cont? across?

Answer 7

Continuous, present across cultures

Question 8

Piaget; continuous, present across cultures?

Answer 8

discontinuous, not present across cultures

Question 9

Kohlberg’s theory of moral development; cont? across?

Answer 9

*Continuous – each stage builds off the previous one
*The reason why you decided to answer a certain way is across cultures, but the process of how that happens is not

Question 10

Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of cognitive development; cont? across? how does culture affect it?

Answer 10

• Continuous
• Present across cultures
• Culture is significant to learning: in order for us to learn we need to consider culture
  o Culture will dictate how you learn (ex: while sitting in class there will be things you will pay attention to and some that you won’t, that will most likely be dictated by culture)
  o Language: the root to culture - it creates a shared context for learning, a sense of community

Question 11

Cultural ecology def

Answer 11

refers to the changing relationships between culture and the environments or the total web of life through developmental adaptations
o Culture gives meanings to one’s way of life and provides the possibility of control over the environment
o Said to be one of the key ingredients of future human development studies

• Each culture has developed its own unique structure for dealing effectively with its environment, given its available resources

Question 12

What is cultural contact? What is the process asociated with it?

Answer 12

• Contact = cultural changes
   Ex: moved from Zimbabwe to US - cultural change,
   Moved back - another change
   Interacting w systems - another change
  o A contact with another culture, a change from one culture to another, forces a cultural change
• Berry noted that culture contact induces culture change through the process of acculturation

Question 13

Ecocultural theorization def

Answer 13

• Ecocultural is a hybrid, coined from two concepts:
  o Ecology: Referring to a physical place and its ecosystem that includes networks of people and children
  o Culture
• Rooted in the view that human development is influenced by both the ecological context, and the cultural context, whose features are often adapted to the ecological setting
• The ecocultural framework situates the developing human being not in a universal culture but within a culture that is context bounded by a geographical or physical environment and characterized by a social system that includes the cultural imperatives of the people who inhabit or are active in that ecosystem

Question 14

Berry Original Ecocultural theory: main framework/idea

Answer 14

*Framework: Human differences are a set of collective and individual adaptations to context

• Berry was convinced that human beings develop in ways that permit their adaptation to and long-term survival in, particular, ecosystems
• A main feature of this framework is to distinguish the population and the individual levels of analysis of developmental influences and outcome

o Ex: what is the difference between elementary school and high school? - there is less structure in high school, more freedom (teacher doesn’t come to you, you need to go ask them, you need to get yourself into your classes, etc) - there are collective and individual differences playing out

Question 15

Berry Original Ecocultural theory: 5 main features

Answer 15

1- Ecological context: your surrounding, where you are (ex: growing up on a farm)

2- Sociopolitical context: the political climate in your country

3- Population adaptations (cultural and biological)
Biological: access to resources, your body needs to adapt to certain threats (ex: air pollution)
Cultural: adapting to the cultural norms of the place you are in (ex: going into high school is different in terms of cultural climate) - the person adapting to a new culture

4- Transmission variables
Direct ecological influences: how the ecological context influences you
Genetic transmission: influences from your parents/family (genetically)
Cultural transmission: the direct contact with another culture (ex: watching tv, listening to music, interacting with content online)
Acculturation: (idea that I’m in contact with a culture and therefore I start to shift - acculturation is the process of that shift) - linked to Berry’s research (ex: watching a movie with a lot of violence, where in your original culture it’s not ok to have that much violence; you will watch the movie and get used to it; getting used to it is the process of acculturation)

5- Behavioural outcomes
Inferred characteristics: the things we measure in general psych; inferred beliefs from observable behavior

Question 16

Bronfrenbrenner Ecological Systems theory: levels

Answer 16

1- Microsystem
o Where most direct interactions with social agent take place
 i.e., with parents, peers, teachers
o The child is not a passive recipient of experiences in these interactions  but contributes to construct the nature of the settings

2- Mesosystem
o Refers to relations between microsystems or connections with the other contexts

3- Exosystem
o Involves links between a social setting in which the individual does not have an active role and the individual’s immediate context
ie: neighbors, social services, mass media, local politics, industry

4- Macrosystem
o Describes the culture in which individuals live
 i.e., cultural context; attitudes and ideologies of the culture

5- Chronosystem
o Refers to the structure of environmental events and transitions over the life course and across social-historical circumstances

Question 17

Super & Harkness: Developmental Niche Framework - 2 basic principles

Answer 17

1- A child’s environment is organized as part of a cultural meaning system or a cultural community
 Idea that “my environment is what the culture is”

2- A child’s biological disposition affects their process of development

o Both principles together = Nature vs nurture debate

Question 18

Super & Harkness: Developmental Niche Framework - 3 interacting subsystems

Answer 18

1- Physical and social settings
 Physical: location, home, school, work, country, city
 Social: family, friends neighbors, parents, (ex: growing up with cousins in the house vs only child)

2- Customs and practices of child rearing
 Parenting styles: amounts of nurturing, affection (showed in different ways; ex by saying actually I love you, by offering acts of services, etc)

3- The psychology of the caregivers: mental illness, financial issues / other stress, emotional regulation, personal characteristics, perception of child and how a child should develop, attachment styles
 Caregiver is the one influencing the child and their world until they reach a certain age; everything goes through the parent
 What does the caregiver think about the development of the child (do you see it through play, etc?)

• The three subsystems of the developmental niche share the common of mediating the child’s developmental experiences within the larger culture
  o They operate together with powerful though incomplete coordination as a system
  o Act as the primary channels through which the niche, as an open system, is influenced by outside forces

Question 19

Nsamenang: Social Ontogenesis - main idea

Answer 19

o Based on a succession of phases
 What does it mean to be active in all the phases? - you’re actually interacting, not just letting stuff happen to you (ex: involving a child in doing chores)
* Growth of social selfhood through a series of phases-distinctive developmental tasks
* Human development is partly determined by the social ecology in which the development occurs
o Children learn from each other in peer cultures

Question 20

Nsamenang: Social Ontogenesis - 4 phases

Answer 20

1- Ceremony of naming
 How the child should become
 What your name means

2- Social Priming (adapting to family’s ecoculture - showing what to do)
* Major developmental task: Babies are cuddled and teased to smile along with adults
* This is a preliminary step toward induction into the “sharing and exchange norms” that bond siblings and the entire social system together

3- Social apprenticing (practicing what to do)
 Roughly corresponds with childhood
 The principal developmental task is to recognize, cognize, and rehearse social roles that pertain to three hierarchical spheres of life:
* Household, network, and public
 Much of the responsibility for stimulation and guidance in this phase of early childhood is assigned to preadolescent and adolescent children in the family and the neighborhood

4- Priming (actually doing)
 Reorganize, understand, rehearse
 Ex: responsibility (now it’s your turn to behave how we want you to)
 Children have a role in society, at the end of this cycle they have the responsibility to assume that role
 The delegation of responsibility for care and socialization of younger children from adults to preadolescents and adolescents serves the function of priming the emergence of social responsibility
 These priming strategies have important implications for the design of culturally appropriate forms of intervention to optimize developmental opportunities for children in contemporary Africa

Question 21

Main conclusions of the ecocultural perspective

Answer 21

• The ecocultural perspective informs us that the young of every species have basic needs that must be met for them to survive, thrive, mature, and develop, expectedly into adult members of the society
  o It also informs us that across the globe, people of every culture and ecology fulfill these tasks in divergent ways
• Human biology is wired to acquire, create, and transmit culture
  o As biology interfaces with culture, it is not just a preface to or foundation for human development but a consistent theme throughout the process

Question 22

Play vs risky play + how play varies across cultures

Answer 22

• What is play?
  o Way of entertaining yourself/others
  o Activity that is free(er) of expectations
• What is risky play?
  o Unsupervised
  o Bodily harm
  o Playing when you are unaware of danger
  o Potential harm to self or others

o Learning, socialization, problem solving, exploration - emphasized in some cultures
o Some other cultures might center it on fun, pleasure, entertainment
o Sometimes it’s structured, sometimes it’s more freeplay
o Different cultures will view the role of playmates differently (some cultures will prefer to play alone, others will want to play with others)
* Play is varied in its types and also has varied purposes
o Different cultures view play differently - ex: individualistic vs collectivistic cultures
o Engaging a child in free play is the way to see what play represents to them

Question 23

Which universal does play correspond to?

Answer 23

accessible in all cultures, exists in all cultures, but is not being used to solve the same problems, therefore it’s existential, but if you consider that play always has the same goal to solve a particular problem then it’s functional

Question 24

Why would it be a bad thing to make playgrounds safer?

Answer 24

• Children will find challenging and interesting risky play elsewhere if the playgrounds:
  o Decrease in physical activity – England survey
  o Playgrounds are uninteresting to children
  o Use equipment in unsafe ways to maintain challenge
• Even though some playgrounds are being modified to become safer, kids still find ways to hurt themselves; removing the value of learning about consequences, also removing the contact with the normality of getting hurt (parallel with mental health field; it’s normal to feel stressed/sad/etc sometimes, but we can move from that, it’s inevitable but you need to experience it in order to know how to live with it and move past it)

o A risk deprived child as more prone to problems such as obesity, mental health concerns, lack of independence, and decrease in learning, perception, and judgment skills, created when risk is removed from play and restrictions are too high

Question 25

What is free play? 3 main types

Answer 25

• By definition, free play is intrinsically motivated and not provoke by instrumental goal-directed behaviour
  o It is a goal in itself and lacks external rules and structure
  o Thus, activities such as organized sports would not be considered free play
• Three main types of free play have been well described:
  1- Physical activity (e.g., exercise play, rough-and-tumble play)
   Risky play is subsumed within physical activity play
• Risky play: Defined as thrilling and exciting and where there is risk of physical injury
• Sandester further categorizes risky play into play involving: heights, speed, dangerous tools, or near dangerous elements (e.g., fall into something), and where children can get lost
  2- Object play (e.g., manipulating objects, toys)
  3- Pretend play (e.g., socio-dramatic)

Question 26

Why is free play important?

Answer 26

o Children’s free play has been recognized as a major agent in young children’s development and learning
o Through play, children learn societal roles, norms, and values and develop physical and cognitive competencies, creativity, self-worth and efficacy
o Play has been described as the work of children which helps them develop intrinsic interests, learn how to make decisions, problem-solve, exert self-control, follow rules, regulate emotions, and develop and maintain peer relationships
o Risk taking in play helps children test their physical limits, develop their perceptual motor capacity, and learn to avoid and adjust to dangerous environments and activities

Question 27

Risks associated with less/no play

Answer 27

o Play deprivation can contribute to:
 A reduced sense of personal control
 Reduced ability to control emotions
 Increase social isolation
 Reduced happinesso Childhood obesity rates have steadily increased, which have been linked to a decrease in physical activity

Question 27

Risks associated with less/no play

Answer 27

o Play deprivation can contribute to:
 A reduced sense of personal control
 Reduced ability to control emotions
 Increase social isolation
 Reduced happiness (all these are associated with anxiety/depression)
o Childhood obesity rates have steadily increased, which have been linked to a decrease in physical activity

Question 28

Why are children playing less and less outside?

Answer 28

o These studies suggest that children and adolescents increase their sedentary behaviour and screen time as they age  children’s leisure lives appear to be moving indoors
* Children’s ready access to computers and televisions has contributed to an increased proportion of their leisure time being spent indoors, both historically and as children age
o Outdoor free play activities are being substituted with organized sporting or other activities such as music lessons
o Societal influences on parents have been cited as important drives of changes in children’s outdoor play opportunities
 These have heightened parental concerns, especially with regard to traffic dangers and child abduction by strangers
o Current Western middle class social pressures to maximize children’s opportunities and adhere to practices of “intensive parenting” support the notion that parents should have:
 Children attend the “best” schools
 Participate in a multitude of organized activities
 Provide as much protection as possible
 Potentially more than they personally perceive as necessary
o Parental concerns regarding children’s safety have been shown to be the most significant influence on children’s access to independent play

Question 29

Why should we let children engage in risky play?

Answer 29

• Children Have a Natural Propensity towards Outdoor Risky Play
   Children understand their personal competencies and the level of risk they were comfortable with and moderated their risky play to these internal boundaries
  o Research suggests that if children perceive they are not obtaining challenging and interesting risky play opportunities in public play area, they may seek these opportunities elsewhere
  o There is evidence to support concerns that absence of opportunities for outdoor risky play will result in children disengaging from physical activity

Question 30

What are alternative free play environments?

Answer 30

• Adventure playgrounds provide child-centered and child-directed play spaces where children create and modify their own environments
  o Children have access to raw materials such as building supplies and tools, as well as sand, dirt, and water
  o In some cases, adventure playgrounds include trained play workers and volunteers for supervision and “professional scaffolding” that facilitates children’s play and removes play barriers
• Some adventure playgrounds in proximity to farms or community gardens provide children with the opportunity to interact with and care for animals, and grow and cook their own food

Advantages: Lower injury rates than conventional playgrounds, reductions in aggressive behaviour and gains in social responsibility and social problem solving

Question 31

Is co-sleeping a personal choice or a behavior that reflects the moral values of parents?

Answer 31

o Personal choice: I just want my privacy, or I don’t have the money to provide the child with a room (maybe there are also more than one child and therefore they cannot co sleep)
o Values: I want my child to be close to me, etc - taking into consideration the psychology of the parent (what their idea of child rearing is, how it should happen, etc, these values will be reflected in sleeping arrangements)

Question 32

4 moral principles of sleeping arrangements

Answer 32

1- Incest Avoidance: Postpubescent family members of the opposite sex should not sleep in the same room
 Depends on the culture but usually we don’t want to bunk boys and girls together after a certain age

2- Protection of the vulnerable: Young children who hare needy and vulnerable should not be left alone at night

3- Female chastity anxiety: Unmarried adolescent women are vulnerable to shameful sexual activity; they should always be chaperoned

4- Respect for hierarchy: Adolescent boys achieve social status by not having to sleep with parents or young children
 No longer sharing a room is a symbol of status/respect (once the older boy is a certain age, there is a sign of respect and hierarchy for having one’s own room)

Question 33

2 moral principles associated with sleeping arrangements

Answer 33

1- Sacred couple: Married couples should have their own space for emotional intimacy and sexual privacy
2- Autonomy ideal: Young children who are needy and vulnerable should sleep alone in order to learn self-reliance
o Cultural variability in children’s social worlds not only influenced by nearness of their mother and personal space-close proximity with various other people

Question 34

4 limitations to attachment theory

Answer 34

1- Secure attachment was not consistently common in certain populations
 Avoidant attachment: Signs of early independence – Northern German cultural valued trait
 Secure attachment: Spoiled children
* Children should be seen but not heard
 Anxious ambivalent: Israeli kibbutz – no time to develop exclusive attachments with their own parents
* Communal environments of caregiving

2- The 3 main attachments styles are not found everywhere
 Avoidant relationships were not found in the Japanese sample
 Dogon, West Africa: No avoidant relationship with mother because of constant proximity with their mothers
 Attachment is influenced by the kinds of early experiences children have

3- Although there is a universal need for children to form attachments with caregivers, there is some cultural variation with attachment styles
 Multiple caregivers
* Ivory Coast
* Anxiety in the presence of strangers?
 Stranger anxiety: Dependent on the context of socialization of the child

4- Child-rearing practices most common in a culture influence early childhood experiences and relationships
 What attachment style are you in romantic relationships?

Question 35

3 main attachment sytles

Answer 35

• Secure attachment: o Occasionally seek their mother’s presence when she is around, and intensify their desire to be close to her after being left alone in an unfamiliar situation
  o Securely attached infants are confident and exploratory when in a new environment with their mother present
• Avoidant attachment: Show little distress at their mother’s absence, and avoid her on her return
• Anxious-ambivalent attachment:Show frequent distress when their mother is either present or absent
  o Sometimes want to be near mother, but often after being near her they will resist and push her away

Question 36

Secure attachment: what is it for children and adults, is it common across cultures, etc

Answer 36

• Secure attachment: child cries when mother leaves but is rapidly comforted by the mom’s return (self-soothing)
  o As an adult: being able to be vulnerable, valuing and also respecting independence, ability for self-regulation, being able to trust others
  o Is a secure attachment style universal across cultures? - Yes but it’s not always with only one person
  o Does it matter who the attachment is with? - No, as long as it’s with a primary caregiver that is consistent and responsive to your needs (ex: could be a nanny)

Question 37

4 parenting styles

Answer 37

1- Authoritarian Parenting
 High demands of children
 Strict rules – little dialogue between parent and child
 Usually low levels of warmth or responsiveness by parent

2- Authoritative Parenting
 Child-centered approach
 High expectation of maturity of the child
 Feelings: Understand them and help regulate
 Encourage independence while maintaining limits and control of behaviour
 Democratic reasoning, warmth, and responsiveness

3- Permissive Parenting
 High involvement in children’s lives
 High warmth and responsiveness
 Few limits and control’s on child’s behaviour

4- Neglectful Parenting
 Parents are cold, unresponsive, and indifferent of their children

Question 38

3 limitations of the parenting styles framework

Answer 38

o Based on Western cultural understanding of development
o Does not capture parenting styles elsewhere adequately
o Stage of development influences parenting style

Question 39

Why are parenting styles not always culturally relevant?

Answer 39

1) There are different parental approaches depending on the stage of the child’s development

2) The way warmth and responsiveness are communicated by parents varies considerably across cultures, and what might look like cold behaviour in one culture is not perceived as cold in another

3) Authoritarian category may exclude one important element of parenting common in Chinese and various other non-Western parenting styles: the role of training

Question 40

What is the noun bias

Answer 40

• Children around 18 months enter a period of accelerated word learning when their vocabularies begin to increase dramatically
  o Extensive research has shown that this increase is not distributed equally across all different forms of words: The first words young children tend to learn are nouns
   Noun bias: Preponderance of nouns relative to verbs and other relational words

Question 41

Is the noun bias a universal phenomenon?

Answer 41

• Indicates that nouns are more noticeable, refer to more concrete concepts, and are easier to isolate from the environment than other words, such as verbs, and this is why children learn them first
  o If this is true, should see evidence of a noun bias everywhere
• North American children tend to learn nouns much more quickly than verbs
  o However, the noun bias is hard to identify in some other cultural groups, especially East Asians
• Noun bias does not appear to be as universal as it was originally supposed
• Explanation for this cultural different is a linguistic one
  o English: Nouns tend to come in noticeable locations, such as at the end of sentences
  o Some East Asian languages place verbs at the end of sentences
   Allow for nouns (and pronouns) to be dropped when the context is clear, verb remains most important part of the sentence
• Alternative explanation: Cross-culturally, young children learn to communicate about objects differently

Question 42

3 core assumptions of attachment theory

Answer 42

o Normativity defines the secure attachment relationship as the universal norm
o Sensitivity defines child-centered responsivity as the universally best condition for children’s development and the precursor of secure attachment relationships
o The competence assumption defines the children’s development of competence in diverse developmental domains as contingent on the development of attachment security

Question 43

Factors of attachment theory that are not present in every culture

Answer 43

• Stranger anxiety: being stressed when approached by a stranger (children from some cultures, especially collectivistic ones, do not exhibit this behaviour systematically)
• Significant attachment partner being an adult (usually the mother) – can be multiple adults in some cultures, or even other children (siblings)
• Attachment emerges in dyadic interactional situations only – may be polyadic (many people) and more focused on physical touch than face to face contact
  o Make for very different concepts of self and relations to others
• Secure attachment results from sensitive parental responsiveness - in Western it’s the child leading the activity and the parents being responsive to their needs, in framing communities it’s the parent leading and organizing the child’s activities

Question 44

Which ethical questions does the application of attachment theory as the gold standard raise?

Answer 44

• The view that there are good and bad ways of parenting raise ethical questions
• Attachment theory views the child as an independent agent, while some communities might see children as a well-integrated communal agent
• When evaluating parental decisions, claiming universality raises moral concerns
  o Other practices of child rearing might be seen as unresponsive, harsh, neglectful, etc
• The classification system for attachment is not adapted to all cultures; thus westernized cultures can attain secure attachment more easily while other cultures will be determined insecure
• Intervention programs aimed at fostering good parenting will teach principles of attachment theory, but those principles are not adapted to all cultures as we saw

Question 45

Culture def

Answer 45

• Term “culture” mean two different things:
  o 1) Indicate a particular kind of information
   Culture is any kind of information that is acquired from other members of one’s species through social learning that can influence an individual’s behaviour
• Culture is any kind of idea, belief, technology, habit, or practice that is acquired through learning from others  humans are a cultural species
  o 2) Indicate a particular group of individuals
   A culture is a group people who are existing within some kind of shared context
• People within a culture are exposed to many of the same cultural ideas
   Most global level, culture refers to broad expanses of population around the world, which may even include people from a large number of different countries
• i.e., “western culture” refer to people participating in cultures that stem from countries clustered in northwestern Europe and societies that descend from these counties (US, Canada, Australia)

Question 46

Social learning

Answer 46

Social learning: Learning things from people around us (media, family, friends)

Question 47

Why is it important to understand the concept of shared context?

Answer 47

o Shared context gives us information about someone’s behaviour
 E.g., Child marriage: That’s definitely not okay, but look at context in which it’s happening in
 Thus, shared context gives understanding of someone’s behaviour

Question 48

Challenges faced when thinking about a group of people as a culture

Answer 48

1) Boundaries are not always clear cut
o A shorthand practice is to look at nationality as a rough indicator of culture
o There are other kinds of groups aside from countries that have cultures (Jewish culture, LGBTQ culture, vegan culture)
 What makes these groups quality as “cultures” is that their members exist within a shared context, communicate with each other, have some norms that distinguish them from other groups, and have some common practices and ideas
 The more that people who belong to a group share similar norms and communication, the more the group deserves to be identified as a culture
o The fluid nature of cultural boundaries weakens the ability of researchers to differentiate between cultural groups
 When differences are found – provide powerful evidence that cultures do vary in their psychological tendencies

2) Cultures change over time
o Some shared cultural information disappears as new habits replace old, but much cultural information persists across time
 Cultures are not static entities, they are dynamic and ever changing
o Most important challenge in considering cultures as a group  variability among individuals who belong to the same culture
 Distinct temperament
 Belong to unique collection of carious social groups, each with their own culture
 Unique history of individual experiences that has shaped their views
o Individual differences lead some people to reflexively embrace certain cultural messages, firmly react against some, and largely ignore others
o Research findings do not apply equally to all members of a culture  reflect average tendencies
 Sometimes those groups are extremely broad
o Cultural membership does not determine individual responses
 “Culture” refers to a dynamic group of people who share a similar context, are exposed to many similar cultural messages, and contain a broad range of different individuals who are affected by those cultural messages in various way

Question 49

Is the mind independent from, or intertwined with, culture?

Answer 49

• The answer depends on your discipline and view: you might be inclined to say they are intertwined when you are a cultural psychologist
  o Intertwined: culture influences brain processes, the extent of that influence depends on the importance of culture in that person’s life
  o Independent: you are you and you function inside a culture, but your mind is unique to you and independent from culture

Question 50

Why are psychologists considering the mind as a CPU, and what problem does that bring

Answer 50

o Arises because general psychologists tend to conceive the mind as a highly abstract central processing unit (CPU)  operates independently of context and content
o Underlying goal of general psychology – provide glimpses of CPU operating in the raw so we can understand the set of universal and natural laws that govern human thought
 Context and content are viewed as unwanted noise that clouds our ability to perceive the functioning of the CPU

• Viewing the mind as the computer – important cultural variations in ways of thinking cannot exist because cultures merely provide variations in context and content that lie outside the operations of the underlying CPU
  o If cultural differences do appear in psychological studies, this universalist approach would suggest that they must reflect the contamination of different sources of noise
   Could not reflect differences in CPU because it is universally the same across all contexts

Question 51

Richard Schweder’s view of psychology

Answer 51

• Richard Shweder – father of modern cultural psychology
  o Argues that a good chunk of the field of psychology (general psychology) assumes that the mind operates according to a set of natural and universal laws that are independent from context or content
   Some researchers have attempted to document how people’s thinking can be said to be the same across all cultures
• In many important ways  people are not the same wherever you go
  o The study of human variability is a challenging enterprise that greatly informs our understanding of human nature and the ways the mind operates
• Context and content are not considered
  o Behaviour happens within a context, general psych will ignore this

Question 52

Why should we study cultural psych?

Answer 52

• Increased understanding
• General psychology is narrow focused
• Prevents distorted and incomplete understanding of the human mind
• Increase in globalization
• Everyone is the same everywhere (color-blind approach) is limiting
• Normalize group differences (multicultural approach)

Question 53

How can we explain cultural differences in psychological processes?

Answer 53

o When people in one culture are considering a particular cultural idea, they will focus on it a great deal, creating a rich network of thoughts, behaviours, and feelings
 This network of information will be activated whenever people encounter a reminder of the cultural ideas (i.e., overheard convo, memory of the past, current situation, impressions of others concerned with this idea)
 If people consider their networks of information often enough the networks should become activated regularly and automatically – become prioritized ahead of other ones
* Differ in network of thoughts, actions, and feelings that are most accessible to the members

• Many cultural psychologists view general psychology’s goal to be misguided
  o Human thought is sustained by the meanings people pursue, any effort to bleach out those meanings to more clearly reveal the underlying CPU would only distort or misinterpret what the mind actually is
  o People are forever found up in their own system of cultural meanings, and they never start to think instead like a universal human
• Many cultural psychologists would argue that culture cannot be separated from the mind because culture and mind make each other up
  o Cultures emerge from the interaction of the various minds of the people that live within them, and cultures, in turn, shape how those minds operate
   As cultures often differ dramatically in terms of practices, institutions, symbols, artifacts, beliefs, and values  the ways people from different cultures think, act, and feel should also vary substantially
• Thus, cultural psychologists expect to find significant differences in the psychological processes among people in various cultures

Question 54

Symbolic approach to cultural psych

Answer 54

o “The predominant approach to cultural psychology defines culture as shared symbols, concepts, meanings, and linguistic terms. These are socially constructed in the sense of being produced by individuals in concert. Cultural symbols are regarded as organizing psychological phenomena. They do so by labelling and categorizing information and directing responses in particular ways”
o Idea of collective symbols
 Focus on the idea that the symbol is directing your response:
 When you see a certain symbol, it will push you to respond in a different way
* It depends what the symbol means to you - if you adhere to a certain culture you will respond to it in a certain way
 In this view, culture is internal

Question 55

Activity approach to cultural psychology

Answer 55

o “Activity theorists argue that psychological phenomena are formed as people engage in socially organized activity. Practical, socially organized activity is the primary cultural influence on psychology”
 Socially organized activities:
* A wedding
* Sports tournaments for certain sports
* Religious holidays
* Family supper together (family bonding, communicating, which results in creation of intimacy)

Question 56

Individualistic approach to cultural psychology

Answer 56

o “This approach champions individual creativity in selectively assimilating culture. Advocates of this approach reject the idea that culture has the power to organize psychological functions. Instead, culture is regarded as an external context which the individual utilizes and reconstructs as he sees fit. The individualistic approach defines culture as the outcome of a negotiated interaction between an individual and social institutions-conditions. In their negotiations, interpretations, selections, and modifications of institutions-conditions, individuals “co-construct” culture. Each individual constructs a personal culture out of his own experience”
 Ex: Third culture kid: takes on two different cultures from their life experiences and create their own culture from it (ex: born in Zimbabwe but lived in the US later on) - can’t fully take one culture or the other
* Can be different situations - depends how much each culture influenced the person (maybe their parents were born in a different place than them but they never got in touch with that culture)

Question 57

Strengths/weaknesses of the symbolic approach

Answer 57

o Strengths
 Emphasize cognitive basis of psychological processes
 Elaborates social content of psychological processes
 Recognizes social construction and sharing of concepts
 It offers a specific description of culture
* Culture is collective symbols or concepts which have a specific content
 It explains how culture enters our psyche and organizes psychological phenomena

o Weaknesses
 Overlooks practical activities, artifacts, and conditions
* Concepts, symbols, and meanings are regarded as having a life of their own, independent of material and institutional considerations
* The conditions under which people live and are treated do not have place in the symbolic approach
 Symbols appear arbitrary
* Symbols appear to be freely and arbitrarily constructed
* The origins and constraints on symbol formation are ignored
* Social-psychological processes which lead to changing symbols are not considered
 Minimizes individual differences in concepts and processes
* Little attention is paid to the heterogeneity of culture
o Certain groups are more powerful than others in determining the legitimacy of symbols
o Symbols may be accepted by certain sub-groups and not by others
 Indefinite process of social construction
* In the rare instances when symbolic cultural psychologists mention social structure, conditions, politics, power and control, these are dealt with superficially, without consideration of their real occurrences and the real affects they have on psychological functioning
o Shweder (1996) mentions that power ranges from legitimate forms and illegitimate forms
 This general and banal description of power is not fleshed out by any concrete examples which illustrate the real effects on peoples’ psychology
 Discusses power abstractly, divorced from social activities – never mentions economic, political, legal, or military power
 Attributes the existence of power hierarchies to personal weaknesses in individuals
 Limited conception of culture that underlies the symbolic approach to cultural psychology
 His cultural analysis proposes no social or political analysis or action

Question 58

Strengths/weaknesses of the activity approach

Answer 58

o Strengths
 Emphasizes action rather than pure cognition
 Emphasizes tools
 Emphasizes social agency
 Recognizes heterogeneity of psychological processes
o Weaknesses
 Activity and tools are conceived as devoid of social content
 Unclear about how activity organizes psychological processes
 Minimizes individual agency

Question 59

Strengths/weaknesses of the individualistic approach

Answer 59

o Strengths
 Emphasizes individual agency in constructing psychological phenomena from social influences
 Emphasizes individual differences in psychological phenomena
o Weaknesses
 Overlooks practical activities, artifacts, and conditions which affect psychology
 Overlooks organized social actions necessary to cultural and psychological phenomena

Question 60

Ethnocentrism

Answer 60

Judging people from other cultures by the standards of your own culture

Question 61

Non universals

Answer 61

Cultural inventions
o (ex: clothing)

Question 62

Existential universal

Answer 62

“Psychological process present in all cultures, although process is not used to solve the same problem, and it is not easily accessible across cultures”
o (ex: shame, sadness, basically all emotions)

Question 63

Functional universal

Answer 63

“Psychological processes that exist in all cultures, are used to solve the same problems, yet are more accessible to people from some cultures than others”
o Example: discipline, negative symptoms of depression (in some cultures, symptoms of depression might not be considered depression - ex: mourning)

Question 64

Accessibility universal

Answer 64

“Psychological processes exists in all cultures, is used to solve the same problems across cultures, and it is accessible to the same degree across cultures”

Question 65

Independent view of the self

Answer 65

• Derives identity from inner attributes
• Inner essence
• Basis of an individual’s identity
• Stable across situations and lifespan
• Unique to the individual – come from the individual not interactions
  o They will be that way regardless of who they are with
• Significant in regulating behavior
  o will always dictate how you respond to situations (when you respond differently in a situation you’re surprised)
• Obligation to present consistently
  o People leaving/entering the ingroup is not that important because you identify yourself from your own characteristics and not by how you relate to others
  o Others can move between the boundary of ingroup and outgroup relatively easily
  o Feel much closer to ingroup than outgroups, but don’t view them in fundamentally distinct ways
• Key boundary is between self and oneself, and for the most part, others are viewed, and interacted with, as though they were oneself
• Independent selves are viewed as distinct, autonomous individuals whose identities are grounded in various internal components, and who interact with other similarly independent individuals
• Independent people experience their identity for the most part distinct from their relationships
• Aspects of the identity lie within the individual
• The self is certain  does not change from situation to situation
• People can move from ingroup to outgroup relatively easy-still close to the in-group

Question 66

Interdependent view of self

Answer 66

• Views the self as being defined by social relationships and roles, and behavior depends on the perceptions of others’ thoughts, feelings, and actions
• Organize their own psychological experiences in response to what others are apparently thinking and doing
• Individuals are not perceived as separate and distinct entities, but as participants in a larger social unit
• Experience of identity is reflexive in that it is contingent on their position relative to others, and their relationships with them
• The circle around the individual overlaps considerably with the borders of the circles of their significant relationships

o Identities are closely connected with others and are not experienced as distinct and unique
o Relationship with ingroup members are self-defining  the people with whom these relationships are established assume considerable importance
o People do not easily become ingroup members, nor do close relationships easily turn into outgroup relationships

Question 67

Functions of the self concept

Answer 67

o The Self-concept:
 Organizes the information we have about ourselves
 Directs our attention to information considered relevant
 Shapes the concerns we have
 Guides our choice of relationship partners and the kinds of relationships we maintain
 Influences how we interpret situations, which in turn, affects the emotional experiences we have about them

Question 68

Close relationships in independent vs interdependent people

Answer 68

• Independent person perceives themselves as functioning largely separately from the social environment – people in that environment are more tangential to the person’s self-concept
  o New relationships can be formed and old ones dissolved without much impact on individual identity
  o Should be more willing to form new connections, maintain larger networks, and be less distressed when relationships fade over time
  o The ingroup boundary is not as important to self-construction for independent people  experienced as fluid and permeable

Interdependent
* Close relationships are essential in all cultures – especially important for individual self-definition in interdependent cultures
o In group relationships serve to direct appropriate behaviours, and people have several obligations toward these relationships
o Being a member of an interdependent person’s valued ingroup is a serious role, and it’s not easy to get in
o It is rare for an insider to lose his or her privileged status and fall into the outgroup
o Ingroup-outgroup boundaries are stable

Question 69

Individualistic vs collectivistic cultures

Answer 69

• Individualistic
  o More likely to engage in thoughts and behaviours that foster their own independence, and they come to feel distinct from others and emphasize the importance of being self-sufficient
• Collectivistic
  o Interdependent selves more common in cultures where children typically co-sleep with their parents, where education is primarily a matter decided on by families, where marriages may be arranged by parents
  o People in collectivistic, more likely to engage in thoughts and behaviours that foster the interdependent aspects

Question 70

Link between individualism and social class

Answer 70

• Individualism varies as a function of social class
  o People from higher SES backgrounds generally have more independent selves
  o Greater interdependence among working-class people does not seem to generalize to those who are living in actual poverty
   Impoverished people often experience social isolation and report fewer and less close social relationships than those living above the poverty line
• In Japan, higher SES was associated with more interdependence
  o Suggests it might be more accurate to say that higher social class is associated with dominant cultural values
• Periods of economic growth tend to be linked with growing rates of independence and recessions with increasing interdependence

Question 71

Gender and its link with sense of self

Answer 71

• Several researchers have commented on how an interdependent self-concept seems more characteristic of women, and an independent self-concept seems more characteristic of men
• One study directly explored this question (Kashima et al., 1995)
• There were significant cultural differences: ‘The Western participants scored higher on agency and assertiveness, and the Eastern participants scored higher on collectivism and relatedness
• Significant gender differences emerged on only one factor: On relatedness, women scored higher than me
  o No gender differences for collectivism, agency, or assertiveness.
  o Suggests it’s not accurate to say women are like Asians and men are like Americans
  o Women are apparently more interdependent than men only with respect to their attention to others’ feelings and concerns

Question 72

Self concept flexibility

Answer 72

hold inconsistent beliefs about the self