Topic 8 - Culture and behaviour: psychological theories Flashcards
Examine psychological theories that explain behaviour based on cultural values.
.Examine psychological theories that explain behaviour based on cultural values.
The theories that examine culture and psychological processes recognise culture as a set of core societal values.
The Individualism-Collectivism Theories (Triandis, Markus, & Kitayama).
Culture and psychology are related because the shared values of social groups influence people’s cognitive, social and emotional functioning.
Groups are divided based on their individualist and collectivist values
Individuals are separated based on their allocentrism and idiocentrism.
A person with an allocentric orientation emphasises qualities such as harmony, belongingness, and an association with the group qualities. They prioritise the collective goals of the group more than their individual goals.
A person with an idiocentric orientation emphasises qualities such as independence, uniqueness, and self-reliance and sees themselves as separate from others in their group. They also prioritise individual goals more than collective goals.
Collectivist constructionist model of independence-interdependence (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Kitayama & Markus, 1995).
This theory explains community-specific differences.
Core cultural ideas are visible in the main philosophical texts and institutions within a society. These influence customs, norms, practices and institutional policies.
In cultures that value independence, such as the American culture, the values are reflected in educational and legal systems, employment and caretaking practices, and individual emotions, cognitions, and motivations.
In cultures that value interdependence, such as the Asian culture, the individual self is recognised as part of a larger social context, and interconnected with others.
Culture as Intergroup Relations: Social identity theories
John Berry, Marilynn Brewer, and Henri Tajfel developed social identity theories based on the categorisation of social groups by all societies.
Tajfel indicated that social identity is formed based on attitudes towards one’s group and is related to prejudice, intergroup conflict, culture and acculturation.
Brewer suggested that one’s social identity is developed based on their need for feeling included and being a unique part of a group. She referred to this as people seeking an “optimal level of distinctiveness”.
Ethnic identity changes across contexts and through the life span. For example, through immigration.
Research shows that people’s sense of ethnic identity is linked with self esteem and psychological wellbeing. For example, students with a strong sense of identity with their Hispanic culture through language, family ties and connections with peers were more likely to associate with ethnic student organisations and feel positively with their personal and group identity. On the other hand, students with a lesser sense of ethnic identity did not associate as much with ethnic student organisations and responded to threat with negative emotions and negative self-esteem.
Social identity is also associated with achievement and feelings of efficacy.
The link between universal theories and achievements in specific groups
Universal theories of health, success and competence could lead to (inaccurate) explanations of the differences between diverse groups; specifically, that there are deficits in certain groups because of the differences.
However, psychological evidence suggests that differences across groups do not mean deficits in any one group.
For example, collectivistic cultures have shown that group attitudes of familism were associated with positive school performance.
Some of the strengths of the individualism-collectivism theories are that they challenge psychological theories about universality.
The limitations of such theories are that they emphasise differences between cultural groups and suggest that groups hold mutually exclusive, stable and uniform beliefs, when there is a lot of variation because of immigration and the consequent cultural diversity in societies.
Examine psychological theories that explain behaviour based on cultural context.
Culture as context: Ecological Systems Theories
Urie Bronfenbrenner developed the ecological systems model of psychological development.
This model is based on the interaction of people with their environment.
The immediate social environments that people interact with are known as the microsystem.
The links across microsystems are known as mesosystems.
People also then interact with the outward exosystems and macrosystems.
All of the interactions are examined across historical time or across chronosystems.
In the model, culture is described as societal customs and values that lie within the exosystem.
Since Bronfenbrenner’s initial work, researchers view culture in the meanings that people derive from their experiences across contexts.
For example, research shows that the way adults were supported was important to the way children were able to cope with trauma. This demonstrates that social settings can influence feelings of safety or insecurity. This in turn impacts on children’s development.
When children move beyond their families, their identity may be influenced by their perception of risks or protective factors.
The limitations of these theories are that children’s development are not considered in light of their interactions with their peers, schools, and communities.
The theories also do not consider how all ecosystems constantly change.
Culture as Caste: Cultural-Ecological theories of adaptation in stratified societies
John Ogbu was a cultural anthropologist. He developed the cultural-ecological theory to counter other theories that explained the lack of competence among some children from certain ethnic minority backgrounds due to cultural deficiencies in their childhood or because of their ‘genetic inferiority’.
According to Ogbu, some children had academic difficulties because of the inequity in their educational opportunities.
With the influence of historical, cultural, and ecological conditions, children’s development is affected in a sequential manner: initially, all families aspire for better educational opportunities for their children; however, as they encounter barriers, they do not have high expectations for their children’s educational outcomes. The children then could affirm parental and peer expectations by not extending their capabilities.
Thus, “situational ethnicity” affects development.
Overall, the cultural anthropologists who have examined the relationship between social position and psychological consequences have addressed the influence of inequalities in access to opportunities on performance.
The limitation of this framework is that it does not examine variation and change within communities, for example, when the access to opportunities increases among some of the ethnic minority families and children.
Evaluate the psychological theories that incorporate a culture capital perspective to explain behaviour.
Culture as Capital: Theories of structure, agency, and social capital
Social capital refers to the relationships and networks people have, which are beneficial for them.
Pierre Bourdieu indicates that social capital is cumulative, thus, the more networks one has, the more beneficial it is.
Bourdieu and John Coleman suggested that social capital arises from the family and networks with elite families that benefit their children in school and beyond.
Research has examined whether people from low-income families can also be sources of cultural capital.
Research shows that children from low-income, immigrant families bring cultural knowledge and information used in their families to succeed in daily life, along with community-based knowledge that can be used by teachers and others.
This shows the importance of cultural knowledge and the use of culture as capital to progress in life.
Youth from different backgrounds negotiate their progress in education and employment through their social networks.
The concepts of social capital are useful for understanding the influence of culture in the academic achievement of youth from different countries.
Through their research, it was found that youth migrated across the borders of family, peers, and school in four prototypic patterns:
a. Some adolescents crossed borders smoothly when the people in their immediate group held similar aspirations and expectations for them.
b. Another group had different aspirations compared to their peers in terms of culture, social class or religion, but were able to manage the crossing of the “worlds”.
c. A third group had done well when their teachers showed a personal interest in them, but withdrew from others around them. Thus they found it more difficult to “cross the border”.
d. A fourth group found it extremely difficult to manoeuvre across borders and separated themselves from everyone around them.
People were able to move across boundaries seamlessly when they were supported by friends and family and teachers.
Other research shows that some youth continue to succeed in education and employment even when there is a cultural mismatch. This occurred through persistence and when family, friends, and teachers had supported them.
Overall, the field of psychology needs to broaden its scope in not only integrating demographic categories with psychological constructs, but also cultural processes in both psychological and structural terms. It is not sufficient when psychologists examine psychological phenomena in one (usually non-diverse) sample and assume that those psychological processes are universal.
