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Minor Cross-Cultural Psychology Summary Part 1 + Part 2
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Summary of all the problems of the Minor Cross-Cultural Psychology at Erasmus University Rotterdam from the 2023/2024 grade.
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SUMMARY CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY PART 1THEME 1: PART 1
Learning goals:
- What is the test of the 10-20 statements? Purpose
- What are the differences and similarities in self concept and identity between cultures?
- Is it a good way to learn about a culture through looking at assumptions, standard
procedures and habits? Or is there more to that?
- Are there other ways to understand other cultures?
SELF-CONCEPT
Independent vs. interdependent self-concepts
The Twenty Statements Test (we saw in the pre-discussion)
Studies using this test show that:
People from Western cultures describe themselves with statements about their inner psychological
characteristics, like attitudes, personality traits and abilities.
People from non-Western cultures describe themselves by stating relational roles and memberships
they possess.
Independent self-concept = attributes are stable across situations and across the lifespan, and are
perceived as unique and significant for regulating behavior
Interdependent self-concept = behavior is determined by their perceptions of other’s thoughts,
feelings and actions. keep in mind how their behavior affects others and take their roles within each
social context into consideration. not a seperate and distinct identity
Self-Consistency vs. Flexibility
Independent self tends to stay consistent across situations, and isn’t influenced by the presence of
others. It exists seperately from others and social contexts
Interdependent self does not stay consistent across situations, since it mainly has to do with social
roles, which vary across situations. As an example, Japanese self-descriptions varied depending on
who was in the room with them
Insider vs. Outsider Experiences
Outsider Perspective = prioritizing the perspective of others
Insider Perspective = prioritizing your own perspective
In interdependent cultures, it is crucial to know how others evaluate you, since you want to fit in the
ingroup (outsider perspective). In independent cultures, there’s more emphasis on your own unique
experiences (insider perspective).
, - East Asians are more likely to recall memories of themselves when they were at the center of
attention in a third-person perspective. The attention to an audience distorts their memories
of themselves.
Frame-switching and the multicultural self
Multicultural people have multiple self-concepts, and their thoughts and responses reflect a mix of
these. Multicultural people activate their different self-concepts depending on situations; frame-
switching.
- Are mono-cultural people able to frame switch? Yes, but to a lesser degree than multi-
cultural people.
Self-Enhancement and Self-Esteem
Self-Enhancement = the desire to view yourself positively
Western → Have high self-esteem and want self-enhancement. Could there be a negative side to
this? If there were something negative presented, you would not be able to handle this. Might also
overestimate yourself.
Non western → Don’t always view themselves in positive terms, more negatively because they want
to improve themselves. East Asians tend to pay more attention to negative information that allows
for self-improvement, instead of having motivation to self-enhance.
Explanations for this cultural difference
- East Asians are more motivated to enhance their group selves rather than individual selves,
and individual self-enhancement gets in the way of group self-enhancement. No studies as of
yet support this.
- East Asians self-enhance in domains that are especially important to them. A meta-analysis
however found no correlation between self-enhancement and importance.
- East Asians are presenting themselves self-critically, but are privately evaluating themselves
in a self-enhancing manner. Studies found mixed results.
Approach and Avoidance
East Asians embrace more personal avoidance goals, rate oppurtunities to lose as more important
than oppurtunities to win, persist more on a task after failure and less after success and are
motivated more by negative role models.
One account for this is that “face” is an important resource in East Asian cultures, and because face is
more easily lost than gained, people attend to avoidance information.
,Agency and Control
Entity theory of the world = the world is fixed and you cannot change it
Incremental theory of the world = the world is flexible and responsive to change
In collectivistic cultures an individual is somewhat powerless in terms of being able to change the
social world. Therefore, East Asians are more likely to have a flexible and incremental view of
themselves instead of the world.
In Western cultures, individuals are viewed as the center of experience and action, and should feel a
stronger sense of primary control.
Honor
cultures of honor are common in contexts where people’s wealth is vulnerable and there is little
institurionalized protection. For the US South, herding was a key component of the early economy,
and herders have vulnerable wealth (livestock can be stolen for example).
RELATIONSHIPS
How people relate with others
The interdependent self is defined by relationships with the ingroup. An interdependent self cannot
be interdependent with everyone, and these relationsips should hold a particularly privileged
position.
The independent self is self-contained and doesn’t change because of interaction with others. There
are fewer consequences associated with distinguishing between ingroup and outgroup members in
many situation.
- whereas European-Americans reacted negatively when choices were made for them by
someone else, regardless of whether the choicemaker was their mother or a stranger, Asian-
American children only reacted negatively when the choicemaker was a stranger
How easily people form relationships
Relationships in independent cultures are formed and maintained on a mutually voluntary basis.
People in independent contexts seek positive and rewarding relationships and will often not put in a
lot of effort to any relationship that isn’t beneficial.
Relationships in interdependent cultures are viewed in less conditional terms. You are born into a
relatively fixed interpersonal network, and after that you join a select few interpersonal networks
that remain somewhat stable.
, STUDY ABOUT INDIVUALIST, COLLECTIVIST
AND AFRICAN SELF-CONCEPT
African self-concept
The African tribal group conception of self is defined by feelings toward wealth, property, family, and
position in the community. The individual in a traditional African society does not aim to master
himself or other things but instead aims to accept a life of harmony with other individuals.
Childrearing practices emphasize teaching children that they are an organic part of a social unit. As a
result, children are trained to work together and help one another. Parents have little time to give to
the individual child; therefore, the child's individuality is not recognized.
In traditional African cultures, family and kin are the most important aspects of an individual's life.
Method
Twenty Statements Test to measre self-concept.
Given this background, we hypothesized that administration of a version of the Twenty Statements
Test to different samples in Kenya would yield the following results:
We expected members ofthe pastoral Samburu and Maasai tribes to respond predominantly with the
social categories indicative of a collective conception of self.
We predicted that a sample of Nairobi residents would display a relatively less collective conception
of self because urbanization, modernization. Westernization, and education in this capital city should
alter the traditional African self-concept to a more individualistic concept of self.
In addition, we believed that a sample of American college students would show a highly
individualistic conception of self.
Finally, because the literature written from a cultural feminist perspective suggests that women's
socialization and experience reflect a collective rather than an individuated self-concept (Sampson,
1988; Schoeneman, 1994), we expected that women would have higher percentages of social
responses and would, therefore, have more collective self-concepts.
Results
The hypothesis has been confirmed:
Americans were most individualistic, followed by Nairobi (which were influenced by education and
urbanisation). Kenyans were mostly collectivistic.
The Nairobi sample showed that students were more individualistic than the collectivistic employees,
who were older and more traditional this also shows that exposure to education and urbanisation
can downgrade the collectivist self.
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