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Comparing Cultures Lecture Notes
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Summary of the lectures of week 1 to 8 of Comparing Cultures. Includes the notes from the powerpoints, the pictures from the powerpoints, and the notes from the teacher.
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Lecture 1: Culture and Cross-Cultural PsychologyCourse goals
- Identify and comprehend core epistemological and methodological questions
- Formulate plausible explanations for cultural differences
- Indicate how insights from cross-cultural psychology can be applied in practice
- Evaluate the quality of cultural comparative research, and take a critical stance toward
‘traditional’ (mainstream) psychological research
- Explain and discuss cross-cultural psychological knowledge
Statistics
Correlation
- Statistical index r, for the association between two quantitative measures
- Ranges from -1 to +1
- Can be displayed in a scatterplot
- Differences (variance required. Dots have to be scattered for there to be a scatterplot.
Generalizability
- To what extent can you apply your research findings to the population your sample was
drawn from
- Test for significance: the probability (p) that your findings are absent in the population (and
hence coincidental)
o The probability of no correlation in the population
o The probability of no means differences in the population
- p has to be as small as possible
- normally p < 0.05, but better is p < 0.01
Definitions and positions
Whom is psychology about?
- When I mention a psychological subject, I mean a subject from a western industrialized
culture; and not only from a western industrialized culture, but an American; and not only an
American, but a college student” (Jahoda, 1970, p. 2)
- Arnett, J.J. (2008). The neglected 95%: Why American psychology needs to become less
American.
WEIRD:
- Western
- Educated
- Industrialized
- Rich
- Democratic
Cross-cultural psychology defined:
- The scientific study of human behavior and its transmission, taking into account the ways in
which behaviors are shaped and influenced by social and cultural forces (Segal et al., 1992)
- Focus on:
o What is fundamental and basic about human nature, and what is malleable and likely
to emerge in a different form depending on the ways in which particular individuals
are socialized? (Smith, Bond, & Kağitcibaşi, 2006)
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,Goals (Berry et al., 1992):
1. Testing the generality of existing psychological knowledge and theories (transport and test
goal)
2. Exploring other cultures in order to discover psychological variations not present in one’s
own limited cultural experience. Tries to discover new phenomena, here cross-cultural
psychologists can learn from anthropologists.
3. Integrating findings resulting from first 2 goals to generate a more universal psychology valid
for a broader range of cultures
An old anthropological definition of culture
- 6 classes of definitions (Kroeber & Kluckhohn; 1952): Descriptive; Historical; Normative;
Structural; ‘Genetic’; Psychological
- Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and
transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including
their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e.,
historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values → do not
memorize this definition, but is shows how complicated culture is.
- Cultural systems may on the one hand be considered as products of action, on the other as
conditional elements of further action
Culture as defined in this course: Culture is the totality of equivalent and complementary learned
meanings by a human population, or by identifiable segments of a population, and transmitted from
one generation to the next (Rohner, 1984).
Origins and (in)stability:
- Cultures are evoked and transmitted (Heine, 2016)
- Evoked: biologically based behavioral repertoires are ‘elicited’ by environments. The
environment determines our behavior and therefore culture.
- Transmitted: behavioral repertoires are acquired via social learning
Evoked culture:
- Adaptions to environments
o Ecological contexts and social political contexts
o Eco-cultural framework p.59
- Similar environments → similar cultures
o Example: agriculture → more conformism, your dependent on each other;
hunting/gathering → more independence, less focused on the group and more on
the self
- Different environments → different cultures
o More interdependence in rice-growing versus wheat-growing regions in China. Rice
growing is much more collective than wheat growing.
Transmitted culture
- Imitation, explicit instruction, communication of ideas
- Once it exists it becomes relative independent from environment
o Stability: ‘Functional autonomy’ of cultures
Self-affirming and ‘immune’ to ‘external’ influences (e.g., migration)
Edgerton’s (1971) study in East-Africa: herders and farmers from the same tribe shared similar
cultural orientations.
o Change: exposure to new ideas
Contact between cultures: Borrowing and assimilation
Chinese version of Buddhism
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,Traditional social science approaches (Kashima, 2000)
Study of culture (Kashima, 2000)
What is the right approach?
- No “either-or” answers
- Nowadays, consensus:
o Culture is an integral part of human nature
o Human development is a process of enculturation
o Culture and mind are complementary
o “Psychological agents generate culture, but culture too shapes the agents’ minds”
- Empiricist approach relatively popular in cross-cultural psychology
Three positions 1 (Berry et al., 1992)
- Absolutism: People from different cultures can be meaningfully compared: psychological
phenomena are similar across cultures, but their quantities differ. We are all human we can
compare phenomena. The differences found are quantitative
o E.g., meaningful comparisons of personality or intelligence tests
Three positions 2 (Berry et al., 1992)
- Relativism: quantitative comparisons are meaningless because they are culturally biased.
They always rely on concepts from one culture, the researcher’s. People should be
understood in their own terms.
o Only qualitative comparisons are meaningful
Three positions 3 (Berry et al., 1992)
- Universalism: all people share basic psychological processes but their manifestations differ
across cultures.
o Cross-cultural comparisons can be made after these manifestation differences have
been taken into account
Comparability in this course:
- Moderate universalism
- Comparisons are possible once differences in manifestation are taken into account
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, - But differences are not always superficial, sometimes different processes are involved
- Example page 15, 16 book: different levels of conformity for different reasons. Different
reasons for people to go along with e.g. the majority.
Measurements of culture
- Cross-cultural approach: meanings. This definition is limited, but this is necessary to do
research
o beliefs: what is true?
o values: what is desirable? Typically focused on by cross-cultural psychologists
- Large-scale survey research
- Important researchers: Hofstede, Schwartz, Inglehart
Hofstede’s research (60s-70s):
- Existing data on employee morale in multinational (IBM)
- Same questions in many different countries
- Example items
o ‘Company rules should not be broken, even if it is in the company’s best interest’
o ‘It is important for me to have personal time’
- Typically scored on 5 point Likert scale
o 1 completely disagree 2 disagree 3 neutral 4 agree 5 completely agree
- Factor analysis on country-averaged itemscores
Factor analysis:
- Procedure to examine the total pattern of correlations of items
- Can be used to decide which items flock together (strong intercorrelations among
themselves but weak with others)
- … and thus, which items can be included in scales (average scores on items)
Hofstede’s dimensions (country/level)
- Power Distance
- Uncertainty Avoidance: these countries find it important to have procedures on all kind of
things.
- Individualism – Collectivism
- Masculinity – Femininity: refers to the degree to which countries are focused on
cooperation (referred to as a feminine concept) and to which countries are focused on
competition (considered a masculine concept)
(Book Table 2.1, p. 28)
-NB 1: Dimensions (or variables, or scales, or factors) refer to characteristics which show
variation between units (in this case countries).
- NB 2: Without variation they do not exist. These are only aspects on which countries are
different and not so much on the communalities
Commentary
- Measures (items) were formulated for another goal (employee morale)
o E.g., ‘Employees are afraid to disagree with their managers
- Are countries the appropriate unit for measuring culture?
- Do individuals in groups represent their culture?
- Are groups different with respect to culture only?
- Research is not about individuals
- These dimensions have been replicated, despite this commentary
Culture at different levels
- As characteristics of groups (nations/populations): culture
o Implies sharedness
▪ Variation between groups
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