Chapter 1: ‘Understanding Cross-Cultural Psychology’
Cross-cultural psychology: The critical and comparative study of cultural effects on human
psychology. Human actions and mental sets (formed and developed in various environments) may
fluctuate from group to group. These kinds of differences and similarities, and the underlying
reasons, are studied by cross-cultural psychology.
Why is cross-cultural psychology different from cultural psychology?
- Because cultural psychology advocates the idea that behaviour and mental processes are essentially
the products of an interaction between culture and the individual. Cross-cultural psychology cares
not only about differences among groups, but also establishes psychological universals; phenomena
common for people in many or almost all places in the world.
Culture: A set of attitudes, behaviors and symbols shared by a large group of people and usually
communicated from one generation to the next.
Attitudes: beliefs, values, general knowledge, opinions, superstitions, stereotypes.
Behaviors: wide variety of norms, roles, customs, traditions, habits, practices and fashions.
Symbols: represent things or ideas, the meaning of which is bestowed on them by people.
Cultures have explicit and implicit characteristics:
- Explicit: The set of observable acts regularly found in this culture, like costumes and typical
behavioural responses or observable practices.
- Implicit: Such as the organizing principles that are inferred to lie behind explicit regularities, for
example grammar.
How does the term ‘culture’ differ from ‘race’, ‘ethnicity’ and ‘nationality?
- Race: a group of people distinguished by similar and genetically transmitted physical characteristics.
- Ethnicity: Indicates cultural heritage, the experience shared by people who have a common
ancestral origin, language, traditions and often religion and geographic territory.
- Nationality: Group of people who share the same geographical origin, history and language and are
unified as a political entity.
Religious affiliation: an individual’s acceptance of knowledge, beliefs and practices related to a
particular faith.
Knowledge in Cross-Cultural Psychology:
1) Scientific knowledge: Derived from systematic observation, measurement and evaluation.
2) Popular beliefs: Everyday assumptions ranging from commonly held beliefs to individual opinions
about psychological phenomena.
3) Ideological (human value-based): Stable set of beliefs about the world, the nature of good and
evil, the purpose of human life; all based on a particular organizing principal or central idea.
4) Legal knowledge: Knowledge encapsulated in the law and detailed in official rule and principles
related to psychological functioning of individuals.
Two types of cultural roots:
- Traditional culture: a cultural construct based on traditions, rules, symbols and principles
established predominantly in the past.
- Non-traditional (modern) culture: based on new principles, ideas and practices.
,The prevalence of science-based knowledge and technology-driven developments are associated
with non-traditional cultures, these cultures are dynamic while traditional cultures are more
restricting and conservative.
Empirical examination/labels of culture:
- Power distance: The extent to which the members of a society accept that power in institutions and
organizations is distributed unequally. Most people in ‘high-power distance’ cultures accept
inequality between the leaders and the common.
- Uncertainty orientation: Refers to common ways used to handle uncertainty in their lives. This is
measured by the difference between ‘uncertainty acceptance’ and ‘uncertainty avoidance’.
- Uncertainty avoidance: The degree to which society feels uncomfortable with uncertainty and
ambiguity. People in ‘high uncertainty avoidance’ cultures tend to support beliefs promising certainty
and to maintain institutions protecting conformity. People in low cultures tend to maintain
nonconformist attitudes and new forms of thinking and behaviour. They don’t tend to refer to rules
like people in high cultures do.
- Individualism: Complex behaviour based on concern for oneself and one’s immediate family or
primary group as opposed to concern for other groups or society to which one belongs.
- Collectivism: Behavior based on concerns for others and care for traditions and values.
Individualism: Independence
Collectivism: Interdependence
Cultural syndromes: ‘the pattern, or combination of shared attitudes, beliefs, categorizations,
definitions, norms and values that is organized around a theme, that can be identified among those
who speak a particular language, during a specific historic period, in a definable geographic region.’
Examples of cultural syndromes: tightness, cultural complexity, honor, embeddedness (focus on
the welfare of the in-group rather than the out-group).
Several approaches to examine human activities in various cultural settings:
1) Evolutionary approach: explores the ways in which evolutionary end factors affect human
behavior and experience and thus lay a natural foundation for human culture.
2) Sociological approach: general view of human behavior that focuses on broad social structures
that influence society as a whole, and subsequently its individuals. Theories suggest that social forces
shape the behavior of large social groups, and humans develop and adjust their individual responses
in accordance to the demands and pressures of larger social groups and institutions.
3) Eco-cultural approach: the individual is not a passive and static, influenced by the environment.
The individual is a dynamic human being who interacts with and changes the environment. John
Berry suggest that among the major environmental factors influencing individual psychology are:
- Ecological context: the natural setting; including economic activity, presence or absence of food,
population density etc.
- Socio-political context: the extent to which people participate in global and local decisions; includes
various ideological values, organization of the government and presence or lack of political freedom.
4) Cultural mixtures approach: Because the process of globalization involves so many areas of
human activities and crosses so many cultural and national boundaries, the psychological values of
tolerance and openness become essential in people’s lives. Psychologists have developed three views
on how local cultures will respond to globalization:
- Globalization will inevitably lead to the weakening of local cultures and the development of a new
international culture: individualism, competition and pursuit of efficiency will become global trends.
, - Globalization will eventually pull cultures further apart: the importance of local traditions and
ethnic customs will be maintained by most people’s fear of globalization, which will spark many
ethnic and religious conflicts between different cultures.
- Globalization will probably make a difference for the people who have access to modern
technologies, education and travel. The others will remain in relative isolation.
To combine and critically apply these and other approaches, it is important to be aware of two
general concepts: activity and availability of resources.
- Activity: Process of the individual’s goal-directed interaction with the environment. Human
motivation, emotion and reaction can’t be separated from human activity and is determined by
environmental conditions but also changes these conditions.
- Availability/access to resources is another important factor that unifies and separates people and
cultures from one another. The access to resources affects many aspects of culture and individual
behavior.
Indigenous psychology: The scientific study of human behavior, or the mind, that is designed for a
people and native not transported from other regions. Indigenous psychology are characterized by
the use of conceptions and methodologies associated exclusively with the cultural group under
investigation.
Ethnocentrism: The view that supports judgment about other ethnic, national and cultural groups
and events from the observer’s own ethnic, national, or cultural group’s outlook. Ethnocentrism
narrows our perception of other countries and social groups and is also a distortion of reality. (In
most cases, being ethnocentric is also judging from the position of a cultural majority).
Multiculturalism: Seeks equality in treatment for all social and cultural groups and promotes the idea
that various cultural groups have the right to follow their own values and practices.
