Lectures – Comparing Cultures |
Book – Cultural Psychology
(Steven J. Heine)
Week 1
Lecture 1: Cross-cultural Psychology and Culture
Course 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
Approach: focus on theories, focus on (quantitative) research (but not too technical); means and
correlations, generalizability (statistical significance):
Correlation
- Statistical index r, for the association between two
quantitative measures (e.g., length and shoesize)
- Ranges from -1 to +1
- Can be displayed in a scatterplot
- Differences (variance) required!
- The closer to zero, the less correlation
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);
e.g., the probability of no correlation or no mean differences in the population
- Normally p < 0.05, but the smaller the better
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.
- Psychology has its research over a very small group of our population. Namely white
American college students. Psychology should be researched in different kind of populations
before generalization.
, 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: 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 et al., 2006)
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
3. Integrating findings resulting from first 2 goals to generate a more universal psychology valid
for a broader range of cultures
However, two subdisciplines
- Culture comparative psychology: “psychologically, we are all the same despite our cultural
differences”
- Cultural psychology: “mind and culture influence and complement each other, and therefore
we are often not the same”
- Two flavors, differences are matter of degree
Psychological universals (book p.19)
- Core mental attributes shared by people everywhere
- Human mind as a toolbox;
Same tools?
Same use in same situations?
Same frequencies of use?
- Different levels/degrees of universality
(Possible) examples
- Non-universal (cultural invention) = when a particular
cognitive tool does not exist in all cultures, so there is
an absence of universality. Therefore the cognitive tool is a cultural invention. For example
specific calculation strategies that are used in certain cultures.
- Existential universal (variation in function) = when a particular psychological phenomenon is
cognitively available in all cultures/ exist in multiple cultures, but it is not used in the same
way/ it is not necessarily used to solve the same problem, nor is it equally accessible across
cultures (achieve different ends). For example classification strategies or different intrinsic
motivations.
, - Functional universal (variation in accessibility) = when a psychological phenomenon exist in
multiple cultures, is used to solve the same problems across cultures, but is not equally
accessible to people in all cultures (more accessible to people from some cultures than
others). The cognitive tool serves the same function everywhere, but it may not be used that
much in some cultures. For example internal attributions, differences in punishing with own
earnings.
- Accessibility universal (no variation) = the strongest case for universality and indicates that a
given psychological phenomenon exists in all cultures, is used to solve the same problems
across cultures, and is accessible to the same degree across cultures ( accessibility = the
likelihood of a person using the particular psychological phenomenon). For example mere
exposure effect, understanding the laws of physics among infants.
Different focal points
- Cultural psychology: non-universals & existential universals
- Culture-comparative psychology: functional universals & accessibility universals
An old anthropological definition
- 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, constitution 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
- Cultural systems may on the one hand be considered as products of action, on the other as
conditional elements of further action
The book on culture (p. 5)
- Culture(information) = any kind of information that is acquired from other members of one’s
species through social learning that is capable of affecting an individual’s behaviors
- Culture(group of individuals) = people who are existing within some kind of shared context.
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
- Evoked= biologically based behavioral repertoires are ‘elicited’ by environments. Evoked
culture is the notion that all people, regardless of where they are from, have certain
biologically encoded behavioral repertoires that are potentially accessible to them, and these
repertoires are engaged when the appropriate situational conditions are present.
- Transmitted= behavioral repertoires are acquired via social learning. Transmitted culture is
the notion that people come to learn about particular cultural practices through social
learning or by modeling
, others who live near them.
Berry’s eco-cultural model (2010)
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Evoked culture
- Adaptations to environments;
Ecological contexts and social political contexts
- Similar environments similar cultures;
Example: agriculture more conformism; hunting/gathering more independence
- Different environments different cultures;
E.g., more interdependence in rice-growing versus wheat-growing regions in China
Transmitted culture
- Imitation, explicit instruction, communication of ideas
- Relative independence from environment
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
Change: exposure to new ideas
- Contact between cultures: borrowing and assimilation
- Chinese version of Buddhism
Biological explanations in cross-cultural
psychology
- Biological differences between
cultural groups are highly
contested:
- Racism is an enormous problem
- Race is a social construction, and
only “skin deep”
Still:
- Some genetic differences between groups (e.g., related to physical health, book chapter 13);
Despite evidence for variation within groups and difficulties of drawing group boundaries
- Interest in genetic heritage among highly discriminated groups, e.g., African Americans
Biological explanations for common behaviors
- As a species humans have common genes (the human genome) that evolved due to common
evolutionary pressures related to survival and procreation
