Lecture 1 Introduction to social and cross-cultural
psychology
Week 1 chapters 2 and 3
Part 2 of the lecture: What is social psychology?
How do people respond to someone needing help?
The bystander effect:
The larger the number of bystanders, the less likely any one bystander will intervene or
help.
Diffusion of responsibility: in a big group it is not always clear who is going to act.
Audience inhibition, the fear of embarrassment: what if you help someone who does not
actually need help?
Modelling of ‘nothing has happened’ (pluralistic ignorance)
Exceptions: dangerous emergencies, shared social relationships of bystanders.
a. How can you prevent the bystander effect?
Make it clear that you need help.
Assign responsibility.
b. Why would this be social psychology?
Pro-social behavior is discussed.
Interactions between individuals and groups of people.
One person needs to act: influenced by whether and how others act.
Individual in context of social setting – the power of social influence.
“The lack of response may lie more in the bystander’s response to other observers than in
indifference to the victim” (Darley & Latane, 1968)
c. Definition of social psychology.
Scientific study of the way in which peoples’ thoughts, feelings and behaviors are influenced
by the real or imagined presence of other people.
Part 1 of the course – how we perceive ourselves and others in social environment (social
cognitive processes).
Part 2 of the course – how our relations with others influence our behavior (social
relationships between people).
d. What do social psychologists do?
Empirical research.
Many effects, many theories.
In the lectures connections and vision between theories are really important.
Relation research – application.
e. Two examples of application
Social psychology provides
insight into mechanisms (1).
Why do people engage in such
mass protests? See picture on
the right.
Social psychology provides
insight into mechanisms (2).
The earthquakes in Groningen
due to gas extraction by
,national gas company, providing important government income. Why did people not protest
on a large scale against this phenomenon? What is the psycho-social impact of gas
extraction?
Part 3 of the lecture: What is cross cultural social psychology?
a. What is culture?
Culture refers to different aspects of our living environment and our behavior.
- Patterns in our social behavior.
- Our habits and traditions.
- Social norms and rules.
- The way our society is organized.
The totality of learned meanings maintained by a human population or by identifiable
segments of a population, and transmitted from one generation to the next.
b. How do different disciplines integrate culture?
Social psychologists generally tend to look at the social behavior of ‘the people’.
Cross-cultural psychologists discuss the differences between the cultures.
Cultural psychology examines the influence of culture on social psychological processes. For
example, the influence of Japanese culture on the concept self.
Culture’s impact:
- Cognition
- Self-construal
- Interpersonal relations
- Group processes
- Intergroup relations
- Intercultural relations
c. Two examples to illustrate the influence of culture.
In the Turkish culture you are seen as part of a group, what would other people think? In the
Netherlands the culture is more individual. This results to a difference in the way you see
yourself. Thus, the way you see yourself could be influenced by culture.
The second example is a research conducted proposing two scenarios:
1. Irene sees her neighbor working in the garden and offers to help.
2. Sarah’s neighbor helped her in the garden a week ago. Now Sarah sees her neighbor
working in the garden and offers to help her.
After reading the two scenarios the following question was asked:
How helpful are Sarah and Irene? With the options, Irene is more helpful than Sarah, both
Irene and Sarah are equally helpful, and Sarah is more helpful than Irene.
Irene is more helpful because she had an internal motivation to help and Sarah helped her
neighbor because she had been helped before.
Based on this principle they concluded helping behavior is a cross cultural interpretation.
Cultural differences in moral rightness:
- India: Interdependence – helping is a moral obligation.
- US: Individually oriented – helping involves choice.
Thus, perceptions of helping behavior can differ between cultures.
z.o.z
, d. Where does culture ‘come from’? Where does
it originate from?
See picture on the right, starting at the first block.
e. Climate and culture.
We can study culture by trying to understand why
there are cultural differences in feeling good and
doing good. Where do these differences come from?
Two assumption:
1. Deviance from ideal temperature (22 degrees)
requires more cultural adaptation.
2. Adaptation also dependent on financial
resources.
Thus, climate and financial resources to deal with the
climate influence culture.
Three types of culture:
1. Survival cultures (harsh climate poor): unhappy, physical/economic security, extrinsic
work motivation, discrimination, distrust.
2. Self-expression cultures (harsh climate/rich): happy, self-actualization, quality of life,
intrinsic work motivation, tolerance, trust.
3. Easygoing cultures (moderate climates/poor or rich): average position, traditional,
religious. There are not a lot of challenges.
f. How can we measure culture?
Conceptualizing culture by Hofstede.
Examine attitudes, values, and beliefs that color our everyday interpretation of culture.
A certain number of national differences.
1. Power distance: are differences in power accepted?
2. Individualism-collectivism: individual or group?
3. Masculinity/femininity: gender roles differentiated or similar?
4. Uncertainty avoidance: is uncertainty threatening and avoided?
These concepts are no longer used but they still give a perspective. We have learned a lot
more and these scales are not as strong.
Schwartz elaborates on how to measure culture by
stating that cultures differ along 3 dimensions.
The yellow: How do individuals relate to the group?
Similar to the question of Hofstede.
The blue: Who is responsible for social behavior?
The purple: What kind of relationship do we have to the
environment? Do we see ourselves in harmony with the
environment or do we want to master and achieve,
which comes with less care for the climate?
Check the book. Additionally, in the last lecture this is
again discussed.
, Questions to consider during this course:
What do you think culture is?
How deep does culture cut into social psychological phenomena and processes?
How universal are certain phenomena and processes?
How important is it to take into account culture? When and in what way?
What is your personal view on this?
Lecture 2 social perception
Week 1 chapters 2 and 3
Part 1 of the lecture: link to the previous lecture and what is social perception?
a. What are social and cross-cultural psychology?
(Default) Social psychology approach: universal characteristics of people determine our
behavior.
Opposing this, cultural psychology approach: characteristics of culture, situation, moment
determine our behavior.
b. What is social perception?
How do we perceive others?
- We form initial impressions of people’s external characteristics (person perception).
- We seek explanations for their behavior (=attributions). Why do things happen?
- We interpret their non-verbal behavior (body language, emotions).
Part 2 of the lecture: impression-formation.
a. How do we perceive others?
Impression are made very quickly and often unconsciously. The impressions are based on
implicit theories about their personality and on certain central characteristics.
