Lec 1: intro and research methods
CH1
culture influences:
- What constitutes as health or illness- culture-specific illnesses
- What is thought to cause health/illness- personalistic vs mechanistic view
- What should be done for health or against illness- health care-seeking habits,
acceptable health care practices
Personalistic- personal reason
Mechanistic- something wrong with the machine of the body
Culture- set of implicit or explicit guidelines/info that individuals acquire as members of a
particular society or context:
- How to View of world
- How to Experience emotions
- How to Behave in relation to others,
- To supernatural forces or gods,
- To the natural environment
To qualify as a culture:
- Members exist within shared context
- Communicate with eachother
- Norms that distinguish them from other groups
- Common practices and ideas
Enculturation- a way of transmitting cultural guidelines to the next generation
Helman (2007)- lens through which individual perceives and understands the world and
learns how to live with it
Challenges to definitions:
- Cultural boundaries are not distinct- unclear
- Are dynamic and change over time- unstable
- Many variations within cultures- person-related variables are very large (
temperament, unique history, unique collection of social groups)
3 levels of culture
1. Tertiary level- explicit manifest culture- clothes, food, festivities, visible to others-
façade of a culture
2. Secondary level- underlying shared beliefs and rules- social norms, rarely shared
with outsiders
, 3. Primary or deepest level- rules known to and obeyed by all, implicit so outside
general awareness, stable and resistant to change- roots
Ethnocentrism- perceiving ones own culture as standard of comparison- tendency to
judge others negatively by comparing to own culture
If own personal beliefs go unchallenged they also often go unnoticed
2 approaches to cross-cultural psychology:
1. Absolutist approach
Psych phenomena are the same across cultures, processes and behaviors vary
2. Relativist approach
Psych phenomena only exist within the context of culture
3. In between
Psych processes are shaped by experience, but all humans share the same biological
constraints
Father of modern cultural psychology: Richard Shweder
General Psych: Focus on universals and sometimes tries to control for cultural variation,
mind is independent of context or content
Mind is conceived as a central processing unit (CPU) that operates independently
Context and content= unwanted noise that obstruct CPU, control for noise to better
understand the mind, culture lies outside of CPU
Cultural psych: focus on cultural variation in terms of psych consequences of culture:
- Assumes mind and culture are entangled
- Assumes thoughts are shaped by contexts
- Studies diff meaning systems originating from different environments
Culture provides meaning to actions
Universal vs cultural variability
- Depends on definition
More abstract definitions→ evidence for universality
More concrete definitions→ evidence for variability
e.g. marriage
,Degrees of universality : start at bottom right
1. Non-universal→ cultural tool not found in
all cultures
e.g. abacus
2. Existential → cognitive tool found in all
cultures that serves different function(s)
and is available to some degree in diff
cultures
e.g. increased persistence in the face of failure
3. Functional→ cognitive tool found in all
cultures that serves the same function but
is accessible to diff degrees in diff cultures
e.g. fairness-based punishments
4. Accessibility→ cognitive tool that serves
the same function to all cultures and is
accessible to the same degree
e.g. Social facilitation and task performance
5 Cultural dimensions theory (Hofstede, 2001)
1. Individualism-Collectivism
How independent is a culture
2. Uncertainty Avoidance
How do people deal with ambiguity
3. Power Distance
How hierarchical is a culture
4. Long-term/short term orientation
Connection with tradition, also economic orientation
5. Masculinity/femininity
How distinct are gender roles- distribution of classical male/female traits
Challenges to theory:
- Not absolute, other dimensions possible
- Makes generalizations- doesn’t consider groups vary in homogeneity (indiv
differences, layers w/in cultures)
- But Hofstede is most dominant theory
Example of layers within cultures: SES
- Rich of diff cultures may have more in common than with the poor of the same
culture
, - SES interacts with culture
Differences w/in western cultures :
- Smoking behaviour- higher in lower SES, attempts to quit are greater in higher SES
- Alcohol consumption- predicted by lower SES
- Diet- higher SES→ balanced and healthy food intake
CH 4: Research Methods
WEIRD population
Western
Educated
Industrialized
Rich
Democratic
2003-2007: made up 96% of psych research, represents 16% of worlds population, 70%
were psych undergrads
Large contrasts between each groups (e.g. educated vs non educated)
Also diff in:
- Visual perception
- Fairness
- Cooperation
- Spatial reasoning
Etc
Problems w/ WEIRD:
- Generalizability
- Power (the capacity to detect an effect to the extent that such an effect really exists)
Dealing with differences: 2 approaches
- Color-blind approach
Emphasize human nature, ignore cultural diff
- Multicultural approach
Recognizes that group identities are different → most supported, more positive response
Goals of RM:
- Describe
- Explain
- Predict
- Change behavior
Approaches
- Qualitative
- Quantitative
