Cultural Psychology
Module 1
Culture = a unique meaning and information system, shared by a group and
transmitted across generations. It’s a group who meet basic needs of survival,
pursue happiness and well-being, and derive meaning from life.
It’s also a pair of glasses that we are looking through- a schema to help us
evaluate and organize information. This can link to ethnocentrism: viewing the
world through one’s own cultural filters.
Cultural Psychology = The field of psychology that studies the cultural
influences on psychological processes and behavior.
Latitudinal psychology = distance from the equator (evenaar) can predict
country levels of psychological variables, such as creativity, aggressiveness, life
satisfaction, individualism, trust and suicidality.
Goals (doelen) of cross-cultural psychology:
1. Build a body of knowledge about people
A. transport and test hypotheses and findings to other cultural settings
B. Explore cultures in order to discover cultural and psychological
similarities and
differences
C. Integrate findings into a more universal psychology
2. Improve people’s lives.
WEIRD people = Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic. Most
psychological research is based on these people, however this is not
representative for mankind.
Sampling bias = when a study is not representative of the population from which
it was drawn.
Culture is built of 4 sources:
1. Group life = life in a group increases the chance of surviving.
2. Environment = temperature or population density (bevolkingsdichtheid).
3, Resources = like water, ground. But also money can affect the culture.
4. Increasing human mind = people have a psychological ‘toolkit’ to adapt and
survive, such as norms and values. VB. Shared intentionality, which means that
everyone knows the same rules for expressing emotions.
!! Different culture manures:
1. Absolutism: psychology is everywhere the same.
2. Relativism: underlying processes are different (the meaning of the
greeting).
3. Universalism: underlying processes are the same, expressions may be
different. This is
the best way to describe culture greetings.
Good to know: society and country is not the same as culture.
Ethics = universal psychology processes or behavior
Emics = culture specific processes or behavior
,Race = term to categorize people based on physical characteristics. It’s more of a
social construction than biological essential.
Ethnicity = group characterized by a common nationality, geographic origin,
culture of language.
Objective elements are music, food, art, social media.
Subjective elements are more important, such as values, beliefs, norms,
attitudes, worldviews.
Values: Hofstede individualism/collectivism
According to Hofstede, work-related values can be classified into dimensions:
1. Power distance (acceptance of hierarchy, low is more equality)
2. Individualism/collectivism
3. Masculinity/femininity (rolls of woman/men in culture, femininity is
more well-being)
4. Uncertainty avoidance (how people think about uncertainty and
taking risks)
5. Long term/short-term orientation new (focus on future or
traditions)
6. Indulgence new (self-control or lack of control)
Values describe what is right to do in situations.
Criticism: de dimensions have a low face validity, only a small
part of the
differences between countries can be attributed to the
dimensions, the
dimensions Long-term and Indulgence are difficult to
understand.
Worldviews: independent and interdependent self (Markus & Kitayama)
The self as the mediator of individualist/collectivist cultural differences: it’s
construal differs across cultures.
Japanese, Asian cultures, African, Latina-American, Southern European
cultures.
Beliefs: social axioms (Bond & Leung)
Social axioms = general beliefs and premises about oneself, the social and
physical environments, and the spiritual world; they are assertions about the
association between two of more entities or concepts.
Dynamic externality = beliefs concerning external forces such as fate, a
supreme being, and spirituality. “good deeds will be rewarded, and bad deeds will
be punished’’.
Societal cynicism = an apprehension (wantrouwen) or pessimism of the world.
“kind-hearted people usually suffer losses”.
Western country’s score low at dynamic externality and societal cynicism, but
country’s as Pakistan score high.
Norms: tightness-looseness (Gelfand)
tightness and looseness referred to how strong norms are.
Tight = strong norms, low tolerance for deviant behavior. In these cultures, you
have a lot of rules, a lot of educated people and a strong government.
Loose = weak norms, high tolerance for deviant behavior.
How a culture behaves depends on its norms. When there is a tight norm in a
,culture, the rules are stricter, the consequences are more severe, and everyone
tends to be more individualistic. An example of such behavior within a culture is
the response to COVID.
The Netherlands has a more loose culture, because of the freedom,
independency and openness. But COVID in the Netherlands was a more tight
culture (temporary).
Module 2
Types of studies:
1. Exploratory studies: examines the existence of cross-cultural similarities or
differences (verkennend).
+ broad scope for identifying similarities and differences
- limited capability to solve the causes of differences
2. Hypothesis-testing studies: examines why cultural differences exist. Inferences
promote cross-cultural biases and inequivalence.
3. Structure-orientated studies: comparison of a culture’s constructs, structures,
or relationships among constructs with those of another culture.
Same as qualitative study: both want to understand the structure and why
and how.
4. Level oriented studies: comparison of mean levels of scores between cultures.
Same as quantitative study: both measure between cultures and look at
measurement data.
Levels of research:
1. Individual-level studies: individual participants provide data and are the units
of analysis.
2. Ecological (cultural) studies: countries or cultures are the units of analysis, for
example Hofstede.
3. Multilevel studies: involve data collection at multiple levels of analysis. For
example students in different groups, educations.
Distinguishing (onderscheid) in levels is important because isomorphism is
not a given. This means that relations between variables are not the same at
different levels. VB: relationship between obesity and health is different on
individual-level then on national level the Simpsons paradox: a relationship
exist in a certain level but not in another level.
Ecological fallacy = error where conclusions about individuals are drawn based on
data collected at the group level. This is a common error in behavioral studies.
Dichotomies =refers to: OR individuality OR collectivistic. So there’s nothing in
between.
Cultural essentialism = belief that certain cultural groups have characteristics
that define them because of their culture.
Fundamental attribution error = tendency to overemphasize personal
characteristics or internal factors when explaining someone else’s behavior,
, without thinking of external factors.
Cultural attribution error = explain people’s behaviors based on cultural
context rather than individual factors. solution: linkage study.
Linkage studies = studies that try to asses an aspect of culture that is
hypothesized to produced cultural differences and then empirically link this
measured as aspect of culture with the dependent variable of interest. There are
2 types of linkage studies:
1. Unpackaging studies: separate the contents of the global, unspecific concept
of culture into specific, measurable psychological constructs and examine their
contribution to cultural differences. Important for that: lots of contextual
information.
So with these studies you ‘unpack’ the concept into specific concepts to
examine something.
2. Experiments: researcher create conditions to cause effect relationships. There
are 2 groups and participants are randomly assigned into those groups. Two
types:
- Priming studies: involve experimentally manipulating the mindsets of
participants and
measuring resulting changes in behavior.
- Behavioral studies: involve manipulations of environmental and
observation of
changes in behavior.
Bias = differences in collecting data because of systematic deviations
(afwijkingen). If bias exists in cross-cultural comparative study, the comparison
loses its meaning.
VB. Punctuality in different cultures in some cultures it’s more polite to come
later.
Equivalence = state or condition of similarity in conceptual meaning and
empirical method between cultures. VB. Miles vs. Kilometer.
These constructs go hand in hand; bias refers to a state of nonequivalence,
and equivalence refers to a state of no bias. In a strict sense, the greater the bias
in any aspect of a cross-cultural study, the less meaning the comparison has.
3 types of bias:
1. Construct bias = construct is not identical in cultures/groups. In Western
cultures happiness references to personal achievement, but in not-Western
cultures in reference to connections. To resolve construct bias, you must
recognize the biases of the constructs.
2. Method bias = it relates to sampling, measurement instruments and
administration:
A. Sampling bias: when a study is not representative of the population
from which it was
drawn.
B. Measurement bias: not all measurement instruments are equally valid
across cultures:
- Stimulus familiarity: it has a impact when participants are familiar
with the stimuli.
- Response styles: systematically tendencies to use certain responses.
