PSYCH108 - CULTURAL 30 KEY POINTS

What is culture?

Shared beliefs, values, customs, and behaviours of a group that develop within groups and are transmitted across people and generations.

What is cultural psychology?

The study of the dynamic interaction between culture and psychological processes, including how culture shapes emotions, cognition, behaviour, and self-concept.

What is the difference between individualism and collectivism?

Individualism emphasises an independent self, personal goals, autonomy, and individual achievement. Collectivism emphasises an interdependent self, group goals, relationships, harmony, conformity, obligation, and duty.

What are independent and interdependent self-schemas?

An independent self-schema views the self as separate and autonomous, emphasising personal traits, achievements, and goals. An interdependent self-schema views the self as connected to others, emphasising relationships, social roles, harmony, and obligations.

What did Bochner (1994) find about cultural differences in self-concept?

Using 20 “I am…” statements, Malaysian participants gave more group-based and fewer individualistic self-descriptions than Australian and British participants, suggesting self-concept varies across cultures.

What is cultural bias in psychology, and why is it a problem?

Cultural bias occurs when psychological theories, concepts, measures, or interpretations reflect assumptions from particular cultures. Findings or measures from one culture may not have the same meaning or validity in another.

What does WEIRD stand for, and why is WEIRD sampling a problem?

WEIRD stands for Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic. Psychology relies heavily on these populations, meaning findings may be incorrectly generalised as universal despite representing only part of global cultural diversity.

What is intersectionality?

A framework recognising that identities such as gender, race, class, sexuality, age, ethnicity, and ability intersect and cannot be fully understood separately because intersecting power relationships can produce different and unequal experiences.

What are the three components of cultural competence?

Awareness, knowledge, and skill.

What is cross-cultural psychology, and how does it differ from cultural psychology?

Cross-cultural psychology compares psychological functioning across cultures, focusing on similarities, differences, variance, and invariance. Cultural psychology focuses on the interaction between culture and psychological processes within cultural contexts.

What did Ekman (1971) suggest about emotions and culture?

People across cultures could recognise emotional facial expressions, suggesting important universal components of human emotion. However, culture still shapes how emotions are interpreted and expressed.

How does culture influence emotional life?

Culture can shape emotional appraisal/meaning, expression through display rules, which emotions are valued, emotional concepts and language, and the social functions of emotions.

What is acculturation, and what are Berry’s four strategies?

Acculturation involves changes and consequences from crossing cultural contexts. Berry’s four strategies are integration, assimilation, separation, and marginalisation.

What are the four strategies in Berry’s acculturation model?

Integration = maintain heritage culture + participate in wider society. Assimilation = low heritage + high wider society. Separation = high heritage + low wider society. Marginalisation = low heritage + low wider society

What are major criticisms of Berry’s acculturation model?

It can oversimplify culture, treat cultures as bounded, overlook fluid/hybrid identities, focus on individual adaptation, and underemphasise racism, power, colonisation, and structural conditions.

What is the ABC model of intergroup attitudes?

Stereotypes are cognitive, prejudice is affective, and discrimination is behavioural.

What is the difference between stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination, and racism?

Stereotypes are cognitive beliefs about groups; prejudice involves positive or negative feelings/attitudes; discrimination involves behaviour or unfair treatment; racism involves pervasive/systematic assumptions of racial inferiority and associated unfair treatment.

What are Indigenous Psychologies?

Psychological frameworks developed within specific cultural contexts using local knowledge, languages, experiences, and worldviews. They resist the uncritical imposition of Western psychological paradigms.

What is Liberation Psychology, and who is associated with it?

Liberation Psychology is associated with Ignacio Martín-Baró. It links psychological distress to social, historical, economic, and political oppression and shifts the focus from individual adaptation toward social transformation.

What is Sikolohiyang Pilipino?

Filipino Psychology based on Filipino experience, thought, and language. It represents “indigenization from within.”

What do Kapwa, Ubuntu, and relationality have in common?

All emphasise interconnectedness and relational identity. Kapwa involves shared identity in Filipino culture; Ubuntu emphasises “I am because we are”; relationality emphasises understanding identity through connections with people and place.

What is Fa’aSamoa?

“The Samoan way”—the customs, practices, spiritual structures, and relational values that guide Samoan life, including relationships, cultural responsibilities, and practices surrounding grief and funerals.

What is the Fonofale Model of Health, and who developed it?

A holistic Pacific framework for understanding health and well-being using the metaphor of a Samoan house (fale). It was developed by Fuimaono Karl Pulotu-Endemann.

What do the foundation and roof of the Fonofale Model represent?

The foundation represents family, including extended family, genealogy, titles, and connections to land. The roofrepresents culture, including cultural values and beliefs that shelter and shape the individual and family.

What are the four pou of the Fonofale Model?

Physical: biological/physiological health and medication. Spiritual: belief systems. Mental: cognitive processing, emotions, and behaviour. Other: social factors such as age, gender, sexuality, employment, and socioeconomic status.

What do Environment, Time, and Context represent in the Fonofale Model?

Surrounding influences on well-being, including physical geography/urbanity, historical period, and political and socioeconomic environments.

Is Fonofale a diagnostic tool? What is its purpose?

No. Fonofale is a conceptual framework used to understand holistic health and guide clinical formulation. It shows how different dimensions of well-being are interconnected.

How can Fonofale be applied to a disaster or clinical case?

Consider how family, culture, physical, spiritual, mental, social, environmental, historical, temporal, and political factors interact. A disruption in one area can affect other areas.

What historical events are important for understanding Pacific psychology in New Zealand?

Pacific labour migration during the 1950s–60s, the economic downturn of the 1970s, and the Dawn Raids (1974–1979), during which Pacific peoples were disproportionately targeted and scapegoated for overstaying visas.

What did the lecture highlight about psychological distress and diagnosis among ethnic groups in New Zealand?

Māori, Pacific, and Asian New Zealanders reported higher psychological distress screening scores, while European New Zealanders had higher rates of formal medical diagnosis. The gap highlights possible structural barriers such as communication, access, and expectations.