Culture and Psych - Exam 1 (chap 1-4)

WEIRD

Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic

Cross-cultural psychology

Examines the cultural foundations of psychological processes and human behavior

Cross-cultural research

Tests the cultural parameters of psychological knowledge

– Involves research on human behavior that compares psychological processes between two or more cultures
– Aims at understanding the influence of culture on behavior & mental processes

Factors influencing creation of culture

Group Life: Division of Labor, Efficiency, Increase Survival Probability

Environments: Climate, Money, Diseases, Contact with Other Cultures

The Evolved Human Mind: Basic Human Needs and Motives + Universal Psychological Toolkit

Contents of the Universal Psychological Toolkit

Needs and Motives: Physical, safety, and security needs + motive to affiliate and achieve

Complex Cognitive Abilities: Verbal Language, Ratcheting, Planning, Reasoning

Emotions: Basic, self conscious, and moral emotions

Personality Traits: Extraversion, Neuroticism, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness

Culture

– Unique information system shared by a group, and transmitted across generations
– Allows the group to meet basic needs, pursue well-being, and derive meaning from life

– Provides guidelines or roadmaps on what to do, how to think, and what to feel
– Ways of living use universal psychological toolkits to meet basic human needs

Culture vs. society

• Society - System of interrelationships among individuals and groups. Human societies are complex
• Culture - Meanings and information associated with social networks. Defines sh*t within a society

Groups with Culture

– Language

– Countries

– Ethnic groups

– Other groups such as gender, disability, or sexual orientation

Race - More of a social construction than a biological essential and Personality vastly different across people

Objective elements of culture

– Art

– Mass media

– Architecture

– Clothes

– Social media

– Food

– Music

– Advertising

– Eating utensils

– Texts

Subjective Elements of Culture

• values

  • Individualism versus Collectivism

  • Power distance

  • Long- versus Short-Term Orientation

  • Uncertainty avoidance

  • Masculinity versus Femininity

  • Indulgence versus Restraint

• Sacred values

• Beliefs: Dynamic externality, Societal cynicism, Religion

• Norms: Rituals, Etiquette and politeness, Expressive behaviors

• Attitudes: Opinions, Stereotypes, Prejudice

• Worldviews: Self-concepts, Cultural worldviews, Attribution

Enculturation

Process of learning and adopting the ways and manners of a specific culture

Attributions

Inferences people make about the causes of events or behaviors, their own as well as others’ (are they acting like that bc of internal or external reasons?)

Hofstede’s dimensions 

• Individualism versus Collectivism: Degree to which cultures encourage the tendency to look after oneself & immediate family vs belonging to ingroups that look after their members in exchange for loyalty

• Power distance: Degree to which cultures encourage the less powerful group members to accept the unequal distribution of power

• Long- versus Short-Term Orientation

• Uncertainty avoidance: Degree to which people feel threatened by the unknown & have developed beliefs, institutions, or rituals to avoid them

• Masculinity versus Femininity: Distribution of emotional roles between males & females; success, money vs caring for others

• Indulgence versus Restraint: Degree to which cultures encourage delayed gratification of material, social, & emotional needs of its members

Etics

Universal psychological processes or behavior; truths, principles, consistent across cultures

Emics

Culture-specific processes or behavior
– Cultural differences arise due to:
• Geography
• Climate
• Resources
• Previous culture and contact with other cultures

Validity

The degree to which a finding, measurement, or statistic is accurate, or represents what it is supposed to

Reliability

The degree to which a finding, measurement, or statistic is consistent

Cross-cultural validation study

A study that examines whether a measure of a psychological construct that was originally generated in a single culture is applicable, meaningful, and thus equivalent in another culture

Indigenous Cultural Studies

Descriptions of complex theoretical models within a single culture. Insights generated from these are compared across cultures and studies.

Cross cultural comparisons

Studies that involve participants from two or more cultural backgrounds who are measured on some psychological value of interest

Bias

Differences that do not have the same meaning within and across cultures

Equivalence

State or condition of similarity in conceptual meaning and empirical method between cultures, allowing comparisons to be meaningful

Conceptual Bias

Come from cross-cultural differences in definitions of meanings of psychological concepts

Model Bias

A condition in which the theoretical framework underlying a study or the hypotheses being tested mean different things in the cultures studied

Linguistic Bias

Are the research protocols semantically equivalent across the languages used in the study?

Measurement Bias

Degree to which measures used to collect data in different cultures are equally valid and reliable

Response Bias

Systematic tendency to respond in certain way to items or scales.

Exs: Socially desirable responding, Agreeing tendency, Extreme response bias, Reference group effect (Japanese may perceive themselves individualistic when they compare
themselves to their own collectivist group)

Interpretational bias

Refers to situations when researchers interpret data in a globalized, almost stereotypical fashion or with their own cultural filters

Nonequivalent Data

You gotta either reduce it, or consider the nonequivaence when interpret the data.

Cultural attribution fallacies

Inferring that culture had a role in producing the differences found in the study

Exploratory vs Hypothesis Testing  

Exploratory: Examines the existence of cross-cultural similarities or differences; Compares 2 or more cultures on a psychological variable

Hypothesis-testing studies: Examines why cultural differences exist

Contextual Factors

Any variable that can explain observed cross-cultural differences

– Enhances the study’s validity and rules out influence of biases and inequivalence

– Includes the background characteristics of the participants (socio-economic status, education, age) or their cultures (economic development, religious institutions)

Individual vs Ecological Level

Individual-level studies: Individual participants provide data and are the unit of analysis

Ecological (cultural) studies: Countries or cultures are the units of analysis. Data may be obtained from statistics or individuals. Summaries or averages (means) are used as data points for each culture.

Unpackaging studies

Measurement of a variable that assesses a culture factor thought to produce differences on the target variable

This variable (e.g. Individualism/Collectivism) is believed to produce a difference in the target psychological variable (e.g. Self Esteem)

Experiments (Priming & Behavioral)

Priming studies - Experimentally manipulating mindsets of participants and measuring the resulting changes in behavior

Behavioral studies - Manipulations of environments and observation of changes in behavior as a function of those environments