Multicultural Psychology: Cultural Differences in Worldviews

Flashcards covering key vocabulary terms from the lecture on Multicultural Psychology and Cultural Differences in Worldviews.

Worldview

A psychological perception of the world that determines how we think, behave, and feel.

Etic Perspective

An attempt to build theories of human behavior by examining commonalities across many cultures.

Emic Perspective

An attempt to derive meaningful concepts within one culture.

Imposed Etics

The forcing of one culture’s worldview on another culture, assuming that one’s own worldviews are universal.

Delay of Gratification

The ability to wait for a more desirable reward instead of taking a less desirable reward immediately.

Well-Meaning Clashes

Cultural differences in interpretation that are not meant to harm others but that cause problems because there are different emic interpretations of situations or concepts.

Individualism

A social pattern in which individuals tend to be motivated by their own preferences, needs, and rights when they come into conflict with those of a group or collective in which the individual is a member.

Collectivism

A social pattern in which individuals tend to be motivated by the group’s or collective’s preferences, needs, and rights when they come into conflict with those of the individual.

Idiocentrism

Individualistic tendencies that reside within an individual. Refers to an individual, whereas individualism refers to the society.

Allocentrism

Collectivistic tendencies that reside within an individual. Refers to an individual, whereas collectivism refers to the society.

Countercultural individuals

Idiocentric individuals residing in a collectivistic culture, or allocentric individuals residing in an individualistic culture.

Guilt

A prominent negative emotion in individualistic cultures that involves an individual’s sense of personal regret for having engaged in a negative behavior.

Shame

A prominent negative emotion in collectivistic cultures that involves an individual’s sense of regret for having engaged in a negative behavior that reflects badly upon his or her family and/or upbringing.

Losing face/saving face

Loss of face involves being publicly revealed for negative behavior; face saving involves being able to protect one’s public persona.

Face giving/giving face

Extolling the virtues of another person in public. Doing this for yourself would be considered boastful and individualistic.

WEIRD Ideology

An acronym standing for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic, often used to describe populations studied in psychology.

Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck's Value Orientation Model

A model describing cultural differences across dimensions such as time focus, human activity, social relations, and people/nature relationship.

Locus of control

The focus of control over outcomes of one’s life, be it internal or external control.

Locus of responsibility

The focus of responsibility for one’s position in life, be it internal feelings of responsibility or external, societal responsibility.

ALANA

Helms’s acronym for African Americans, Latinxs, Asian Americans, and Native Americans.

VREG

Helms’s acronym for members of visible racial/ethnic groups.

BIPOC

A new acronym, emphasizing skin color, for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.