PSY515 Handouts Lectures 1-15

Cross Cultural Psychology PSY515

Table of Contents:

Page no.

Lesson 1 Lesson 2 Methodology of Cross Cultural Research ………………………………… Lesson 3 Cultural Factors in Complex Decision Making …………………………… Lesson 4 The Psychology of Morality ………………………………………………. Lesson 5 Subjective Well-Being Across Cultures ……………………………………

Lesson 6 Cultural Perspectives on the Interactions Between Nutrition, Health and Psychological Functioning ………………………………………………... Lesson 7 Cultural Aspects of Depressive Experience and Disorders ………………. Lesson 8 Prevalence of Schizophrenia and Counseling in Cross Cultural Psychology...

Lesson 9 Culture and Development: Developmental Pathways to Individualism and Interrelatedness ………………………………………………………….. Lesson 10 Cultural Variations in Parental Support of Children's Play ………………..

Lesson 11 Adolescent Future Orientation: An Integrated Cultural and Ecological Perspective ………………………………………………………………. Lesson 12 Family: Variations and Changes Across Cultures ………………………….

Lesson 13 How Death Imitates Life: Cultural Influences on Conceptions of Death and Dying ………………………………………………………………… Lesson 14 Subjective Culture and Stereotyping ……………………………………… Lesson 15 Social Motives and their Development in Cultural Context ………………..

Lesson 1

Cross-cultural psychology is the scientific study of human behavior and mental process, including both their variability and invariance, under diverse cultural conditions." (Ho & Wu, 2001, p. 4). Through expanding research methodologies to recognize cultural variance in behavior, language and meaning, it seeks to extend, develop and transform psychology. Central themes, such as affect, cognition, conceptions of the self, and issues such as psychopathology, anxiety, and depression, are all re-examined in cross-cultural psychology in an attempt to examine the universality of these concepts. Critics have pointed to methodological flaws in crosscultural psychological research and claim that serious shortcomings in the theoretical and methodological basis used impede rather than help this scientific search for universality. Cross-cultural psychology is differentiated from Cultural Psychology. The latter is the branch of psychology that holds that human behavior is determined by unique individual cultures that can be compared with each other only to a very limited extent. In contrast, Cross-Cultural psychology includes a search for possible universals in behavior and mental processes. Various definitions of the field are given in Berry, Poortinga, Segall, and Dasen (1992), including: "the scientific study of human behavior and its transmission, taking into account the ways in which behaviors are shaped and influenced by social and cultural forces" (Segall, Dasen, Berry, & Poortinga, 1990) (cited in Berry, Poortinga, Segall, and Dasen, 1992, p. 1); "the empirical study of members of various cultural groups who have had different experiences that lead to predictable and significant differences in behaviors" (Brislin, Lonner, & Thorndike, 1973; cited in Berry, Poortinga, Segall, and Dasen, 1992, p. 1). These authors define [culture] as "the shared way of life of a group of people" (Berry, Poortinga, Segall, and Dasen, 1992, p. 1). Early work in crosscultural psychology was suggested in Lazarus and Steinthal's journal Zeitschrift fur Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft [Journal of Folk Psychology and Language Science] which began to be published in 1860. More empirically oriented research was subsequently conducted by Williams H. R. Rivers (1864-1922) who attempted to measure the intelligence and sensory acuity of indigenous people residing in the Torres Straits area, located between Australia and New Guinea (Jahoda, 1993). Two possible approaches of cross cultural psychology: It is quite common for cross-cultural psychologists to take one of two possible approaches:

Etic approach: emphasizes similarities of cultures.

Emic approach: emphasizes differences between cultures (Smith & Bond, 1982). Generally speaking, it is received wisdom that traditional agriculture-based societies have more collectivist cultures than modern "information societies." Various factors on which cultures have been compared are discussed by Berry et al., including:

1. Child rearing. Berry et al. refer to evidence that a number of different dimensions have been found in cross-cultural comparisons of child-rearing practices, including differences on the dimensions of obedience training, nurturance training (the degree to which a sibling will care for other siblings or for older people), achievement training, responsibility training, self-reliance and autonomy;

2. Differences in personality variables such as locus of control:

Williams and Best (1990) have looked at different societies in terms of prevailing gender stereotypes, genderlinked self-perceptions and gender roles. They both find universal similarities as well as differences between and within more than 30 nations. The rise of cross-cultural psychology reflects a more general process of globalization in the social sciences that seeks to purify specific areas of research have western biases. In this way, cross-cultural psychology together with international psychology aims to make psychology less ethnocentric in character. Cross-cultural psychology is now taught at numerous universities located around the world, both as a specific content area as well as a methodological approach designed to broaden the field of psychology. Before study cross cultural psychology we should know what culture is.

CULTURE

Some definitions:

Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving. Culture is the systems of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of people. Culture is communication, communication is culture. Culture in its broadest sense is cultivated behavior; that is the totality of a person's learned, accumulated experience which is socially transmitted, or more briefly, behavior through social learning. A culture is a way of life of a group of people the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one

Culture is symbolic communication. Some of its symbols include a group's skills, knowledge, attitudes, values, and motives. The meanings of the symbols are learned and deliberately perpetuated in a society through its institutions. Culture is the sum of total of the learned behavior of a group of people that are generally considered to be the tradition of that people and are transmitted from generation to generation. Culture is a collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another.

Theory of cultural determinism

The position that the ideas, meanings, beliefs and values people learn as members of society determines human nature. People are what they learn. Optimistic version of cultural determinism places no limits on the abilities of human beings to do or to be whatever they want. Some anthropologists suggest that there is no universal "right way" of being human. " Right way" is almost always "our way"; that "our way" in one society almost never corresponds to "our way" in any other society. Proper attitude of an informed human being could only be that of tolerance. The optimistic version of this theory postulates that human nature being infinitely malleable; human being can choose the ways of life they prefer. The pessimistic version maintains that people are what they are conditioned to be; this is something over which they have no control. Human beings are passive creatures and do whatever their culture tells them to do. This explanation leads to behaviorism that locates the causes of human behavior in a realm that is totally beyond human control.

Cultural relativism

Different cultural groups think, feel, and act differently. There are no scientific standards for considering one group as intrinsically superior or inferior to another. Studying differences in culture among groups and societies presupposes a position of cultural relativism. It does not imply normalcy for oneself, nor for one's society. It, however, calls for judgment when dealing with groups or societies different from one's own. Information about the nature of cultural differences between societies, their roots, and their consequences should precede judgment and action. Negotiation is more likely to succeed when the parties concerned understand the reasons for the differences in viewpoints.

Manifestations of culture

Cultural differences manifest themselves in different ways and differing levels of depth. Symbols represent the most superficial and value the deepest manifestations of culture, with heroes and rituals in between. Symbols are words, gestures, pictures, or objects that carry a particular meaning which is only recognized by those who share a particular culture. New symbols easily develop, old ones disappear. Symbols from one particular group are regularly copied by others. This is why symbols represent the outermost layer of a culture. Heroes are persons, past or present, real or fictitious, who possess characteristics that are highly prized in a culture. They also serve as models for behavior.