Cultural Psychology: Chapter 1 Notes

• The notes focus on understanding psychology through the lens of cultural variations, exploring how cultural contexts shape psychological processes and examining cultural influences on behavior and cognition

Leading Class Discussion (Syllabus p. 7)

• Article summaries should be 1-2 PPT slides in length and include the aim, main findings, and key takeaways
• Class discussions should be based on submitted questions and outside materials like YouTube videos or Kahoot games
• Leading a class discussion excuses students from submitting a discussion question for that week

Chapter 1 Notes: A Psychology for a Cultural Species

• Psychological processes are shaped by experiences, linking universal brains to diverse cultural experiences
• Culture is defined both as information acquired through social learning that influences behavior and as a shared context among a group of individuals
• Cultural boundaries aren't always clear and culture is dynamic with significant variations within
• Willhelm Wundt's Volkersycholgie (folk psychology) emerged in 1921, marking early interest in cultural aspects of psychology

History and Trends of Cultural Psychology

• The Russian cultural-historical school in the 1920s recognized the role of tools and cultural ideas in people-environment interactions
• Cultural psychology developed as a distinct discipline in mainstream psychology in the 1980s and 1990s
• Key figures such as Shweder, Markus, and Kitayama substantially contributed to the field

Emerging Themes

• Integration of culture and biology is an emerging theme that includes cultural neuroscience
• The field is expanding to include various forms of culture, such as social class, subcultures, race, and religion, with real-world applications in areas like organization, health, and money
• Methodological pluralism and innovation, including big data, are increasingly important

Central Questions in Cross-Cultural Psychology

• Cultural and individual differences exist
• Both differences and similarities are important for understanding culture in psychology
• The challenge for cultural psychology is understanding how culturally unique inputs are integrated into the human mind to predict psychological outcomes
• Not all psychological processes are universal but can be predictable and explainable

Interplay Between Culture and Mind

• Minds and cultures are entangled and shape how those minds operate, leading to systematic differences in thoughts and behaviors across cultures
• Cultural differences in thinking/behavior can be meaningfully explained

Cultural Universality vs. Variability

• Psychological experiences can be both universal and shaped by cultural experiences
• Mathematical reasoning, color words, and emotional expressions demonstrate cultural influences

The Influence of Culture on the Brain

• Even the activation of brain structures can be influenced by culture
• Some behaviors are prewired but shaped by cultural learning

Challenges in Understanding Human Psychology

• Determining the extent of universality in psychological processes is difficult due to a lack of adequate data and the limitation of studies to particular samples

Contrasting Psychological Approaches

• The color-blind approach highlights common human nature while ignoring group differences
• The multicultural approach recognizes group identities as different

Why Study Cultural Psychology?

• It enhances understanding of the distribution of human psychology and the implications for variation in psychology

Significance of Cultural Psychology

• Culture influences everyone, including one's own ethnocentrism
• Ethnocentrism includes judging other cultures by comparing them to one's own and using one's culture as the standard of comparison

Chapter 4 Notes: Research Methods

• Studying psychological phenomena is challenging, especially cross-culturally and accessing our own psychological states creates limitations for studying others
• The method for choosing which cultures to study depends on the research question
• When comparing cultures, it's important to understand cultural norms in relation to the psychological phenomenon of interest

Key Research Considerations

• Methodological equivalence is important so one understands questions/situations the same way across cultures
• Addressing translation issues with surveys and questionnaires through back-translation is important

Addressing Response Biases

• Response biases like reference group effects can be countered with objective, concrete measures
• Moderacy biases, which is the tendency to agree more moderately, can be addressed by eliminating the midpoint in surveys

Methodologies for Studying Culture

• Cultural priming can make certain cultural ideas more accessible to participants
• Multiple methods are useful because no single study design is perfect due to alternative explanations and methodological flaws

Unpacking Cultural Differences

• "Unpackaging" involves identifying underlying variables that create cultural differences
• Cultural differences are embedded within vast networks of cultural practices and symbols
• It's important to demonstrate cultural differences in the proposed underlying variable and show that the underlying variable is related to the cultural difference in question

Approaches to Studying Cultures

• Cultures are categorized on certain variables and psychological measures are then compared
• Example categories include tightness-looseness, individualism-collectivism, power distance, and primary vs secondary control

Cultural Research and "Replication"

• Repeating a study and getting the same general pattern of results is important in cultural research
• Important to prevent imposing WEIRD(Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, Democratic) thinking on other cultures

Meaningful Cultural Research

• Establishing an egalitarian and respectful partnership with representatives of the local community is important when conducting cultural research
• It's important to ensure that research constructs carry the same meaning and are relevant
• Cultural-sensitive research materials and procedures are critical

Key Points in Cultural Research

• Studying cultural differences requires knowledge of each culture and understanding of potential issues
• Solutions include accurate translation and awareness of response biases
• Multiple methods strengthen findings
• The nature of a cultural difference or phenomenon needs to be unpacked

Chapter 6 Notes: Self and Personality

• The way individuals view themselves differs greatly across cultures and has universal and culturally variable aspects
• These differences have implications for social interactions and perceptions

Individualism and Collectivism

• Individualistic cultures encourage independent self-concepts
• They value distinctiveness from others and being self-sufficient
• Collectivistic cultures encourage interdependent self-concepts and value close relationships and group memberships

Examples of Individualism/Collectivism

• Individualism/collectivism examples include how individuals perceive themselves, relate to others, the goals they follow, and what drives their behavior
• Higher socioeconomic status is associated with dominant cultural orientation

Diversity Among Individuals and Cultures

• Independent and interdependent self-concepts exist on a continuum and are reflected in cultural findings

Self-Consistency

• Cultures differ in motivation to be consistent across situations
• Cultural differences in self-consistency can be explained using independent/interdependent views of self

Self-Consistency and Cognitive Dissonance

• People from different cultures show dissonance reduction in different ways
• East Asians are motivated to be consistent with others, while North Americans are motivated to strive for consistency within themselves

Implicit Theories of Self

• Incremental theory of self: the belief that abilities/traits can change
• Entity theory of self: the belief that abilities/traits are largely fixed

Cultural Differences

• People with incremental theories focus on efforts and strategies
• People with entity theories blame lack of ability
• Incremental theories are characteristic of people with an interdependent sense of self, while entity theories are characteristic of people with an independent sense of self

Five-Factor Model of Personality

• Openness to experience: creativity and curiosity about the world
• Conscientiousness: responsible, dependable, self-disciplined
• Extraversion: outgoing, social, dominant
• Agreeableness: warm, pleasant, considerate
• Neuroticism: emotional instability

Personality Development

• The Big Five structure of personality shows universality across different cultures and matures similarly across cultures

Limitations of the Big Five

• It was created using English personality terms
• Investigations in other cultures yielded additional factors
• Was conducted mostly with WEIRD samples

Chapter 7 Notes: Living in Multicultural Worlds

• This chapter focuses on how intercultural contact affects thinking and how majority and minority cultures coexist

Acculturation

• Acculturation: the process by which people migrate to and learn a culture different from their heritage culture

Complexities in Acculturation Research

• Research on acculturation is complex due to different reasons for migrating and migrating to different contexts
• Match between heritage and host culture and individual differences are added complexities

Acculturation Curves

• Acculturation (U-shaped) Curve: includes honeymoon, culture shock, and adjustment phases
• Reverse culture shock is the U-shape experienced after returning home
• Acculturation “L-shaped” Curve: includes honeymoon and culture shock but no adjustment
• The “L-shaped” Curve may be more common for acculturating to homogenous cultures

Adapting to a New Host Culture

• Cultural distance, cultural fit, and acculturation strategies are important factors in adjusting to a new host culture

Defining Cultural Distance and Cultural Fit

• Cultural distance: it's easier to learn English by closer match in native language
• Example: adjustment in Malaysian exchange students in Singapore vs New Zealand
• Cultural fit: extraverted individuals fare well in more extraverted cultures
• Independent individuals suffer less distress acculturating to the U.S.

Adaptation Strategies

• Integration: positive attitudes toward host and heritage culture allowing people to participate while maintaining traditions
• Marginalization: negative attitudes towards host and heritage culture
• Separation: negative attitudes toward host, but positive attitudes toward heritage culture allowing people to partake in traditions of heritage culture
• Assimilation: positive attitudes toward host but negative attitudes toward heritage culture participation while leaving behind heritage culture

Potential Drawbacks to Acculturation

• Immigrant Paradox: children of immigrants may experience more negative outcomes than their parents
• Challenges of Prejudice and Discrimination: Identity denial involves questioning someone's cultural identity because the person does not match the prototype of the culture

Navigating Multicultural Environments

• Multicultural People balance or negotiate multiple cultural systems and their self-concept is impacted by different cultural experiences Blending: multicultural people's self-concepts reflect a hybrid of their two cultural worlds
• Frame-Switching: people maintain multiple self-concepts and switch between them depending on the context
• Bicultural Identity Integration: the extent to which biculturals see their two cultural identities as compatible
• Biracial Identities: flexible thinking can influence perspective

Chapter 9 Notes: Cognition and Perception

• Human thinking occurs in a cultural context because the mind is a toolbox that is surrounded by culture
• Cognition seeks to study how the mind works and shape psychological processes

Thinking Styles

• Analytic Thinking: focusing on objects and attributes
• Objects perceived as independent in Assumptions of stasis
• Useful for science and daily life
• Holistic (dialectical) thinking: focusing on context and relationships between objects
• Attends to broader scenes and assuming change
• Helpful for thematic categorization leading to useful decisions

Cultural Influences in Cognition

• Self-Presentation on Facebook: compared to Americans, East Asian Facebook users were more likely to deemphasize their faces and emphasize surrounding context
• Cultural influences exist through various aspects of cognition and perception

Ability to Change Cognitive Styles

• It is harder to improve holistic than analytic thinking as the latter mostly entails applying rules
• Holistic thinking encompasses stances and approaches that weave deeply into worldviews and social relations

Cultural Variation in Thinking

• Although a given person can use both types of thinking, one is usually dominant
• These systems have consequences for how people attend to the world and make judgments and decisions

Understanding Others' Behaviors

• Situation Attributions: explaining behavior in terms of contextual factors which is more common in East Asians
• Dispositional Attributions: explaining behavior in terms of a person's inner characteristics and more common among Westerners

Fundamental Attribution Error

• Error means tendency to ignore situational information while focusing on dispositional information
• Cultural differences exist in the prevalence of the fundamental attribution error

Additional Aspects of Cognition

• Language affects how an individual perceives the passage of time in relation to spatial perception
• Cognitive dissonance: cognitive dissonance may be universal across cultures but may be aroused by different situations

Culture and Cognition

• Boundary Conditions: Feeling happy promotes culturally normative thinking
• Thinking about power or having power fosters culturally dominant thinking

Chapter 5 Notes: Development and Socialization

• Development and Socialization: Cultural norms and differences are largely results of socialization in many environments
• Attachment Theory: early attachments with parents and other caregivers shape relationships

Universal and Diverse Aspects of Mind

• Universal: our preparedness for culture
• Culturally specific: the particular environment we learn from
• Attachment Theory claims universality despite repserenting western middle class perspective

Sensitive Periods for Cultural Adaptations

• Sensitive Period: period of time in development when it is easy to acquire a skill
• 15 years of age may be an age for accultural transition with greater identification with a new culture that is further testable

GAPP

• GAPP is thought from attachments and caregivers and may have different Attachment relationships and models

Parenting and Moralization

• GAPP and parenting styles can be affected by the cultural practice of moralization to suggest parent or child abnormality

Universal and Diverse Aspects of Attachment

• Universal: all children are valued, and families worldwide are trying to take care of their children
• Diverse: care practices are adapted to the ecological conditions and social history of any given community

Influence of Education

• Education encourages people to think abstractly beyond concrete experience
• The ability to think abstractly relates to taxonomic and predicting higher IQ

Summary Key Points

• Important studies touch on false-belief understanding
• Early false-belief understanding is an adaptation that is universally present early in development

Final Reminders

• There are sensitive periods to remember and be aware of as cultural practices become experienced in various arrangments
• Cultural differences exist in socialization experiences that are pervasive from early rearing