Cross-Cultural Explorations

Activities in Culture and Psychology

Susan B. Goldstein

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429589270
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Ethnopsychology
• Index: Psychology

It is only in recent decades that psychology as an academic discipline has begun to recognize the importance of a cultural perspective. From cross-cultural psychology through to psychological anthropology, psychologists have taken a number of approaches to studying the role of culture in human behavior.

This comprehensive workbook is designed to facilitate students' understanding and application of major concepts and principles of culture and psychology. The fully updated new edition features over 100 case studies, self-administered scales, mini-experiments, and library research projects, addressing topics such as culture, race/ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, disability, and social class. Theoretical and guiding content is included in each chapter to embed the activities within key concepts and principles. Designed to contribute to the inclusion of cultural perspectives in the psychology curriculum, this wide-ranging book provides students with hands-on experiences that facilitate the understanding and application of major concepts and principles in the study of culture and psychology.

The workbook is supported by a substantial Instructor's Manual that includes discussion questions, video recommendations, variations by course level, and suggestions for expanded writing assignments. See "Support Material" below for access.

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The Concept of Culture

1.1 Is Psychology Culture Bound?

1.2 What Is Culture?

1.3 Human Universals

1.4 Cross-cultural Psychology’s Death Wish

1.5 A Search for Individualism and Collectivism

1.6 Cleanliness Beliefs

1.7 Cultural Metaphors

1.8 Ethnocentrism, Cultural Relativism, and Universal Human Rights

1.9 Exploring the World Village

1.10 A Global View of Psychology

ACTIVITY 1.1
IS PSYCHOLOGY CULTURE BOUND?

Psychology as a discipline strives to identify and describe universal principles of behavior. However, most psychological research has been conducted with undergraduate students in “WEIRD” (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) societies, one of the least representative populations for drawing conclusions about human behavior (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010). Unfortunately, many psychology textbooks discuss these research findings as if they are universal, even in cases where cross-cultural studies indicate otherwise. This activity asks you to think about several concepts that appear in introductory psychology textbooks and consider the universality of each.

Directions: Read the description of each of the psychological concepts below. Then indicate in the space provided after each concept whether you believe it applies to all people (universal) or believe it is limited to certain cultural groups (culture-specific). Write a brief explanation of your response. When you are finished you can check your answers at the back of this book.

1. Susceptibility to visual illusions – Although the two lines in the Müller-Lyer illusion below are the same length, the second line with the reverse arrowheads looks longer.

2. The serial-position effect (primacy and recency) – The first few items and the last few items in a list are remembered better than the items in the middle of the list.

3. Social loafing – The tendency for people to exert less effort when working as a group than when individually accountable.

4. Secure attachment – Mary Ainsworth and colleagues (1978) delineated three types of attachment: secure, avoidant, and ambivalent. Secure attachment is viewed as ideal in terms of the development of basic trust and other mental health indices (Waters, Merrick, Treboux, Crowell, & Albersheim, 2003).

5. Delusions and hallucinations – Delusions and hallucinations are signs of mental illness, specifically schizophrenia.

6. Self-serving bias – The tendency to use dispositional (internal) attributions when explaining our successes and situational (external) attributions when explaining our failures.

7. Pain perception – Pain is an unpleasant sensory experience conveyed to the brain by neurons, which signals actual or potential tissue damage.

References

Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, M. D., Waters, E., & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of attachment: A psychological study of the Strange Situation. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33 (2–3), 111–135.

Waters, E., Merrick, S., Treboux, D., Crowell, J., & Albersheim, L. (2003). Attachment security in infancy and early adulthood: A twenty-year longitudinal study. In M. E. Herzig & E. A. Farber (Eds.), Annual progress in child psychiatry and child development (pp. 63–72). New York, NY: Brunner-Routledge.

© Copyright material from Susan B. Goldstein (2019), Cross-Cultural Explorations, Routledge

ACTIVITY 1.2
WHAT IS CULTURE?

Culture is not an easy concept to define. Even among those who study culture and human behavior there are a large number of definitions in use. Perhaps the most straightforward definition is that of Melville Herskovits (1948) who proposed that culture is the human-made part of the environment. Harry Triandis and colleagues (1972) further suggested that culture has both physical components (such as tools, buildings, and works of art) and subjective components (such as roles, values, and attitudes). Recently, the term culture has been used more broadly to refer to the common values, beliefs, and behaviors within groups that share an ethnic heritage, disability, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic class, as well as to those who share a corporate identity, occupation, sport, or college campus. This activity encourages you to explore the meaning of culture by applying several commonly cited criteria (e.g., Baldwin, Faulkner, Hecht, & Lindsley, 2005; Matsumoto & Hwang, 2013) to determine whether a specific group is, in fact, a culture.

Directions: Identify a group that you think of as having its own culture. First describe this group, then by answering the questions below, decide whether this group has the characteristics of a culture.

Group Name and Description:

1. Does the group hold shared perspectives, norms, values, or assumptions that direct the behavior of its members? Please give an example.

2. Is the information that is important to this group learned and handed down through generations (or cohorts) of its members? Please give an example.

3. Does this group have a common language, dialect, or set of terms? Please give an example.

4. Are the perspectives and practices of this group widely shared among its members? Please give an example.

5. Do members react strongly when the perspectives or practices of this group are not upheld? Please give an example.

6. Do the practices of this group contribute to its survival and the well-being of its members? Please give an example.

7. Discuss your conclusions about whether the group you chose to examine is a culture.

Thinking Further

1. Is it helpful to distinguish cultures from subcultures? Why or why not?

2. There has been criticism of cross-cultural research that equates culture with nationality and makes comparisons between members of different countries (e.g., Italians and Canadians). What might there be concern about this approach?

3. How might culture be distinguished from race, ethnicity, and nationality?

References

Baldwin, J. R., Faulkner, S. L., Hecht, M. L., & Lindsley, S. L. (Eds.). (2005). Redefining culture: Perspectives across the disciplines. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Herskovits, M. J. (1948). Man and his works: The science of cultural...