Intro to X-Cultural Psych

• the study of similarities and differences in individual psychological functioning in various cultural and ethnocultural groups; of ongoing changes in variables reflecting such functioning; and of the relationship of psychological variables with sociocultural, ecological, and biological variables.
• cause and effect relationships between culture and behaviour
• kinds of cultural experiences may be factors in promoting human behavioural diversity
• culture-comparative
• are culture and behaviour distinct entities?

observable actions and responses

thoughts, beliefs, meanings

• To what extent are psychological functions and processes common to humankind?
• overt and covert behaviour should be seen as culturally shaped reflections of common psychological functions and processes.
• focus on how different ecological and sociocultural environments impact shared human psychological functions/processes and lead to differences in behaviour repertoires

• culture and behavior are essentially inseparable and different psyches will emerge in different cultural contexts
• shift in interest to internal culture and covert behaviour
• psychological variables are interpreted as differences in functioning rooted in psychological histories

• cultural conditions are seen as existing independently of particular individuals
• x-cultural differences in behaviour do not imply differences in underlying processes
• goal of finding what might be psychologically common to a range of cultures/human species
• any theoretically meaningful psychological concept should make sense everywhere, despite large variations in behaviour manifestations
• cultural context = antecedent conditions, and psychological variables = outcomes
• selection of populations with different antecedent conditions to measure differences in behavioural outcomes
• leans toward universalism, culture is both internal and external

• conceptual scheme where features of a culture are understood via the manner of their relationships
• human beings are active participants in their relationships with their physical and social contexts
• population-level variables influence individual outcomes and vice versa; mediated via various forms of transmission (pg. 19-21)

• the setting in which human organisms interact with he physical environment
• eg. economic activities, socioeconomic status

host of variables covering norms, beliefs, attitudes, and ideas

individuals acquire part of the total gene pool of the population to which they belong trough their biological parents

processes of socialization and enculturation through which the individual acquires part of the total pool of cultural information available in the society or community

contacts between populations due to historical and contemporary experiences which involves mutaual influence between the groups in contact

• the extent to which culture is conceptualized as part of the person
• eg. ideas, philosophies, beliefs, etc

• the extent to which a set of conditions outside of the person is considered culture
• eg. mode of subsistence, political organization, ecological/social context, poverty, climate, acculturation

• To what extent are psychological functions and processes unique to specific cultural groups?
• focus on how the functions and processes themselves are the outcome of interactions between oragnism and context; they are inherently cultural

• most of people's thinking involves mainly language
• therefore, thoughts are different when languages are different

• (organization of cultural differences)
• far-reaching generalizations, largely dismissed

• (organization of cultural differences)
• broad conceptualizations eg. individualism-collectivism
• concern with validity because difficult to properly validate and impossible to falsify

• (organization of cultural differences)
• patterns of cognitive abilities
• how peoples in certain cultures tend to approach cognitive problems
• inferential distance from actual behaviour to the underlying concept is smaller

• (organization of cultural differences)
• generalization of fields of behaviour organized in terms of skills and knowledge
• more descriptive and less inferential than cognitive styles

• research done by psychologists outside of Europe/NA that is more appropriate and relevant to their local contexts
• existing instruments/methods/theories were less applicable to local context, esp poverty
• local psychological concepts that don't have an equivalent in European languages
• replication with Westerners successful

the large part of the world population which is living in a context of poverty and illiteracy

• a population of persons who have certain artifacts and mentifacts more in common among themselves than with outsiders
• repertoire of heaviour, including overt and covert aspects, of such a population
• most frequently a nation state or society

ideas, beliefs, conventions, etc.

the variance between populations in the behaviour that is being researched should make up a worthwhile part of the total variance

culture has an existence of its own beyond the psychological make-up of its individual members because of its permanence; a culture is still there when all its current members are no longer alive

• "culture-bearing units"
• distinction between separate cultures has to match the kind of grouping for which differences in the psychological variables studied are expected
• which populations to include is only clear after deciding which variables are to distinguish them

attempt is made to look at phenomena and their interrelationships through the eyes of the people native to a particular culture

• concepts and notions of researchers are rooted in a influence by their cultural background
• culture comparative: start with imposed ~, evaluate personal conceptions for appropriateness, derived ~ identified from cross-cultural comparisons that can be fairly made
• cultural approach: never more from imposed to derived, b/c derived doesn't exist

• conducted in natural settings with application of multiple, interactive methods
• data is unstructured and subject to procedural changes as researcher learns
• heavily depended on researcher interpretation; difficult to establish validity

• culture-comparative research
• independent variable = cultural condition
• dependent variable = behavioural variable

• studies that look at groups that already exist and therefore allocation is fixed (ie not random)
• differences in outcome could be result of uncontrolled variable
• must consider all possible alternative explanations before accepting hypothesis