Basic Psychology: Cultural Psychology

Introduction
Relationships with other branches of psychology
Importance
Mutual constitution
Criticisms
Methods
Cultural models
Culture and motivation
Culture and empathy

Introduction

The study of how cultures reflect and shape the psychological processes of their members is known as cultural psychology.

The main tenet of cultural psychology has been, and in most cases still is, that mind and culture are inseparable and mutually constitutive, which means that people are shaped by their culture, and culture is shaped by them.

But, does culture, in fact, act as an agent? It is the most pressing issue in this field of study: is culture simply a label, sometimes an excuse, and then just a metaphor? Or does it actually 'do' something, such as influence people's behaviour? According to Gerd Baumann: "Culture is an abstract and purely analytical concept, not a real thing. It does not "cause" behaviour in and of itself, but rather denotes an abstraction from it, and is thus neither normative nor predictive, but rather a heuristic means of explaining how people understand and act in the world." More on this in the section

Relationships with other branches of psychology

cultural psychology is frequently confused with Cross-cultural psychology. Cultural psychology, on the other hand, differs from cross-cultural psychology in that cross-cultural psychologists generally use culture to test the universality of psychological processes rather than determining how local cultural practices shape psychological processes. A cross-cultural psychologist might wonder whether Jean Piaget's stages of development are universal across cultures, whereas a cultural psychologist might wonder how the social practices of a specific set of cultures shape the development of cognitive processes in different ways.

Social psychology, cultural-historical psychology, developmental psychology, and cognitive psychology are all influenced by cultural psychology research. However, the constructivist perspective of cultural psychology, in which cultural psychologists study thought patterns and behaviours within and across cultures, clashes with the universal perspectives common in most fields of psychology, which seek to qualify fundamental psychological truths that are consistent across all of humanity.

Importance

Need for expanded cultural research

According to Richard Shweder, attempts to replicate Western psychology laboratory findings in non-Western settings have repeatedly failed. As a result, one of the major goals of cultural psychology is to have many and diverse cultures contribute to basic psychological theories in order to correct these theories and make them more relevant to the predictions, descriptions, and explanations of all human behaviours, not just Western ones. Many of the scholars who advocate for indigenous psychology share this goal. Cultural psychologist Pradeep Chakkarath emphasises that international mainstream psychology, as it has been exported to most regions of the world by the so-called West, is only one among many indigenous psychologies and thus may not have enough intercultural expertise to claim, as it frequently does, that its theories have universal validity. As a result, different cultural groups have different ways of defining emotional problems and distinguishing between physical and mental distress. For example, Arthur Kleinman has demonstrated how the concept of depression in Chinese culture was initially associated with physiological issues before becoming recognised as an emotional concern more recently. Furthermore, cultural conceptions of privacy and shame, as well as stigmas associated with specific problems, influence the type of therapy people seek.

The acronym W.E.I.R.D. stands for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. W.E.I.R.D. populations have been vastly overrepresented in psychological research thus far. According to an analysis of top journals in the psychology discipline, 96 percent of subjects who participated in those studies were from Western Industrialized countries, with 68 percent from the United States. This is largely due to the fact that 99 percent of the authors of these journals were from Western universities, with the remaining 73 percent from American universities. Based on this data, it is concluded that W.E.I.R.D. countries account for 96 percent of psychological findings. Findings from psychology research primarily involving W.E.I.R.D. populations are frequently labelled as universal theories and incorrectly applied to other cultures.

According to recent research, cultures differ in many ways, including logical reasoning and social values. Evidence that basic cognitive and motivational processes differ across populations is becoming increasingly difficult to dismiss. Many studies, for example, have shown that Americans, Canadians, and Western Europeans rely on analytical reasoning strategies to explain and predict behaviour, which separate objects from their contexts. The "fundamental attribution error," as defined by social psychologists, is the tendency to explain people's behaviour in terms of internal, inherent personality traits rather than external, situational considerations (e.g. attributing an instance of angry behaviour to an angry personality). Outside of W.E.I.R.D. cultures, however, this phenomenon is less prevalent, as many non-W.E.I.R.D. populations are more concerned with the context in which behaviour occurs. Asians tend to reason holistically, for example, by considering people's behaviour in the context of their situation; for example, someone's anger may be viewed as the result of a particularly vexing day. Nonetheless, many long-held theories of how humans think rely on the prominence of analytical thought.

By studying only W.E.I.R.D. populations, psychologists miss out on a significant amount of diversity in the global population, as W.E.I.R.D. countries account for only 12% of the world's population. Applying findings from W.E.I.R.D. populations to other populations may result in a miscalculation of psychological theories and impede psychologists' ability to isolate fundamental cultural characteristics.

Mutual constitution

Mutual constitution refers to the idea that society and individuals influence one another. Because a society is made up of individuals, the behaviour and actions of the individuals have an immediate impact on the society. Similarly, society has a direct impact on the individual who lives within it. The values, morals, and ways of life exemplified by a society will have an immediate impact on how an individual is shaped as a person. The environment that a society provides for an individual determines how that individual develops. Furthermore, mutual constitution is a cyclical model in which the individual and society both influence one another.

While this model underpins cultural psychology, societies frequently fail to recognise it. Despite widespread acceptance that people influence culture and culture influences people, societal systems tend to downplay the impact that people have on their communities. Mission statements of businesses, schools, and foundations, for example, attempt to make promises about the environment and values that their establishment holds. These promises, however, cannot be made in accordance with the mutually consisting theory unless they are upheld by all participants. Southwest Airlines, for example, claims in its mission statement, "...We are committed to provide our Employees a stable work environment with equal opportunity for learning and personal growth". While the company can guarantee "equal opportunity for learning and personal growth," the message mentioned above cannot be guaranteed. Southwest provides a work environment that includes paying customers. While rules can be enforced to ensure the safety of their aircraft, customers will not be removed for having a bad attitude or being uncourteous. As a result, the promise of a "stable work environment" is contradicted. On the contrary, some businesses make certain that their mission statements align with the mutually consisting model. For example, Yale University promises within its mission statement that: Yale is committed to improving the world today and for future generations through outstanding research and scholarship, education, preservation, and practice. Yale educates aspiring leaders worldwide who serve all sectors of society. We carry out this mission through the free exchange of ideas in an ethical, interdependent, and diverse community of faculty, staff, students, and alumni.

Previously, middle-class North Americans conducted research analysing culturally different societies through comparison, mostly involving middle-class North Americans and/or the aforementioned W.E.I.R.D. societies. What has been termed Euro-American centrism has resulted in a large volume of research for this specific group of humans. It has also allowed us to move away from the notion that certain psychological processes are fundamental or universal, and instead recognise humans' remarkable ability to create and then be shaped by cultures. [19] Although cultural psychology has internalised the mutually constituting model, it still requires further implementation in our society. Being aware of this model encourages people to take responsibility for their actions and the impact they have on their community. Communities have the opportunity for improvement by accepting their responsibilities and applying them consciously, which benefits the individuals within the community. These ideas can be found in the journal article "Cultures and Selves: A Cycle of Mutual Constitution" by Hazel Rose Markus and Shinobu Kitayama, which is also depicted in the accompanying graphic.

Criticisms

Stereotyping

One of the most prominent themes in recent years has been the cultural differences in attention, perception, cognition, and social psychological phenomena such as the self between East Asians and North Americans. Some psychologists, including Turiel, have argued that this study is based on cultural stereotypes. According to psychologist Per Gjerde, cultural psychology has a tendency to "generalise about human development across nations and continents," and attributing characteristics to a culture promotes a disregard for heterogeneity and minimises the role of the individual. Individuals, according to Gjerde, develop multiple perspectives about their culture, sometimes act in accordance with their culture without sharing the cultural beliefs, and sometimes outright oppose their culture. Individuals are thus viewed as homogeneous cultural products by stereotyping.

Faulty methodology

Self-reporting data is one of the simplest and most accessible methods of collecting large amounts of data, particularly in cultural psychology. Overemphasizing cross-cultural comparisons of self-reported attitudes and values, on the other hand, can result in relatively unstable and ultimately misleading data.

Methods

Richard Shweder, a cultural psychologist, contends that the psyche and culture are inextricably linked. The failure to replicate many psychological findings in other parts of the world supported the idea that mind and environment are interdependent and vary across the globe. Some critics argue that using self-report is an untrustworthy method that can be misleading, especially in different cultural contexts. Despite the fact that self-reporting is an important method for gathering large amounts of data, it is not the only one.

In fact, cultural psychologists used multiple measurements and resources, just like other scientific researchers – observation, experimentation, data analysis, and so on. Nisbett and Cohen (1996), for example, investigated the relationship between historical cultural background and regional aggression difference in the United States. Researchers designed a laboratory experiment to observe participants' aggression, crime rate, and demographic statistics in this study. The results of the experiment supported the culture of honour theory, which holds that aggression is a defence mechanism rooted in the herding cultural origins of most southerners. In laboratory observations, Heine and his colleagues discovered that Japanese students spend more time than American students on tasks that they performed poorly on, demonstrating a self-improvement motivation common in East Asians that failure and success are interconvertible with effort. In terms of cognition styles, Chinese people perceive images in a more holistic way than Americans.

According to quantitative statistics on cultural products, public media in Western countries promotes more individualistic components than public media in East Asian countries. These statistics are objective because they do not rely on people filling out questionnaires; instead, psychologists use physical measurements to collect quantitative data about cultural products such as paintings and photographs. These statistics data can also be national records; for example, in a study involving 29 countries, Chiao and Blizinsky (2010) discovered that cultures of high collectivism are associated with a lower prevalence of mood/anxiety disorders. Evidence from neuro-imaging studies, in addition to experimental and statistical data, help to strengthen the reliability of cultural psychology research. For example, when Chinese people thought of their mothers, the brain region associated with self-concept showed significant activation, whereas Westerners showed no activation.

Cultural models

"Cultural models or culturally shaped mental maps are one way we organise and understand our social world. These are culturally derived ideas and practises that are embodied, enacted, or established in daily life." Cultural psychologists create models to classify cultural phenomena.

The 4 I's culture cycle

Hazel Rose Markus and Alana Conner created the 4 I's cultural model in their book Clash! 8 Cultural Dissensions That Shape Who We Are The mutually constitutive nature of culture and individual is referred to as a "culture cycle" in it. The culture cycle is made up of four layers of cultural influence (individuals, interactions, institutions, and ideas) that help to explain the interaction between self and culture.

Individuals
The first "I" is concerned with how an individual thinks and expresses itself. According to studies, people in the United States are more likely to regard themselves as "independent," "equal," and "individualistic." Individuals have characteristics that remain consistent over time and in different situations. When asked to describe themselves, Americans are more likely to use adjectives such as "energetic," "friendly," or "hardworking." Individuals in Japan are more likely to regard themselves as "obligated to society," "interdependent," and "considerate," according to studies. The self is adaptable to the circumstances. As a result, Japanese people are more likely to describe themselves in terms of others, such as "I try not to upset anyone," or "I am a father, a son, and a brother."
Interactions
On a daily basis, interactions with other people and products reinforce cultural behaviours. Stories, songs, architecture, and advertisements are all forms of interaction that guide people in a culture by promoting certain values and teaching them how to behave. In Japan, for example, no-smoking signs emphasise the impact of smoke on others by depicting the path of smoke as it affects those nearby. In the United States, no-smoking signs emphasise individual action by simply stating "No Smoking." These signs reflect underlying cultural norms and values, and people who see them are encouraged to act in accordance with the larger cultural values.
Institutions
The institutions in which daily interactions take place form the next layer of culture. These include legal, government, economic, scientific, philosophical, and religious bodies, and they determine and enforce a society's rules. Certain practises and products are encouraged by institutions while others are discouraged. Children in Japanese kindergartens learn important cultural values such as teamwork, group harmony, and cooperation. For example, during "birthday month celebration," the class honours all of the children who have birthdays that month. This institutional practise emphasises the value of the group over the individual. Children in US kindergartens learn their personal worth by celebrating their birthdays one by one, reinforcing the cultural value of uniqueness and individualism. Everyday institutional practises, such as birthday celebrations in the classroom, spread prominent cultural themes.
Ideas
The final cycle, which houses the cycle's highest and most abstract idea level, focuses on the big ideas that each culture has that answer life's big questions, such as Why are we here, where did we come from, and where are we going. The culture that surrounds the ideas provides structure to the answers and allows for a better understanding of what is believed. "In charting the course of your self, your postal code is just as important as your genetic code," Hazel and Alana write in their book. The idea's culture is just as important as the idea itself.

Whiting model

During the 1970s and 1980s, John and Beatrice Whiting, along with their Harvard University research students, developed the "Whiting model" for child development, which specifically focused on how culture influences development.

To describe the surroundings that influence a child's development, the Whitings coined the term "cultural learning environment." A child's environmental contexts, according to Beatrice Whiting, are "characterised by an activity in progress, a physically defined space, a characteristic group of people, and behavioural norms." This environment is divided into several layers. The geographical context of a child influences the history/anthropology of their larger community. As a result, maintenance systems (i.e., sociological characteristics) emerge, forming a cultural learning environment. These variables influence learned behaviour or progressive expressive systems such as religion, magical beliefs, ritual and ceremony, art, recreation, games and play, or crime rates.

Culture and motivation

Self-enhancement vs. self-improvement

While self-enhancement is a person's motivation to see themselves positively, self-improvement is a person's motivation to see themselves positively in the eyes of others. The distinction between the two ways of life is most visible in cultures that are independent or collectivistic. Cultures based on independent selfviews (the assumption that people see themselves as self-contained entities) frequently emphasise self-esteem, or confidence in one's own worth and abilities. With self-esteem regarded as a primary source of happiness in Western cultures, the motivation to improve oneself generally follows as a means of maintaining one's positive self-image. Downward social comparison, compensatory self-enhancement, discounting, external attributions, and basking in reflected glory are all common strategies used when self-enhancing. In contrast, collectivist cultures frequently emphasise self-improvement as a primary motivator in their lives. This motivation is frequently derived from a desire to maintain one's face and appear positive among social groups.

Culture and empathy

Cultural orientation: collectivistic and individualistic

When studying psychology and culture, it is important to understand the distinction between individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Individuals from individualistic cultures typically have an independent view of themselves; the emphasis is usually on personal achievement. Members of a collectivistic society place a greater emphasis on the group (interdependent view of self), typically focusing on things that will benefit the group. When comparing collectivistic and individualistic cultures, research has revealed the following differences in the self: The Fundamental Attribution Error has been found to be more prevalent in America (individualistic) than in India (collectivistic). Along the same lines, the selfserving bias was found to be more prevalent among Americans than Japanese people. This was demonstrated in a study involving fish animation, in which Western viewers interpreted the scene of a fish swimming away from a school as an expression of individualism and independence, whereas Eastern viewers wondered what was wrong with the singular fish and concluded that the school had kicked it out.

Empathy across cultures

These cultural differences in values suggest that understanding and expressing empathy may manifest differently in different cultures. Duan and Hill first discussed empathy in terms of subcategories such as intellectual empathy (taking on someone else's thoughts/perspective), also known as cognitive empathy, and emotional empathy (taking on someone else's feelings/experience). Duan, Wei, and Wang expanded on this concept by defining empathy as either dispositional (the ability to notice/understand empathy) or experiential (specific to a certain context or situation, observing the person and empathizing).

This resulted in four types of empathy to investigate further:

Dispositional intellectual empathy;
Dispositional empathic emotion;
Experience with intellectual empathy; and
Experience with empathic emotion These four branches enabled researchers to investigate empathic proclivities among people from various cultures.

Individualism was found to have no correlation with either type of dispositional empathy, whereas collectivism was found to have a direct correlation with both types of dispositional empathy, possibly indicating that by focusing less on oneself, one has more capacity to notice the needs of others. Individualism predicted more intellectual empathy, while collectivism predicted more empathic emotion. These findings correspond to the values of both collectivistic and individualistic societies. Individualistic cultures' self-centered identity and egoistic motives may act as a barrier to being open to (fully) experiencing empathy.

Intercultural and ethnocultural empathy

Cultural empathy has come to be broadly defined as the simultaneous understanding and acceptance of a culture other than one's own. This concept has been expanded with the concept of ethnocultural empathy. This goes beyond simply accepting and understanding another culture and includes acknowledging how a culture's values may influence empathy. This concept is intended to foster both cultural empathy and cultural competence. People's tendency to operate from an ethnocentric point of view is one of the most significant barriers to cross-cultural empathy. Eysenck defined ethnocentrism as the use of one's own culture to understand the rest of the world while maintaining one's own values as correct. Along with this impediment to intercultural empathy, Rasoal, Eklund, and Hansen propose five impediments to intercultural empathy, which are as follows:

Paucity of:

(general) knowledge outside one's own culture
(general) experience with other cultures outside one's own
(specific) knowledge regarding other people's cultures
(specific) experiences regarding other people's cultures
and
inability to bridge different cultures by understanding the commonalities and dissimilarities

These five points highlight the limitations of developing and practising intercultural empathy due to a lack of both depth and breadth.

Another impediment to intercultural empathy is the power dynamic that exists between different cultures. Intercultural empathy aims to connect oppressed cultures with their (upper-echelon) oppressors. One approach to overcoming this barrier is to try to recognise one's own oppression. While this may seem insignificant in comparison to other people's oppression, it will still aid in the realisation that other people have been oppressed. The goal of bridging the gap should be to form an alliance by identifying the core commonalities of the human experience; this demonstrates empathy as a relational experience rather than an independent one. The goal is for intercultural empathy to contribute to broader intercultural understanding across cultures and societies.

Four important facets of cultural empathy are:

Taking the perspective of someone from a different culture
Understanding the verbal/behavioral expression that occurs during ethnocultural empathy
Being cognizant of how different cultures are treated by larger entities such as the job market and the media
Accepting differences in cultural choices regarding language, clothing preference, food choice, etc.

These four factors may be especially beneficial when practising cultural competence in a clinical setting. Given that most psychological practises were founded on the parochial ideals of Euro-American psychologists, cultural competence was not regarded as particularly important until these psychologists began seeing clients from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Therapy with an individual focus, an emphasis on expressiveness, and an emphasis on openness are just a few of the issues that contribute to therapy not being beneficial for people of colour. More information on intercultural competence can be found at intercultural competence.