Psyc3001 Cultural Psychology

Tieyuan Guo
tguo@um.edu.mo

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 Definition of Seminar

⚫ sem·i·nar
⚫ n.
⚫ 1.
– a. A small group of advanced students in a college or
graduate school engaged in original research or intensive
study under the guidance of a professor who meets
regularly with them to discuss their reports and findings.
– b. A course of study pursued.
– c. A scheduled meeting of such a group.
⚫ 2. A meeting for an exchange of ideas; a conference.

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 Why should we attend to culture？

⚫ Increasing travel and communication links among

countries and continents.
⚫ The populations of many nations, and of
communities within nations, are asserting their
distinctiveness more energetically: what processes
come into play when they meet and interact with
each other?
⚫ Psychology can only claim validity to the extent that
its theories have been tested at multiple locations.
⚫ All social psychology is cultural.

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 What is “culture”- What do you think?

⚫ “Culture is the man-made part of the environment.”

⚫ “Culture is simply how one lives and is connected to
history by habit.”
⚫ “Culture is a set of attitudes (beliefs), behaviors, and
symbols shared by a large group of people and usually
communicated from one generation to the next.”
⚫ Culture is a set of human-made objective and
subjective elements that in the past have increase the
probability of survival and resulted in satisfactions for
the participants in an ecological niche, and thus
became shared among those who could communicate
with each other be/c they had a common language and
lived in the same time and place.
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 What is culture?

⚫ In brief, most definitions focus on shared

ideas, values, practices, norms, roles, and
self-definitions, and it can be passed on from
one generation to the next.
⚫
⚫ We will use “Culture” to indicate a particular
group of individuals.

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 Culture perpetuates itself

⚫ Culture is a system that perpetuates itself.

– Through its institutions, rituals, socialization
practices, and patterning of interactions, culture
provides the guidance and rewards that
systematically shape individual social cognition
(e.g., self-construal).
– Yet, culture, as the man-made part of the
environment, is certainly constructed,
perpetuated, and modified by the actions and
beliefs of individuals.

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 Figure 1: A basic model of culture with some of its aspects
and influences (Singelis, T.M, 2000)

Group Level Individual Level

Shared Psychological Behavioral
values/norms, Values Self presentation
Political Self-construal Socialization
systems, Social beliefs Family relations
Religions, Attitudes Emotions
Interaction goals Interaction
patterns patterns

Basic cognitive processes:

What’s missing in this model? Memory, attention, categorization,
7 reasoning, …
 Is Culture Unique to Human Being?

⚫ Are humans unique in being able to learn

information from others through social
transmission?
– No
– Macaque (恒河猴，猕猴) in Japan- washing
potatoes

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 Is Culture Unique to Human Being?

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 Is Culture Unique to Human Being?

⚫ Are humans unique in being able

to learn information from others
through social transmission?
– No
– Chimpanzees (黑猩猩) fish termites
(白蟻)
⚫ In Senegal （塞内加尔）, Chimps use
the twig after peeling the bark from it
to fish out the termites.
⚫ In Tanzania（坦桑尼亚）, Chimps
peel the bark from the twig, and use
the bark to fish out the termites.
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 Is Culture Unique to Human Being?

⚫ Are humans unique in being able to learn

information from others through social
transmission?
– No
– Not only primate species, Elephants too.
⚫ Becoming aggressive to human being
after many of them were killed. The
descendants are still the most dangerous
elephants in Africa.

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 Cultural Learning

⚫ Human being stand out in cultural learning!

– Human Being are good at cultural learning…
⚫ It take the Japanese macaques years to learn washing
potatoes. And some never figure it out.
– Human being choose whom they learn from
⚫ We learning from other who has prestige- having skills
and respected by others.
⚫ More likely to be successful than learning from someone
randomly chosen.

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 Theory of mind

⚫ Theory of mind
– People understand that others have minds that are different
from their own, and thus that other people have
perspectives and intentions that are different from their own.
– Theory of Mind Test

⚫ When humans learn from others, we are able to take

on the perspectives of those others- the learner
internalizes the model’s goals and behavior
strategies.

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 Language facilitates cultural learning

⚫ Being able to communicate is very important

for conveying cultural information.
⚫ Question, clarify, persuade, describe, direct,
explain

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 ⚫ Why are there cultural differences?
⚫ Where do cultural differences come
from?
⚫ How to explain cultural effects?

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 Sources of hypotheses about cultural effects

Source of Ecology Institutions Socialization Psychological

hypotheses and social processes constructs
structures

Example of Temperature Kinship Family culture Values, beliefs,

explanatory Subsistence Social class Organization norms
variable mode culture

Background Eco-cultural Sociology Development Social and

of psychology Social al， social, organizational
researcher anthropology and psychology
organizational
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 Major theories in (cross-) cultural psychology

⚫ Individualism vs. Collectivism

⚫ Independent vs. Interdependent self construal
⚫ Analytical vs. Holistic reasoning style

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 Individualism and Collectivism

⚫ Hofstede:
– “Culture’s Consequences” (1980)
– Surveyed 117,000 IBM employees
with 14 work goal items.
Individualism Collectivism
– Factor analysis:
⚫ Individualism Stands for a society stands for a society
in which the ties in which people from
⚫ Power distance
between individuals birth onwards are
⚫ Masculinity are loose; everyone integrated into
⚫ Uncertainty avoidance is expected to look strong, cohesive
after himself or ingroups, which
⚫ Long-term orientation herself and his/her throughout people’s
⚫ Indulgence immediate family lifetime continue to
only protect them in
18 exchange for
unquestioning loyalty
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 Problems with Ind/Col

⚫ It may be the results of variations in economic

development.
– Hofstede: .82 between ind. And the level of national
economic development.
– Challenged by the rapid economic growth of the collectivistic
countries in the Pacific Rim
⚫ Too readily used to explain every behavioral variation
between so-called ind/col cultures.
⚫ Some of the conceptualizations reflect rather
impressionistic, stereotypic and global
characterizations of what ind/col are like. Many
20 studies just assume ind/col.
 Major theories in (cross-) cultural psychology

⚫ Individualism vs. Collectivism

⚫ Independent vs. Interdependent self construal
⚫ Analytical vs. Holistic reasoning style

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 Independent vs. Interdependent self
construal

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 Markus & Kitayama (1991)

Compared to independent self, those with

interdependent self are…
⚫ Social cognition:
– More interpersonal knowledge, less false uniqueness effect
– Less FAE, more context dependent
⚫ Nonsocial cognition:
– different attentions, different thinking styles
⚫ Emotion
– More other-focused emotion, less intensified emotion
⚫ Motivation
23 – More interdependent motives
 Major theories in (cross-) cultural psychology

⚫ Individualism vs. Collectivism

⚫ Independent vs. Interdependent self construal
⚫ Analytical vs. Holistic reasoning style

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 Analytical vs. Holistic reasoning style

⚫ Analytic ⚫ Holistic
– Attend to object – Attend to field
– Taxonomic – Relational/semantic
categorization categorization
– Rules – Intuition
– Linear prediction – Nonlinear prediction
– Non-contradiction – Acceptance of
– Talking improves contradiction
thinking – Talking hurts thinking
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 Attention to object/field

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 Framed line test (Kitayama et al., 2003)

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 Framed line test (Hedden et al., 2008)

⚫ American and East Asian participants completed the

framed line test while their brain activities were
monitored by fMRI.

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 Taxonomic/Semantic
categorizations (Ji et al., 2005)

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 Rules vs. Intuition (Norenzayan et al., 2002)

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 Rules vs. Intuition

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 Belief-bias Effect

⚫ Is the following conclusion valid?

– Premise 1: All things that have a motor need oil.
所有有發動機的東西都需要潤滑油。
– Premise 2: Automobiles need oil.汽車需要潤滑油
– Conclusion: Automobiles have motors. 汽車有發
動機。

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 Belief-bias Effect

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 Prediction: Trend continuity vs.
reversal

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 Non-contradiction vs. acceptance
of contradiction (Peng & Nisbett, 1999)

⚫ Mother-Daughter Conflict
– Mary, Phoebe, and Julie all have daughters. Each mother
has held a set of values which has guided her efforts to
raise her daughter. Now the daughters have grown up, and
each of them is rejecting many of her mother's values. How
did it happen and what should they do?
⚫ School-Fun Conflict
– Kent, James, and Matt are college juniors. They are feeling
very frustrated about their three years of routine tests, paper
assignments, and grades. They complain that going through
this process has taken its toll, undermining the fun of
learning. How did it happen and what should they do?
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 Non-contradiction vs. acceptance
of contradiction
(Peng & Nisbett, 1999)

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 Talking and thinking (Kim, 2006)

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 Psychological Universality

⚫ …all human beings are alike, and that all are

different… by Mark Van Doren

⚫ Is Marriage culturally universal?

– Yes, if you define marriage in abstract ways
⚫ public recognition of sexual access among those who married,
for a long period of time, Children rearing
– No, if you define marriage concretely
⚫ One man and one woman, love is essential, stay together until
die or divorced.

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 Cultural Variations- Marriage without
love
60

50

40

Percentage 30

20

10

0
USA Australia England India Pakistan
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 Discussion

⚫ Why does the importance of love for

marriage vary across cultures?

⚫ If love is less important for marriage in India

and Pakistan than in Western countries, are
people more likely to devoice in India and
Pakistan than in Western countries?

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 Level of Psychological Universality

⚫ Accessibility Universal
– Exist in all cultures, used to solve the same problem across
cultures, and is accessible to the same degree across
cultures.
– Example: Social Facilitation- valid for insects (cockroach)
⚫ Functional Universal
– Exist in multiple cultures, used to solve the same problem,
more accessible in some cultures than others.
– Example: Punish others
⚫ In Bolivia- willing to spend 28% of earnings to punish
⚫ In Kenya- willing to spend 90% of earnings to punish

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 Level of Psychological Universality

⚫ Existential Universal
– Exist in multiple cultures, not used to solve the
same problem, not equally accessible across
cultures.
– Example: Effect of talking on reasoning
⚫ Non-universal (cultural invention)
– Do not exist in all cultures.
– Example: Abacus thinking of numbers-(unit of 5);
British people use “dozen”- (unit of 12)

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 Levels of psychological universals and cultural variations

Functional
Existential Accessibility
Non-universal universal
universal universal
(cultural invention) Variation in
(variation in (No variation)
accessibility
function)

No
No
Yes
No

Cognitively
available? Same use? Same accessibility
Yes Yes

45 (Norenzayan & Heine, 2005)

 Zanjonc et al. (1969)

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 Thank You

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