Artikelen Wild Years
Artikel 1
RAPID SOCIAL CHANGE AND THE TURMOIL OF ADOLESCENCE: A CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE
PIERRE R. DASEN file:///C:/Users/Gebruiker/Downloads/A_1005126629553.pdf
Mead/Freeman controversy
It centers on the following question: Which are the cultural contexts that best ensure a smooth
transition from childhood to adulthood? The review covers some of the ethnographic research, both
case studies and work using the hologeistic method (those using the Human Relations Area Files), and
some of the research in cross-cultural and developmental psychology, but neither cross-national
comparisons nor studies with migrants in multicultural societies. It is found that social adolescence is
a universal life stage, but that it takes very different forms in different societies. Its extension into a
youth period occurred in societies with an age-grade system, and is nowadays linked to urbanization,
industrialization, and formal education. Adolescence does not need to be a period of storm and
stress, and the generation gap and problem behaviors considered a “normal” part of adolescence are
in fact culturally produced. In many situations, these problematic aspects of adolescence are linked to
rapid social change or acculturation, most often in the form of westernization. Societies that manage
to keep some continuity, cultural identity, and basic values such as family solidarity, often also
manage to avoid importing the problems of adolescence despite social change.
Of importance are
- The tolerance and flexibility of adults
- Close contact between generations
- Appropriate role-learning
- Acceptance into the adult community, including in the economic sphere
A large part of what figures prominently in mainstream psychology textbooks has in fact been
elaborated on a very restricted sample of the world’s population. To take the example of adolescence,
this period of the lifespan was described for a long time as a period during which the individual has
to separate from the family and become autonomous, and rebels against adult norms and values—
a period of inevitable psychological turmoil. Is this indeed true of adolescence worldwide, or are
these characteristics peculiar to adolescence in Euro-American society, or is the storm and stress
hypothesis incorrect even for most Euro-American adolescents?
In following this trend, one would study adolescence in a particular society entirely in its own
cultural terms, without reference to existing theories, and without attempting comparisons across
societies indigenous psychologies. This may be a temporarily useful reaction, but should not rule
out more comparative methodologies that allow the development of overarching theoretical
frameworks.
HOLOCULTURAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL STUDIES
Holocultural studies help to situate a particular case in an overall picture and allow for
generalizations. A picture emerges of social adolescence as a universal stage with tensions being
normal, even some antisocial behavior, but not a “crisis.” There are fairly important differences
between adolescence in Western societies and in traditional ones.
,PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES
Trommsdorff’s results show that “intergenerational relations in individualistic societies are
characterized by more conflict than in collectivistic societies” (p. 214). However, the same can be said
of traditional vs. modern societies: “Adolescents from traditional as compared to modern cultural
contexts see less reason to distance themselves from their parents and yield less to social change”
FACTORS OF STRESS AND ADAPTATION
There clearly are cultural contexts that ensure a smoother transition from childhood to adulthood
than others. The problems of adolescence are certainly not inevitable, although it may be
unnecessary to avoid all of them. Some of these problems are still quite specific to some Western
countries. Realizing this, and the danger of ex/importing these along with westernization, should
alert us to attempt preventive action. It is no doubt possible to plan policy measures towards this
goal.
Artikel 2
Explaining Human Culture. Hunter-Gatherers (Foragers). Carol R. Ember. https://hraf.yale.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2015/07/M.F.EplainingHumanCulture-Foragers.pdf
How we define terms will affect the sample and determine the outcome of a cross-cultural study.
When asking if hunter-gatherers are typically peaceful, for example, researchers will get different
results depending upon what they mean by peaceful, how they define hunter-gatherers, and
whether they have excluded societies forced to stop fighting by colonial powers or national
governments.
Because terms can be arbitrary, descriptive generalizations about hunter-gatherers are less
meaningful than an understanding of how and why they vary.
, Hunter-gatherer cultures differ from food-producing cultures in childrearing practices and
vocalization. Foodproducing cultures are more vulnerable to famines and food shortages.
Artikel 3
The weirdest people in the world? Joseph Henrich.
https://www-cambridge-org.proxy.library.uu.nl/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/
BF84F7517D56AFF7B7EB58411A554C17/S0140525X0999152Xa.pdf/the-weirdest-people-in-the-
world.pdf
Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Researchers – often
implicitly – assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that these
“standard subjects” are as representative of the species as any other population.
The findings suggest that members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least
representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans. Many of these findings
involve domains that are associated with fundamental aspects of psychology, motivation, and
behavior – hence, there are no obvious a priori grounds for claiming that a particular behavioral
phenomenon is universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation. Overall, these empirical
patterns suggests that we need to be less cavalier in addressing questions of human nature on the
basis of data drawn from this particularly thin, and rather unusual, slice of humanity.
Contrast 1: Industrialized societies versus small-scale societies
Although there are several domains in which the data from small-scale societies appear similar to
that from industrialized societies, comparative projects involving visual illusions, social motivations
(fairness), folk biological cognition, and spatial cognition all show industrialized populations as
outliers. Given all this, it seems problematic to generalize from industrialized populations to humans
more broadly, in the absence of supportive empirical evidence.
Contrast 2: Western versus non-Western societies
Social decision making (fairness, cooperation, and punishment), independent versus interdependent
self-concepts (and associated motivations), analytic versus holistic reasoning, and moral reasoning
are important.
Although robust patterns have emerged among people from industrialized societies, Westerners
emerge as unusual – frequent global outliers – on several key dimensions. The experiments reviewed
are numerous, arise from different disciplines, use diverse methods, and are often part of
systematically comparable data sets created by unified projects. Many of these differences are not
merely differences in the magnitude of effects but often show qualitative differences, involving effect
reversals or novel phenomena such as allocentric spatial reasoning and antisocial punishment.
Contrast 3: Contemporary Americans versus the rest of the West
- Individualism and related psychological phenomena
- Similarities between Americans and other Westerners
There are few research programs that have explicitly sought to contrast Americans with other
Westerners on psychological or behavioral measures. However, those phenomena for which sufficient
data are available to make cross-population comparisons reveal that American participants are
exceptional even within the unusual population of Westerners – outliers among outliers.
Contrast 4: Typical contemporary American subjects versus other Americans
Artikel 1
RAPID SOCIAL CHANGE AND THE TURMOIL OF ADOLESCENCE: A CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE
PIERRE R. DASEN file:///C:/Users/Gebruiker/Downloads/A_1005126629553.pdf
Mead/Freeman controversy
It centers on the following question: Which are the cultural contexts that best ensure a smooth
transition from childhood to adulthood? The review covers some of the ethnographic research, both
case studies and work using the hologeistic method (those using the Human Relations Area Files), and
some of the research in cross-cultural and developmental psychology, but neither cross-national
comparisons nor studies with migrants in multicultural societies. It is found that social adolescence is
a universal life stage, but that it takes very different forms in different societies. Its extension into a
youth period occurred in societies with an age-grade system, and is nowadays linked to urbanization,
industrialization, and formal education. Adolescence does not need to be a period of storm and
stress, and the generation gap and problem behaviors considered a “normal” part of adolescence are
in fact culturally produced. In many situations, these problematic aspects of adolescence are linked to
rapid social change or acculturation, most often in the form of westernization. Societies that manage
to keep some continuity, cultural identity, and basic values such as family solidarity, often also
manage to avoid importing the problems of adolescence despite social change.
Of importance are
- The tolerance and flexibility of adults
- Close contact between generations
- Appropriate role-learning
- Acceptance into the adult community, including in the economic sphere
A large part of what figures prominently in mainstream psychology textbooks has in fact been
elaborated on a very restricted sample of the world’s population. To take the example of adolescence,
this period of the lifespan was described for a long time as a period during which the individual has
to separate from the family and become autonomous, and rebels against adult norms and values—
a period of inevitable psychological turmoil. Is this indeed true of adolescence worldwide, or are
these characteristics peculiar to adolescence in Euro-American society, or is the storm and stress
hypothesis incorrect even for most Euro-American adolescents?
In following this trend, one would study adolescence in a particular society entirely in its own
cultural terms, without reference to existing theories, and without attempting comparisons across
societies indigenous psychologies. This may be a temporarily useful reaction, but should not rule
out more comparative methodologies that allow the development of overarching theoretical
frameworks.
HOLOCULTURAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL STUDIES
Holocultural studies help to situate a particular case in an overall picture and allow for
generalizations. A picture emerges of social adolescence as a universal stage with tensions being
normal, even some antisocial behavior, but not a “crisis.” There are fairly important differences
between adolescence in Western societies and in traditional ones.
,PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES
Trommsdorff’s results show that “intergenerational relations in individualistic societies are
characterized by more conflict than in collectivistic societies” (p. 214). However, the same can be said
of traditional vs. modern societies: “Adolescents from traditional as compared to modern cultural
contexts see less reason to distance themselves from their parents and yield less to social change”
FACTORS OF STRESS AND ADAPTATION
There clearly are cultural contexts that ensure a smoother transition from childhood to adulthood
than others. The problems of adolescence are certainly not inevitable, although it may be
unnecessary to avoid all of them. Some of these problems are still quite specific to some Western
countries. Realizing this, and the danger of ex/importing these along with westernization, should
alert us to attempt preventive action. It is no doubt possible to plan policy measures towards this
goal.
Artikel 2
Explaining Human Culture. Hunter-Gatherers (Foragers). Carol R. Ember. https://hraf.yale.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2015/07/M.F.EplainingHumanCulture-Foragers.pdf
How we define terms will affect the sample and determine the outcome of a cross-cultural study.
When asking if hunter-gatherers are typically peaceful, for example, researchers will get different
results depending upon what they mean by peaceful, how they define hunter-gatherers, and
whether they have excluded societies forced to stop fighting by colonial powers or national
governments.
Because terms can be arbitrary, descriptive generalizations about hunter-gatherers are less
meaningful than an understanding of how and why they vary.
, Hunter-gatherer cultures differ from food-producing cultures in childrearing practices and
vocalization. Foodproducing cultures are more vulnerable to famines and food shortages.
Artikel 3
The weirdest people in the world? Joseph Henrich.
https://www-cambridge-org.proxy.library.uu.nl/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/
BF84F7517D56AFF7B7EB58411A554C17/S0140525X0999152Xa.pdf/the-weirdest-people-in-the-
world.pdf
Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Researchers – often
implicitly – assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that these
“standard subjects” are as representative of the species as any other population.
The findings suggest that members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least
representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans. Many of these findings
involve domains that are associated with fundamental aspects of psychology, motivation, and
behavior – hence, there are no obvious a priori grounds for claiming that a particular behavioral
phenomenon is universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation. Overall, these empirical
patterns suggests that we need to be less cavalier in addressing questions of human nature on the
basis of data drawn from this particularly thin, and rather unusual, slice of humanity.
Contrast 1: Industrialized societies versus small-scale societies
Although there are several domains in which the data from small-scale societies appear similar to
that from industrialized societies, comparative projects involving visual illusions, social motivations
(fairness), folk biological cognition, and spatial cognition all show industrialized populations as
outliers. Given all this, it seems problematic to generalize from industrialized populations to humans
more broadly, in the absence of supportive empirical evidence.
Contrast 2: Western versus non-Western societies
Social decision making (fairness, cooperation, and punishment), independent versus interdependent
self-concepts (and associated motivations), analytic versus holistic reasoning, and moral reasoning
are important.
Although robust patterns have emerged among people from industrialized societies, Westerners
emerge as unusual – frequent global outliers – on several key dimensions. The experiments reviewed
are numerous, arise from different disciplines, use diverse methods, and are often part of
systematically comparable data sets created by unified projects. Many of these differences are not
merely differences in the magnitude of effects but often show qualitative differences, involving effect
reversals or novel phenomena such as allocentric spatial reasoning and antisocial punishment.
Contrast 3: Contemporary Americans versus the rest of the West
- Individualism and related psychological phenomena
- Similarities between Americans and other Westerners
There are few research programs that have explicitly sought to contrast Americans with other
Westerners on psychological or behavioral measures. However, those phenomena for which sufficient
data are available to make cross-population comparisons reveal that American participants are
exceptional even within the unusual population of Westerners – outliers among outliers.
Contrast 4: Typical contemporary American subjects versus other Americans
