Cultural Psychology
Module 1
What is Culture?
What Is Culture?
● Culture: a unique meaning and information system, shared by a group and
transmitted across generations, that allows the group to meet basic needs of survival,
pursue happiness and well-being, and derive meaning from life.
● Cross-cultural research: involves participants of differing cultural backgrounds and
allows for comparisons of findings across those cultures.
Where Does Culture Come From?
○ Group Life
■ Division of labor, more safety in groups than alone
○ Environment
■ Deviation from temperate climate: the degree to which the average
temperature will differ from what is considered to be “easiest”
temperature to live in (which is 22°C)
■ Population density → important about population density is the
number of people in an area in relation to the amount of arable land in
that area
○ Resources
■ Food, water, and affluence (the amount of money available to a person
or group)
○ The Evolved Human Mind
■ Needs and motives
■ Universal psychological toolkits → basic psychological skills that
people can use to meet their needs (complex cognitive skills, language,
emotions, and personality traits)
■ Shared intentionality → we can read each other’s facial expressions
and emotions. Shared intentionality may be at the heart of social
coordination, which allows for the creation of human culture
, ■ Ratchet effect: the concept that humans continually improve on
improvements (does not occur in animals)
The Difference Between Society and Culture
● Society
○ A system of interrelationships among people
● Culture
○ Refers to the meanings that are associated with those social networks →
example: family (it exists everywhere, but it has a different meaning
everywhere)
Groups That Have Cultures
● Culture and nationality
● Culture and language
● Culture and ethnicity
● Culture and gender
● Culture and disability
● Culture and sexual orientation
Groups That Are NOT Cultures
● Culture and race
● Culture and personality
The Contents of Culture
● Objective elements: architecture, foods, clothes, art, media, television, music
● Subjective elements: attitudes, values, beliefs, behaviors
○ Values → individualism vs collectivism, power distance (is power equal or
unequal), uncertainty avoidance (the degree to which people feel threatened by
unknown or ambiguous situations, and have developed beliefs, institutions, or
rituals to avoid them), masculinity vs femininity, long-term vs short-term
orientation
■ Sacred values: values considered to be non negotiable
○ Beliefs → cultural beliefs are known as social axioms
, ○ Norms → a generally accepted standard of behavior within a cultural group
■ Pelto (1968): tightness vs looseness → the strength of social norms or
how much tolerance there is to deviate from the norm
○ Attitudes → evaluations of things occuring (either in present thoughts or
stored in memory)
○ Worldviews → belief systems about the world
■ An important aspect of worldviews is our self-concept
How Does Culture Influence Human Behaviors and Mental Processes?
● Individuals begin the process of learning about their culture (and the rules and norms
of appropriate behavior in specific situations and contexts) through a process called
enculturation → when individuals learn and adopt the ways and manners of their
specific culture
Etics and Emics
● Etics: aspects of life that appear to be consistent across different cultures; universal or
pancultural truths or principles
● Emics: aspects of life that appear to differ across cultures; truths or principles that are
culture-specific
Goals of Cross-Cultural Psychology
1. Transport and test hypotheses and findings to other cultural settings
2. Explore other cultures to discover variations
3. Integrate findings into a more universal psychology
Theoretical Frameworks
● Hofstede
○ 4 classic dimensions:
■ 1: power distance
■ 2: individualism / collectivism
■ 3: masculinity / femininity
■ 4: uncertainty avoidance
○ He added two more after 2010:
, ■ 5: Long-term / short-term orientation
■ 6: Indulgence
○ Criticism on Hofstede
■ Items on the questionnaire to evaluate individualism / collectivism
have low face validity → it looks like they are not really assessing
what they should
■ ‘Variance explained’ is very small → not so much is actually explained
by the Hofstede model
■ Matsumoto: 17 of 18 studies on individualism / collectivism provide
little or no support for the differences that were predicted by the
Hofstede model
■ Minkov: power distance seems to be a part of individualism /
collectivism (not a special dimension). Uncertainty avoidance is not
reliably measured → it does not predict criteria such as job security).
Masculinity / femininity also doesn’t predict criteria.
○ Expansion: Cultural Syndromes (Triandis)
■ Vertical collectivism: perceiving the self as a part of a collective +
accepting inequalities within the collective
■ Horizontal collectivism: perceiving the self as a part of the collective,
but seeing all members of the collective as the same (equality is
important)
■ Vertical individualism: the conception of an autonomous individual
and acceptance of inequality
■ Horizontal individualism: the conception of an autonomous
individual and emphasis on equality
● Markus & Kitayama: Independence and Interdependence
○ The extent to which people prioritize their public self, relational self or private
self can vary by culture
■ Western: being different from others
■ Eastern: being connected to others
○ Criticism by Matsumoto
■ There is little empirical support
Module 1
What is Culture?
What Is Culture?
● Culture: a unique meaning and information system, shared by a group and
transmitted across generations, that allows the group to meet basic needs of survival,
pursue happiness and well-being, and derive meaning from life.
● Cross-cultural research: involves participants of differing cultural backgrounds and
allows for comparisons of findings across those cultures.
Where Does Culture Come From?
○ Group Life
■ Division of labor, more safety in groups than alone
○ Environment
■ Deviation from temperate climate: the degree to which the average
temperature will differ from what is considered to be “easiest”
temperature to live in (which is 22°C)
■ Population density → important about population density is the
number of people in an area in relation to the amount of arable land in
that area
○ Resources
■ Food, water, and affluence (the amount of money available to a person
or group)
○ The Evolved Human Mind
■ Needs and motives
■ Universal psychological toolkits → basic psychological skills that
people can use to meet their needs (complex cognitive skills, language,
emotions, and personality traits)
■ Shared intentionality → we can read each other’s facial expressions
and emotions. Shared intentionality may be at the heart of social
coordination, which allows for the creation of human culture
, ■ Ratchet effect: the concept that humans continually improve on
improvements (does not occur in animals)
The Difference Between Society and Culture
● Society
○ A system of interrelationships among people
● Culture
○ Refers to the meanings that are associated with those social networks →
example: family (it exists everywhere, but it has a different meaning
everywhere)
Groups That Have Cultures
● Culture and nationality
● Culture and language
● Culture and ethnicity
● Culture and gender
● Culture and disability
● Culture and sexual orientation
Groups That Are NOT Cultures
● Culture and race
● Culture and personality
The Contents of Culture
● Objective elements: architecture, foods, clothes, art, media, television, music
● Subjective elements: attitudes, values, beliefs, behaviors
○ Values → individualism vs collectivism, power distance (is power equal or
unequal), uncertainty avoidance (the degree to which people feel threatened by
unknown or ambiguous situations, and have developed beliefs, institutions, or
rituals to avoid them), masculinity vs femininity, long-term vs short-term
orientation
■ Sacred values: values considered to be non negotiable
○ Beliefs → cultural beliefs are known as social axioms
, ○ Norms → a generally accepted standard of behavior within a cultural group
■ Pelto (1968): tightness vs looseness → the strength of social norms or
how much tolerance there is to deviate from the norm
○ Attitudes → evaluations of things occuring (either in present thoughts or
stored in memory)
○ Worldviews → belief systems about the world
■ An important aspect of worldviews is our self-concept
How Does Culture Influence Human Behaviors and Mental Processes?
● Individuals begin the process of learning about their culture (and the rules and norms
of appropriate behavior in specific situations and contexts) through a process called
enculturation → when individuals learn and adopt the ways and manners of their
specific culture
Etics and Emics
● Etics: aspects of life that appear to be consistent across different cultures; universal or
pancultural truths or principles
● Emics: aspects of life that appear to differ across cultures; truths or principles that are
culture-specific
Goals of Cross-Cultural Psychology
1. Transport and test hypotheses and findings to other cultural settings
2. Explore other cultures to discover variations
3. Integrate findings into a more universal psychology
Theoretical Frameworks
● Hofstede
○ 4 classic dimensions:
■ 1: power distance
■ 2: individualism / collectivism
■ 3: masculinity / femininity
■ 4: uncertainty avoidance
○ He added two more after 2010:
, ■ 5: Long-term / short-term orientation
■ 6: Indulgence
○ Criticism on Hofstede
■ Items on the questionnaire to evaluate individualism / collectivism
have low face validity → it looks like they are not really assessing
what they should
■ ‘Variance explained’ is very small → not so much is actually explained
by the Hofstede model
■ Matsumoto: 17 of 18 studies on individualism / collectivism provide
little or no support for the differences that were predicted by the
Hofstede model
■ Minkov: power distance seems to be a part of individualism /
collectivism (not a special dimension). Uncertainty avoidance is not
reliably measured → it does not predict criteria such as job security).
Masculinity / femininity also doesn’t predict criteria.
○ Expansion: Cultural Syndromes (Triandis)
■ Vertical collectivism: perceiving the self as a part of a collective +
accepting inequalities within the collective
■ Horizontal collectivism: perceiving the self as a part of the collective,
but seeing all members of the collective as the same (equality is
important)
■ Vertical individualism: the conception of an autonomous individual
and acceptance of inequality
■ Horizontal individualism: the conception of an autonomous
individual and emphasis on equality
● Markus & Kitayama: Independence and Interdependence
○ The extent to which people prioritize their public self, relational self or private
self can vary by culture
■ Western: being different from others
■ Eastern: being connected to others
○ Criticism by Matsumoto
■ There is little empirical support
