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What Is Cross Cultural Psychology

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Differences Between Individualistic And Collectivist Cultures

Chapter 1 Understanding Cross Cultural Psychology

There are some very recognizable differences between individualistic and collectivist cultures .

In collectivist cultures:

  • People tend to focus on context rather than their internal processes when predicting others behavior.
  • Individual behaviors are less consistent across different situations.
  • Behavior is more easily predicted from norms and roles than from attitudes.

Why Is It Important To Understand Cultural Differences When Negotiating

Culture Influences NegotiationsDifferent people negotiate different ways. … These differences are not only present here in the U.S., but also when we negotiate with individuals from other countries. Culture influences how individuals negotiate and how they view and interpret the negotiation process.

Differences In Subjective Well

The term subjective well-being is frequently used all over psychology research and is made up of three essential parts:

life satisfaction ,

the presence of productive emotional experiences, and

the absence of dismissive emotional experiences. Across cultures, people may have different thinking on the ideal level of subjective well-being.

For example, many countries have been shown in studies to find productive emotions very desirable. On the contrary, the Chinese did not score as highly on the desire for positive emotions.

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Introduction To The Cross

Cross cultural psychology is a comparative field. It is the comparative and critical study of cultural effects on individual psychology. In cross-cultural psychology any study draws its conclusions from at least two samples and the samples from which the psychologists draw their conclusion represent at least two cultural groups. As we know cross-cultural psychology is all about comparisons, and the act of comparison needs a particular set of critical skills, this study is not separable from critical thinking.

Examination in cross-cultural psychological is not just a single observation made by a psychotherapist, researcher, or social worker. Witnessing a clear event cannot cover for systematic comparisons of experience and behavior measured under different cultural conditions. Cross-cultural psychology must depend on contemporary methods of scientific investigation.

Multilingual Studies In Cross

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Cross-cultural studies are often multilingual, and recommended practices for how instruments can be translated or adapted have been developed. In an adaptation procedure, one or more parts are rewritten in order to improve an instruments suitability for a target group. Most multilingual studies employ existing instruments. A translation, followed by an independent back-translation and a comparison of the original and back-translated version, possibly followed by some alterations of the translation is accomplished. Back-translations provide a powerful tool to enhance the correspondence of original and translated versions that is independent of the researchers knowledge of the target language. Yet, they do not address all problems. First, back-translations put a premium on literal reproduction this may give rise to stilted language in the target version that lacks the readability and natural flow of the original.

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What Is Cross Cultural Research In Psychology

Crosscultural psychologystudyculturalcrosscultural psychology

. Also question is, what is a cross cultural research?

Crosscultural research is a scientific method of comparative research which focuses on systematic comparisons that. compares culture to culture and explicitly aims to answer questions about the incidence, distributions, and causes of. cultural variation and complex problems across a wide domain, usually worldwide.

Beside above, what is the difference between cultural and cross cultural psychology? Cultural psychology studies the connection between the mind and body, while crosscultural psychology examines how specific cultures influence behaviors.

Just so, what are the importance of cross cultural psychology?

Why CrossCultural Psychology Is ImportantCrosscultural psychologists work to rectify many of the biases that may exist in the research2? and determine if the things that apply in European and North American cultures also apply in other parts of the world.

Why is cross cultural research important?

Crosscultural studies main importance is to advance and expand our knowledge beyond the confinements of our particular surrounding context, encompassing a universal perspective in understanding human behavior.

How Much Has Psychology Expanded Its Focus Beyond Weird People

In numerical terms, it seems, not much. While the problems with global underrepresentation in psychology research have gained more attention in recent years, an updated analysis of top journals in the mid-2010s found that the vast majority of samples were still from Western, industrialized countries, with about 60 percent from the U.S.

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Theories And Goals Of The Field

An early textbook on cross-cultural psychology, authored by John Berry, professor of psychology at Queens University, Canada, set out three goals that cross-cultural psychologists should address :

  • First and most importantly, test the fields generality by looking at how different cultures respond to standard psychological tests.
  • Next, remain open and observant of other cultures psychology, such as recognizing novel aspects of how they behave.
  • Finally, integrate the knowledge to create nearly universal psychology valid for a greater number of cultures.

Several psychological theories, models, and approaches have emerged from the ongoing research into cross-cultural psychology. They are often not distinct, but complementary, and include:

  • Ecocultural modelMore recently, having reconfirmed the above goals, Berry proposed the ecocultural model.

It treats culture as a series of variables, existing at both individual and population levels, that interact to influence diversity in individual behavior .

  • Cultural syndromesHarry Triandis from the University of Illinois suggests that ecologies shape cultures, and cultures influence the development of personalities.

Cultural differences are identified, measured, and described as cultural syndromes that can be used to group and organize cultures.

Evolutionary theory provides further information regarding the evolutionary factors that influence human experience and behavior, laying the foundation for human culture .

Why Study Cultural Psychology

Ethnic Diversity and Psychology, Multiculturalism in the US, Cross-Cultural Psychology

Culture varies depending on location and heritage, influencing the behavior and thoughts of people who come into contact with it. What is the purpose of cultural psychology? It goes beyond simply describing facts. Instead, it explores both the origins and consequences produced, defined, and maintained by tradition in that particular context.

Like we said before, cows are sacred in India. But how did they get to that point? The aim of cultural psychology is to answer questions like that.

Cultural psychology doesnt just investigate the heart of the story to understand why a population has a particular culture. It also studies how the culture affects the people in it. Why do some customs persist and others dont? How do these customs affect patterns of behavior? What implications do these traditions have for the future?

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Definitions And Early Work

Two definitions of the field include: “the scientific study of human behavior and its transmission, taking into account the ways in which behaviors are shaped and influenced by social and cultural forces” and “the empirical study of members of various cultural groups who have had different experiences that lead to predictable and significant differences in behavior”. Culture, as a whole, may also be defined as “the shared way of life of a group of people.” In contrast to sociologists, most cross-cultural psychologists do not draw a clear dividing line between social structure and cultural belief systems.

Differences Between Psychology And Cultural Psychology

Cross-cultural psychology arose as a division of mainstream psychology that deliberately extended the mainstream research framework to test the universality of psychological principles .

However, there are several differences between cross-cultural psychology and other branches of psychology. Indeed, much of general psychology focuses on the impact of other people on behavior , yet it ignore cultures influence. On the other hand, cross-cultural psychology looks at human behavior within the culture, using it as the context for study .

It is also important to note that while cross-cultural and cultural psychology are both extensions of general psychology, despite the similar names, they have different focuses .

Cross-cultural psychology has, since the 1970s, formed part of the established, mainstream, and empirical psychology dedicated to individualistic explanations of psychological phenomena. Culture becomes a way of testing the universality of psychological processes .

Cultural psychology is interested in determining how local cultures influence and shape how our psychological processes develop .

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Narrative Approach In Psychotherapy

Culture can be thought of as a community of individuals who see the world in a particular manner . As a result, storytelling can be a powerful therapy approach, with narratives capturing the essence of human thought and cultural context. Narrative helps the psychotherapist not only relate to clients, but also understand the development of their identity.

Which Cultures Are Called Weird

Introduction to Cross

WEIRD populations are those who are broadly part of the Western world and who live in democratic societies that feature high levels of education, wealth, and industrialization. While there is not a single agreed-upon list of WEIRD culturesand populations within particular countries can show different levels of these characteristicscommonly cited examples of WEIRD countries include the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and other parts of Western Europe, and Australia.

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Difference Compared To Other Branches

Many other branches of psychology center on how family members, friends, and other people influence the behavior of a person, but the majority do not consider the powerful effect that culture may have on the actions of individuals. This type of psychology focuses on examining human behavior in a way that considers the impact of many cultural factors. This discipline is often referred to as a form of research methodology, instead of a completely separate branch within psychology.

What Are Individualism And Collectivism

Individualism and collectivism are two of the contrasting cultural patterns described in cross-cultural psychology. People in relatively collectivist cultures are described as tending to define themselves as parts of a group and to heed the norms and goals of the group. Those in relatively individualistic cultures are thought to emphasize independence and to favor personal attitudes and preferences to a greater degree. Cross-cultural psychologists have pointed to East Asia, Latin America, and Africa as regions where collectivism is relatively prominent and much of Europe, the U.S., and Canada as among those where individualism is more pronounced. But individualism-collectivism is thought of as a continuum, with particular countries, and cultures within those countries, showing a balance of each.

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The Weirdness Of Psychology

The psychological findings that get the most attention are disproportionately derived from a fraction of the worlds population. Some scientists call this relatively well-examined subgroup of human societies WEIRD: that is, Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. As long as people who live in countries that meet these descriptors are the primary subjects of psychological researchand that has long been the caseit will often be difficult for psychologists to determine whether an observation applies to people in general or only to those in certain cultural contexts. Increasing the representation of people from diverse cultures in research is therefore a goal of many psychologists.

The Importance Of The Discipline

Cross-cultural and Indigenous Psychology (PSY10004 Psychology 101)

According to recent figures, there are 258 million migrants in the world. Out of these, 150.3 million migrate for work reasons and 68.5 million forcibly, due to conflicts or human rights violations.

Psychology was born and developed by adopting the perspective of Western culture as a point of reference. This led, in cases of studies of cultures with patterns different from those of the West, to erroneous interpretations or perspectives in the investigations.

One example of this is that, around World War I, it was claimed that people of African-American race were less intelligent.

One of the factors that make cross-cultural psychology a relevant component of human knowledge is the possibility of relativizing and normalizing psychosocial patterns different from ours when these differences are due to the mere fact of being from a different ethnoculture.

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Where Did The Term Weird Come From

Sampling top psychology journals in the mid-2000s, psychologist Jeffrey Arnett observed that 96 percent of research subjects came from Western, industrialized countries that represented just 12 percent of the worlds population, and that about two-thirds were from the U.S. Subjects seemed to largely be sourced from the countries in which the researchers lived. In 2010, citing this finding and others, Joseph Henrich, Steven Heine, and Ara Norenzayan introduced the term WEIRD to describe this subpopulation. They expanded on the problems with focusing so exclusively on such participants and with assuming that findings from a relatively unrepresentative group generalized to the rest of the world.

What Is Cultural Psychology

Now were going to give you a brief overview of cultural psychology. Most experts refer to it as a school of thought that emerged as an alternative to the theories and methods of more speculative psychology. Wilhelm Wundt is considered the father of cultural psychology.

Cultural psychology focuses on the influence of culture on the people who grow up in it. It, along with behavior, also influences thoughts and feelings. The main vehicle for influencing behavior is the cultures habits and customs.

In other words, cultural psychology attempts to explain the reasons a group of individuals immersed in a particular context act certain ways and not others. With this perspective, we observe details and explain what we observe.

For example, why does Western society, which is very globalized today, view certain past events and diametrically opposed societies with horror? Why werent past generations horrified by those events that took place during their time? Why dont people who are immersed in those opposing cultures see those things as horrible?

It begs another question: what will future generations be horrified by when they learn about things happening now that seem normal to us?

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Cultural Psychology What Is It

In the 1960s, the cognitive revolution raised greater interdisciplinary research and communication. While this greatly aided those in the world of artificial intelligence and computer science among other disciplines, it impeded some other branches of psychology, such as cultural psychology. As a result of these emerging disciplines, cultural psychology became more vague. Richard Shweder uses his essay Cultural psychology what is it? as an attempt to clarify what cultural psychology is, and what other disciplines it should be distinguished from.

According to Shweder, cultural psychology must be distinguished from four other disciplines. Firstly, Shweder distinguishes it from general psychology, a discipline that attempts to discover an underlying mechanism in the mind/brain that acts as the foundation of all human processes, and its rules that govern human behaviour. This discipline focuses on the idea, that beneath culture and learned behaviours, there lies a universal process that can be found in every human being, regardless of their culture and experiences.

What Does A Cultural Psychologist Do

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Cultural psychologists study how cultural practices, institutions, and meanings influence individuals and societies. But this field is more than simply examining traditions or language it is also the exploration of what drives human behavior the attitudes, ideas, and actions of different cultures.

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Which Groups Are Compared In Cross

Cross-cultural studies allow psychologists to make comparisons and inferences about people from different countries or from broader geographic regions . But psychologists also compare groups at smaller scales, such as people from culturally distinct subpopulations or areas of the same country, or immigrants and non-immigrants.

Psychological Differences Across Cultures

The inhabitants of different regions and countries have a great deal in common: They build close social relationships, follow rules established by their communities, and engage in important rituals. But globally, groups also exhibit somewhat different psychological tendencies in domains ranging from the strictness of local rules to how happiness and other emotions are conceived. Of course, within each region, nation, or community, there is plenty of individual variation people who share a culture never think and act in exactly the same way. Cross-cultural psychology seeks to uncover how populations with shared cultures differ on average from those with other cultural backgroundsand how those differences tie back to cultural influence.

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Definitions: What Is Cross

Like other fields of study, cross-cultural psychology can be defined in various ways. Such definitions are often carefully formulated to represent what their authors wish to convey as essential. We mention five examples:

1. Cross-cultural research in psychology is the explicit, systematic comparison of psychological variables under different cultural conditions in order to specify the antecedents and processes that mediate the emergence of behaviour differences .

2. Cross-cultural psychology is the empirical study of members of various culture groups who have had different experiences that lead to predictable and significant differences in behavior. In the majority of such studies, the groups under study speak different languages and are governed by different political units .

3. Cross-cultural research is any type of research on human behavior that compares behavior of interest across two or more cultures .

4. Cultural psychology the study of the cultures role in the mental life of human beings .

5. Cultural psychology has a distinctive subject matter it aims to reassess the uniformitarian principle of psychic unity and develop a credible theory of psychological pluralism .

In most of these definitions, the term culture appears, referring to cultural conditions or cultural groups. For the time being, we can define culture as the shared way of life of a group of people in Chapter 10, we will consider more elaborate meanings of the term.

Does Culture Affect How We Think About Happiness

MSc Cross-Cultural Psychology Brunel University

While happiness seems to be one of the most cross-culturally recognizable emotions in terms of individual expression, culture can influence how one thinks about happiness. Research indicates that people in different cultures vary in how much value they place on happiness and how much they focus on their own well-being. Culture may also affect how people believe happiness should be defined and achievedwhether a good life is to be found more in individual self-enhancement or through ones role as part of a collective, for example.

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