- •Cross-cultural universal traits and the culturally specific in human behavior Cross-cultural and Cultural Psychology Knud s. Larsen
- •Introduction
- •Introduction
- •Cross-cultural psychology in a changing world
- •Behavior as culture specific or universal.
- •1.2 The etic and emic approaches.
- •1.3 Cross-cultural psychology and cultural/ indigenous psychology.
- •1.4 Culture versus ethnicity and race.
- •1.6 Toward an inclusive definition of culture.
- •1.5 All groups with a significant history have culture
- •1.6.1 Culture is the evolution of human society.
- •1.6.2 Animal and human culture.
- •1.6.3 The ecological and sociological context.
- •1.7 Resource rich or poor cultures.
- •1.8 Cultural values and dimensions.
- •1.8.1 Universal values.
- •1.8.2 Cultural value dimensions.
- •1.8.3 The social axioms of Leung and Bond.
- •1.9 Enculturation, culture, and psychological outcomes.
- •1.10 Understanding cross-cultural psychology in a changing world.
- •1.11 The major objectives of cross-cultural psychology.
- •1.12 The ethnocentrism of Psychology.
- •Summary
- •Research approaches and critical thinking in cross-cultural psychology
- •2.1 Cultural bias and criterion of equivalence.
- •2.1.1 The issue of language equivalence.
- •2.1.2 Psychometric equivalence.
- •2.1.3 Selecting equivalent samples in cross-cultural psychology.
- •2.2 Nonequivalence in cross-cultural research.
- •2.3 Levels of inference.
- •2.4 Studies of cultural level ecological averages.
- •2.5 What is measured in cross-cultural research?
- •2.6 Bias in psychological assessments.
- •2.7 Inferences from statistical tests on cross-cultural comparisons.
- •2.8 Experimental versus correlational studies.
- •2.9 Qualitative and quantitative research in cross-cultural psychology.
- •2.10 Quantitative comparative cross-cultural research.
- •2.10.1 Surveys.
- •2.10.2 Experiments.
- •2.11 The problems of validity.
- •2.12 A critical look at the findings from cross-cultural comparisons.
- •2.13 Skeptical thinking is the path to an improved cross-cultural psychology.
- •Summary
- •The origin of culture: cultural transformation and sociocultural evolution
- •3.1 The case for the biological foundations of human characteristics.
- •3.1.1 Evolution and the mechanisms of transmission.
- •3.1.2 Races as a biological and social construct.
- •3.1.3 The role of adaptation.
- •3.2 The research supporting the evolution of human emotion.
- •3.2.1 Universal temperament and personality traits are evidence of common evolved history.
- •3.2.2 Intelligence as a biological and racial construct.
- •3.2.3 Behavior genetics and disease.
- •3.2.4 Hardwired optimism: The driver for cultural development.
- •3.3 Sociobiology and evolutionary psychology.
- •3.3.1 Gender differences in mate selection.
- •3.3.2 Is ethnocentrism and racism a broader manifestation of inclusive fitness for reproductive success?
- •3.4 Culture matters!
- •3.5 Socio-cultural evolution: a little history.
- •3.5.1 The evolution of evolutionary theories.
- •3.5.2 Dual inheritance: Approaches to cultural transmission.
- •3.6 Theories of modernization and post-industrial society.
- •Summary
- •Human development: culture and biology
- •4.1 Socialization or enculturation?
- •4.2 Enculturation and choice.
- •4.3 Authoritative versus authoritarian childrearing approaches and cultural differences.
- •4.4 Creating the climate of home: Cultural and cross-cultural studies.
- •4.4.1 The sleeping arrangements of childhood.
- •4.4.2 Attachment in childhood.
- •4.4.3 Relationships with siblings.
- •4.4.4 The influence of the extended family and peers.
- •4.5 Culture and the educational system.
- •4.6 Socio-economic climate.
- •4.7 Social identity.
- •4.8 Comparative studies in child rearing behaviors.
- •4.9 Human development is incorporation of culture.
- •4.10 Stage theories of human development: Culturally unique or universal.
- •4.10.1 The evolution of cognition.
- •4.10.2 The evolution of moral development.
- •4.10.3 Evolution of psychosocial development.
- •4.11 Human development is the expression of biology: the presence of universal values.
- •4.12 The evolutionary basis for human behavior: Maximizing inclusive fitness.
- •4.13 Perspective in the transmission of culture.
- •Summary
- •The evolution of language and socio-culture
- •5.1 The evolution of socioculture and language.
- •5.2 Language development: the meaning of language terms and early speech.
- •5.3 Cultural language difference and linguistic relativity.
- •5.4 Cultural language and thought.
- •5.5 Universals in language.
- •5.6 Intercultural communication.
- •5.6.1 Obstacles and uncertainty reduction in intercultural communication.
- •5.6.2 The affect of bilingualism.
- •5.7 Nonverbal communication and culture.
- •5.8 Darwinian evolution and phylogenetic trees of language and socio-cultural evolution.
- •5.8.1 Selective group genetic advantages in cultural evolution.
- •5.8.2 The analogy of genetic and cultural evolution.
- •5.9 The tree branching of cultural traits.
- •5.10 Limitations of genetic and cultural co-evolutionary theory: Horizontal and vertical cultural evolution.
- •5.11 Cultural stability: Processes countering cultural evolution.
- •5.11.1 Migration and cultural stability.
- •5.11.2 Conformity and geographical mechanisms affecting cultural evolution and language development.
- •5.12 Social learning: Imitating success.
- •5.13 Religion, agriculture development and cultural evolution.
- •5.14 Phylogenetic evidence of the socio-cultural origins of language and other cultural traits.
- •5.14.1 Tracing the evolution of languages.
- •5.14.2 Evidence of language evolution.
- •5.15 Culture as a function of evolving information.
- •5.16 How did language evolve?
- •5.16.1 Contacts between different language speakers.
- •5.16.2 Artefactual languages.
- •Cognition: our common biology and cultural impact
- •6.1 Culture and cognition.
- •6.1.1 Sensation and perception.
- •6.1.2 Cultural impact on sensation and perception.
- •6.2 Cognitive development.
- •6.3 Cognitive style and cultural values.
- •6.3.1 Field dependent and independent cognitive style.
- •6.3.2 Perception studies and cognitive style.
- •6.3.3 Collectivistic and individualistic cognition.
- •6.3.4 Greek versus Asian thinking style.
- •6.3.5 Dialectical and logical thinking.
- •6.3.6 Authoritarianism and dogmatism as a cognitive style.
- •6.4 The general processor implied in cognitive styles versus contextualized cognition.
- •6.5 Cognitive style and priming cognition.
- •6.6 Cross-cultural differences in cognition as a function of practical imperatives.
- •6.7 Intelligence and adaptation: general and cross-cultural aspects.
- •6.7.1 Definitions of general intelligence.
- •6.7.2 Nature or nurture: What determines intelligence?
- •6.7.3 Sources of bias in intelligence testing.
- •6.7.4 Socioeconomic differences and fairness.
- •6.7.5 Race and the interaction effect.
- •6.8 The use of psychological tests in varying cultures.
- •6.9 How intelligence is viewed in other cultures.
- •6.10 General processes in higher order cognition and intelligence.
- •6.10.1 Categorization.
- •6.10.2 Memory functions.
- •6.10.3 Mathematical abilities.
- •6.10.4 The ultimate pedagogical goal: Creativity.
- •Summary
- •Emotions and human happiness: universal expressions and cultural values
- •7.1 The universality of emotions: Basic neurophysiological responses.
- •7.1.1 How we understand the emotion of others: Facial expressions.
- •7.1.2 The effect of language and learning: Criticisms of studies supporting genetically based facial recognition.
- •7.1.3 The definitive answer to the source of the facial expressions of emotions: Biology is the determinant.
- •7.1.4 Universal agreement and cultural emphasis in other emotion constructs.
- •7.1.4.1 Antecedents of emotions.
- •7.1.4.2 Vocalization and intonation in emotional expression.
- •7.1.4.3 Appraisal of emotion.
- •7.2 The role of culture in emotional reactions.
- •7.2.1 The display of emotions.
- •7.2.2 Individualistic versus collectivistic cultures: Display rules in emotion intensity and negativity ratings.
- •7.2.3 Personal space and gestures: Cultural influences in non-verbal communication.
- •7.2.4 Cross-cultural differences in evaluating emotions in other people.
- •7.3. The cultural context of emotional communication.
- •7.4 Toward a positive psychology of emotion: Happiness and well-being.
- •7.4.1 Methodological issues in definitions of happiness and well-being.
- •7.4.2 Sources of well-being.
- •7.4.3 The trending of happiness scores and economic crises and transitions.
- •7.4.4 The impact of culture on happiness and subjective well-being.
- •7.4.5 Creating social policies that promote well-being.
- •7.4.6 The role of national and local government.
- •Personality theory: western, eastern and indigenous approaches
- •8.1 Western thoughts on personality.
- •8.1.1 Freud’s contributions.
- •8.1.2 The humanistic approach to personality.
- •8.1.3 Social-cognitive interaction theory.
- •8.1.4 Locus of control
- •8.1.5 Cross-cultural research on locus of control and autonomy: In control or being controlled.
- •8.1.6 Personality types and hardwired foundations.
- •8.1.7 The Big Five.
- •8.1.8 The genetic and evolutionary basis of personality.
- •8.1.9 Is national character a psychological reality?
- •8.2 Eastern thoughts about personality.
- •8.2.1 The Buddhist tradition.
- •8.2.2 The self and causation.
- •8.2.3 Buddhism and consciousness.
- •8.2.4 Buddhism as a therapeutic approach.
- •8.2.5 A critical thought.
- •8.3 Confucian perspective on personality and the self.
- •8.4 Culture specific personality: As seen from the perspective of indigenous cultures.
- •8.5 Some evaluative comments on Confucianism and indigenous psychology.
- •Summary
- •Culture, sex and gender
- •10.1 Culture and gender.
- •10.1.1 Sex roles, gender stereotypes, and culture.
- •10.1. 2 Gender and families.
- •10.1.3 Traditional versus egalitarian sex role ideologies.
- •10.2 Gender stereotypes and discrimination against women.
- •10.2.1 Dissatisfaction with body image.
- •10.2.2 Equal work equal pay?
- •10.3 Violence against women: a dirty page of history and contemporary society.
- •10.3.1 Intimate violence: The ubiquitous nature of rape.
- •10.3.2 Sexual exploitation.
- •10.3.3 Gender justice and the empowerment of women.
- •10.3.4 Gender ability differences and the role of culture.
- •10.3.5 Culture and Gender differences in spatial abilities.
- •10.3.6 Current research on gender differences in mathematical abilities.
- •10.3.7 Gender and conformity.
- •10.3.8 Gender and aggression.
- •10.4 Sexual behavior and culture.
- •10.4.1 Mate selection.
- •10.4.2 Attractiveness and culture.
- •10.4.3 The future of love and marriage.
- •Summary
- •Culture and human health
- •12.1 The injustice of health disparities in the world.
- •12.1.1 Socio-economic disparities and well-being.
- •12.1.2 Mental health among ethnic minorities: Injustice in the United States.
- •12.1.3 Migrants, refugees and stress: Mental health outcomes.
- •12.2 The role of culture.
- •12.2.1 Cultural health beliefs.
- •12.2.2 Problems in cultural definitions of abnormality and mental illness
- •12.3 Psychopathology as universal or relativist.
- •12.4 Culturally specific and universal factors in mental health.
- •12.4.1 Anxiety disorders.
- •12.4.2 Regulation of mood: Depression.
- •12.4.3 Schizophrenia.
- •12.4.4 Attention deficit disorder.
- •12.4.5 Personality disorders.
- •12.5 Culturally sensitive assessment of abnormal behavior.
- •12.6 Cross-cultural assessments of mental disorder.
- •12.7 Abnormal behavior and psychotherapy from cultural perspectives.
- •12.7.1 The cultural framework matters in psychotherapy.
- •12.7.2 Homogeneity of patient and therapist.
- •12.7.3 Approaches based in indigenous forms of treatment.
- •12.7.4 Adding the biomedical model to indigenous beliefs.
- •Summary
5.8.1 Selective group genetic advantages in cultural evolution.
In rare circumstances selective genetic adaptation within a group can be a stronger culturally evolutionary force when compared to the genetic change affects produced by migration. However, even a few percentage point advantages created by a genotype change that is of selective benefit to a group could be considered an extremely significant competitive advantage over neighboring groups. Such genetic advantage could only be maintained if the incoming migration rate is very low as otherwise any beneficial change would be liquidated by the expanded gene pool. The adaptation of human groups to the lack of sunshine in the northern regions of the world and the genetic evolution of lighter skin tones is a selective genetic advantage that must be understood to have evolved in this manner. By comparison to the generally slow processes of genetic evolution the imitation of cultural traits is on the other hand very rapid as we saw in China and is therefore responsible for the vast amount of cultural evolution. Some researchers (e.g. Boyd & Richerson, 2010) have suggested that human cultural evolution is similar to the evolution of separate species of animals and mathematical models of phylogenetic evolution work well in explaining cultural variation as it does in understanding the development of species.
Neighboring cultural groups often compete in adaptation to similar ecological environments. The historical outcome is either the exclusion of disadvantageous groups or their assimilation into cultural groups that have evolved adaptive advantages. The power of the Western socio-economic model to influence change in other countries in modern times is a form of assimilation as countries seek inclusion in economic trade organizations and ever larger political structures. However, there are serious environmental disadvantages to long term adaptation to the Western model as it has produced extinction of species, global warming, and endemic economic insecurity. Unlike genetic evolution that evolves vertically and requires a common ancestor, cultural evolution is driven by socio-cultural motivators that can rapidly spread horizontally. Social imitations and conformity pressures create stable models for emulation within groups and along with geographical isolation have over time produced significant differences in cultural traits between groups.
5.8.2 The analogy of genetic and cultural evolution.
Boyd and Richerson argued that Darwin’s model of genetic evolution is also appropriate for an analysis of cultural and language evolution. They argued that Darwin’s (1859) conditions considered necessary for genetic adaptation by natural selection are also present in cultural evolution. Darwin contended that natural selection requires a struggle for existence, and heritable variations in the population so some individuals gain a selective advantage over others of the species. Boyd and Richerson noted that these conditions are met in any reproducing entity whether genetic or cultural. The rapid cultural adaptation in human cultural groups is stabilized by socio-cultural forces (especially conformity) and produces stable differences between cultural groups that are heritable at the group level. Adaptation continues at the group level as long as cultural groups compete so the cultural traits of successful groups will spread to the less successful.
Similar to genes, cultural traits are units of transmission that are stabilized in societies over long periods. Some religious beliefs have an origin going back over millennia and have evolved like other cultural traits to present day practices in thousands of religious groups. Cultural traits including religious beliefs are modifiable like genes in response to the forces of selective adaptation. For example burning witches at the stake did not prove adaptable for the Catholic religion, and probably mass murder will not survive as an adaptable cultural trait for other dogmatic and fundamentalist groups.
However, other cultural inventions may spread quickly and horizontally through societies, especially in the new age of technology and the information revolution. Further, Mesoudi and O’Brien (2009) have argued that the distinction between genetic inheritance and cultural traits is a false dichotomy. All human behavior is biologically based and it is not possible to divide genetic and cultural determinants into separate domains. For example, language acquisition requires learning, but also the underlying biological based mental abilities that evolved from the interaction of the hardwired genetic inheritance with the environment (Nettle, 2006; O’Brien, Lyman, Mesoudi, & VanPool, 2010).
Cultural traits are analogous to genes since both serve as units of replication that can be modified by association with other cultural traits, by memory loss, or by selective personal experiences. Cultural traits like genes are replicated by humans as part of the child rearing process, and are transmitted by spoken language or imitation. O’Brien et al point out that no one has seen genes or cultural traits, but we know the latter exist through the study of artifacts and the archeological record. An evolutionary framework for understanding the development of cultural traits have been proposed also by others including VanPool and VanPool (2003) and Mesoudi and O’Brien (2009). The analogy between genetic and cultural evolution has been employed recently in explaining the heterogeneity in the rates of evolution for different linguistic traits (Pagel & Meade, 2004). One of the insights produced by evolutionary analogies is that societies that share common cultural histories may also inherit similar social structures, a contention supported by recent research (Guglielmino, Viganotti, Hewlett, & Cavalli-Sforza, 1995).