HOW PSYCHOLOGISTS STUDY CULTURE Schools and Approaches

PSYC 338

QUESTIONS FOR PSYCHOLOGISTS

What is universal about human beings?

What are characteristic features of a certain group of people, e.g. cultural groups?

What makes the individual unique?

?

? ?

? ??

Universalism Cultural differences can be neglected as the commonalities among human beings

outweigh them. Basic psychological processes are common to all members of the species. They

constitute a set of psychological givens in all human beings.

Cultural Relativism (Boas, 1939)The development of human personality is mainly influenced by our environment.All human behavior is culturally patterned.It seeks to avoid “ethnocentrism” by trying to understand people in their own terms.

Ethnocentrism (Sumner, 1906)A strong tendency to use one’s own group’s standards as the standard when viewing other groups, to place one’s group at the top of a hierarchy and to rank all others as lower.

SCHOOLS AND APPROACHES

* Classical Culture-and-Personality Approach

* Cross-cultural Research in Psychological Anthropology

* Social Structures and Personality

* Cognitive Anthropology

* Psycho-cultural Studies of Emotion

* Evolution-oriented Psychological Anthropology

Culture-and-Personality Approach As a basis for cultural anthropology this approach assumes that culture is an important determinant of personality.

- combines theories and methods from anthropolgy,psychology and sociology- was strongly influenced by psychoanalysis - is occupied with habits, rituals and institutions of a culture- looks for cultural patterns as a relatively constant patternof thoughts and actionsRepr.: Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, Branislaw Malinowski

Ethnographic Fieldwork “to grasp the native’s point of view, his relations to life, to realize his vision of his world” (Malinowski, 1922, p. 25)

- to try to understand and describe the world as the people themselves understand it. - to know what objects mean to the members of that community- to learn what the object is “in the eyes of the beholder depending on the experiences of the beholder – the things he has learned.”(Goodenough, 1981, p. 51)

Psychological Anthropology Tries to measure observable behaviour

- interdisciplinary co-operations and extensive fieldwork- comparative studies of children’s education

Repr.: John and Beatrice Whiting and Child as founders of “Cross-cultural School”

THREE MAJOR APPROACHES IN PSYCHOLOGY

* Cross-cultural Psychology

* Cultural Psychology

* Indigenous Psychology

CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY is concerned with the systematic study of behaviour and experience

- as it occurs in different cultures- is influenced by culture and - results in changes in existing cultures

asks for universal principles of human behaviour by systematically comparing cultures as well ascultural specific determinants of behaviour.

Goals1. To test generality and limits of existing

psychological knowledge and theories2. To explore other cultures in order to discover

cultural and psychological variations which are not present in our own limited cultural experience

3. To generate a psychology that will be valid for a broader range of cultures

Cross-cultural psychology- Views culture (or dimensions of culture) as an IV- Offers a wider range of variability- Uses emic and etic approaches

ETICS

* Culture general

* Universal

* Control exerted by researcher

* Culture as IV

* Several cultures compared

* Over-arching framework

EMICS

* Culture specific

* Limited

* Structure uncovered rather than imposed

* Understood in culture’s own terms

STEPS IN MAKING COMPARISONS (Campbell, 1970)

Study 1: Study a phenomenon in culture A (emic)!

Study 2: Study to culture B (etic)!

Consider validity of comparison!

Study 3: Researcher from culture B studies his own culture.

Study 4: Second researcher studies culture A.

Cost, time and effort

CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY

is the study of the ways subject and object, self and other, psyche and culture, person and context, figure and ground, practitioner and practice live together, require each other, and dynamically, dialectically, and jointly make up each other

Shweder, 1990

Cultural Psychology Basic assumptions:1. Explanations of behaviour are based on the individual. 2. There is neither a cultural nor a psychological determinism.3. Culture and psychology influence each other. 4. There are cultural diverse psychologies.5. The significance of language and interaction

Wilhelm Wundt, Ernst Boesch, Bruner, Cole

NATURE, GOALS, ASSUMPTIONS

* Culture as way of knowing- “inside person”

* Culture and behaviour inseparable

* Views person in context

* Processes uncovered

* Methods derived from folkways

* Qualitative approaches

NATURE, GOALS, ASSUMPTIONS

* Developmental, longitudinal, historical

* Culture specific

* Cultural pluralism

INDIGENOUS PSYCHOLOGY

A system of psychological thoughtand practice that is rooted in a particular cultural tradition.

NATURE, GOALS, ASSUMPTIONS

* Indigenous constructs, theories, methods

* Culture specific

* Deals with issues, constructs important in that culture, often applied

* For and by indigenous people

QUESTIONS

* Which psychology is most comprehensive?

* Who can do the three psychologies?

* Which perspective do you prefer?