understanding psychology and culture

• what is culture?

  • complex concept - lack of consensus about the meaning
  • traditionally, culture has been thought of as national identity
  • however the scope has broadened to include many aspects of social difference:
  • race, ethnicity, gender, social class, religion and sexuality
  • food, clothing, housing, rituals
  • culture may not be seen: socioeconomic status, religion, gender and sexual orientation
• different emphasis of culture

  • we are all 'culturally different' given different family backgrounds, religions, occupations, disability, gender, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation
  • beyond race and ethnicity, we are all part of and influenced by multiple cultures.
  • each of us is a multicultural individual with many sets of cultures in different contexts that may or may nor coincide
• social differences:

  • race
  • ethnicity
  • gender
  • social class
  • sexualilty
  • religion
  • disability
• beliefs/ behaviours

  • communication style
  • thoughts
  • ways of interacting
  • views of roles
  • values
  • practices
  • customs
• berrys aspect of culture

  1. descriptive emphasises the different activities and behaviours of a culture
  2. historical aspects refer to the heritage and traditions associated with a particular cultural group
  3. normative signifies the rules and norms of a culture
  4. psychological refers to the behavioural aspects of culture like learning and problem solving
  5. structural depicts the social and organisational aspects of culture
  6. genetic describes origins of a culture
• nine characteristics of culture

  1. housing and technology
  2. general characteristics
  3. food and clothing
  4. economy and transportation
  5. individual and family activities
  6. community and government
  7. welfare
  8. religion and science
  9. sex and life cycle
• putting it all together:

  • culture gives a sense of who they are, of belonging, of how they should behave, and of what they should be doing
  • culture impacts behaviour, morale and productivity at work and includes values and patterns that influence our attitudes and actions. culture is dynamic
  • one size does not fit all
  • we all have diverse ways of understanding the world
• folk psychology is largely responsible for european conception of culture and national identity
• • folk psychology argued that human behaviour is due primarily to cultural differences developed through social learning vs biological traits and that no one culture is more advanced than another
  • boas asserted the goal of research is 'to discover among all the varieties of human behaviour those that are common to all humanity
  • by studying 'foreign cultures' we will 'see how many of our behaviours that we believe to be founded deep in human nature (innate ) are actually expressions of our culture
• four functions of culture

  1. evolutionary
  2. buffer
  3. epistemic
  4. resulting from interpersonal interactions
• four functions of culture: evolutionary -

  need for cultural support to survive and reproduce all fostered by norms, beliefs and practices
• four functions of culture

  buffer - symbolic immortality

  naming a baby so that your name lives on, religious beliefs in life and after death
• four functions of culture - epistemic

  • validate our perceptions of the world around us
  • shared beliefs, expectations and rules that come from culture help fulfil this need
• four functions of culture - resulting from interpersonal interactions

  • people mutually influence one another toward shared beliefs, behaviour, and norms within a population which results in culture
• race: a distinction of group or people either based on self-identification or heritable physical characteristics
• race:

  • many argue that race is really more of a social construct as a result of arbitrary assignment to social categories
  • for example, black is considered a racial category that encompasses people of african origin
• ethnicity

  race and ethnicity are often used interchangeably, largely due to the use of the term race in law and policy and use of ethnicity to identify individuals identities - bone structure, skin, hair or eye colour
• ethnicity refers to grouping people based on several factors including shared cultural factors, nationality, regional culture, ancestry, language and geographical region
• limitations of BAME

  • imply that BAME individuals are a homogeneous group
  • BAME was not proposed and it is not universally accepted by those who are assumed to fall within it
  • it others those who do not identify as white and re-enforces white as the norm