THEME 1: Book Chapter

• Cultural psychology

  Studies the implications of culture on our thoughts and behaviors.
• Cultural psychology


  • Expects to find significant differences in the psychological processes among people in various cultures
  • Collects results from a broad array of cultures to be able to more confidently explore questions about human universals and human diversity
• General psychology (according to Richard Schweder)


  Provides glimpses of the CPU (central processing unit) operating in the raw so we can understand the set of universal and natural laws that govern human thought
• General psychology

  • Does not expect to find any differences in the psychological processes among people in various cultures (and if they do it's considered as noise and error in their experimental procedure)
  • Focuses on human universality instead of cultural variability
  • Views the mind as a central processing unit (CPU) that operates independently of the context within which it is thinking or of the content it is thinking about
• According to cultural psychology, the mind is shaped by context and content
• According to cultural psychology, the mind does not operate independently of what it is thinking about
• According to cultural psychology, thinking involves participation in the context within which one is doing the thinking and interacting with the content one is thinking about
• Actions, thoughts and feelings are immersed in cultural information which then makes these actions, thoughts and feelings meaningful within the context of that cultural information.
• Cultural meanings are entangled with the ways the mind operates, we cannot consider the mind separate from its culture
• Culture and mind make each other up: cultures emerge from the interaction of various minds of the people that live within them, and cultures, in turn, shape how those minds operate
• Virtually all human psychology is universally experienced in similar ways (according to general psychology)
• Culture as knowledge


  Information acquired from other members of one's species through social learning that can influence an individual's behaviors
• Culture as community


  A group of people who exist within some type of shared context
• There are challenges with thinking about a group of people as constituting a culture, such as fluid boundaries, cultures changing over time, and variability among individuals within a cultural group
• Final definition of culture as a community

  A dynamic group of people who share a similar context, are exposed to many similar cultural messages, and contain a broad range of different individuals who are affected by those cultural messages in various ways
• What produces variability among individuals within a cultural group?

  • every person inherits a distinct predisposition toward certain personality traits, abilities, and attitudes (temperament).
  • every person belongs to a unique collection of various social groups with its own distinctive culture.
  • every person has a unique history of individual experiences that shaped their views
• Evidence has shown that physical aspects of the brain change in response to experience, and regularly encountered experiences can come to change the structure of the brain
• If culture provides a particular set of experiences on a daily basis, cultural influences could change the brains of people, even if they are born with relatively the same brains
• When people in one culture consider a particular cultural idea, they focus on it a lot, creating a rich network of thoughts, behaviors, and feelings, which becomes prioritised in their mind
• The Sambia do not have the social concept of sexual orientation, so as biologically grounded as our sexual motives are, they become shaped by specific cultural beliefs and practices
• There is still debate whether psychological processes are essentially the same everywhere or if they emerge differently according to cultural context, due to the difficulty in agreeing on the kinds of evidence that would be best to test universality
• The level of abstraction in investigating a phenomenon influences conclusions and the success in identifying evidence for universality: more abstract levels = more evidence for universals but often too abstract to be of use
• The vast majority of psychological studies has been limited to people living in WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) countries, which are not even representative of Westerners in general
• Levels of considering evidence for universality


  • There's a number of different levels by which we can consider evidence for universality. The level of universality can often be debated because some evidence might point to one level, whereas other evidence might suggest a different level.
• The vast majority of psychological studies has been limited to people living in WEIRD countries. Not even that but they're not even representative of Westerners in general.
• The standard in sampling method in cognitive, social and personality psychology as well as some research in clinical psychology has become to recruit participants from undergraduate psychology classes.
• According to the general psychology view there shouldn't be a problem with this type of sampling: if the mind really does operate exclusively according to universal laws and minds are universally similar, you might as well study the most conveniently accessible ones.
• Problems with relying on WEIRD samples


  • It largely ignores questions about the generalizability of its findings
  • People from industrialized societies have been shown to respond differently than those from small-scale societies (So, they're not really representative of the whole human kind)
  • People from western industrialized societies demonstrate more pronounced responses than those from non-Western societies (So, they're not really representative of the whole human kind)
  • Americans show yet more extreme responses than other Westerners (So, they're not really representative of the whole human kind)
  • The responses of contemporary American college students are even more different than those of non-college-educated American adults (So, they're not really representative of the whole human kind)
• Building theories about the human mind exclusively from WEIRD samples is problematic.
• Psychology has relied on narrow and unrepresentative samples, which weakens its ability to address questions about how well findings from any particular study generalize to other human samples.
• Accessibility barriers to collecting data from a broad array of cultures


  • Most psychologists don't receive training in other cultures
  • Some cultures might not have local psychologists who can serve as collaborators
  • It is far more costly and difficult for Western psychologists to collect data around the world
• Müller-Lyer Illusion


  An illusion that is only present in certain cultures. People are susceptible to the illusion because the angles of the lines are similar to the angles they see when they look at carpentered corners, which gives them information about relative distance. If people aren't exposed to carpentered corners (especially in childhood) they don't learn that those provide depth cues and therefore are not susceptible to the illusion. The illusion is not an innate feature of the human brain, but something learned through having experiences with corners. The American sample is the outlier in this case, so if you only focus on American samples you would get an exaggerated estimate.
• To understand how the mind operates, it's important to understand the role cultural experiences play in how people think and feel.
• Theories about human nature will be misguided if we don't consider the diverse ways people make sense of themselves and their worlds.
• Experiences are central to the development of psychological tendencies, and cultures provide people with certain kinds of experiences.
• Studying cultural psychology and the role of culture prevents having a distorted and incomplete understanding of humankind.
• Multicultural approach


  Focusing on and respecting group differences. Has shown that people will fare better when the distinctive characteristics of their group are observed and appreciated. Leads to less prejudice against minority groups, minority groups will feel better and more integrated, more likely to identify prejudice when it exists, get along better, improves intercultural understanding.
• Color-blind approach


  Attention to differences between groups can lead to discrimination, so if people's attention is not drawn to the differences between cultures, they will be less likely to create boundaries between themselves and others, they will all get along better. (Highly debatable though).
• Our culture tends to remain invisible to us, although everyone else can see it. Our own thoughts and behaviors appear natural to us because we really don't know how we could think and behave otherwise.
• The ways we think and behave are guided by the particular experiences we have had.