Cultural Psychology by S.J. Heine (third edition) – Summary chapter 1

Culture is:

• A complex whole which includes knowledge, art as well as capabilities and habits acquired by a member of society.
• A collective programming of the mind that distinguishes one group of people from another.
• Any kind of information that is acquired from other members of one’s species through social learning that is capable of affecting an individual’s behaviour.
• Socially transmitted information

It includes a particular group of people living within a shared context and individuals exposed to the same cultural information. There is no consensus on the definition of culture although there are shared aspects of culture:

• Culture is acquired
• Culture is shared among its members
• Culture is socially transmittable
• Culture affects behaviour.

Culture, however, is not:

• Culture is not the same as cultural values.
• Culture is not the same as a nation.
• Culture is not stable over time.
• Culture is not homogeneous within a group.

Culture consists of implicit and explicit parts and can change through reflection upon their own values and ideas (1) and through globalization (2).

People in different cultures differ in their psychology because psychological processes are shaped by experience and culture shapes experience, although psychological processes are constrained and afforded by the neurological structures that underlie them. Culture can affect psychological processes.

One example of this is the Müller-Lyer illusion. This asks people which line is longer although both lines are equally long. Non-Westerners are better at this than Westerners and this might be because Westerners tend to employ more analytic thinking (1) and because Westerners tend to use carved corners to estimate depth (2).

Cultural values are preferences for one state of affairs over another that distinguishes countries, rather than individuals, from each other. They are not exclusive categories and are part of a continuum. There is a lot of heterogeneity within cultures and there are no superior cultural values, although some cultural values are more functional in a given culture or are historically more prevalent in a culture.

People create a network of thoughts, behaviours and feelings surrounding a cultural idea, depending on the extent to which people in a culture are faced with this idea. A network that is activated more often will become stronger. A strong network will be prioritized over weaker networks and this (i.e. the most accessible network) differs between cultures. The meaning of an action is derived from particular cultural experiences.

Multicultural communities in a globalized world need to deal with group differences. However, psychological research makes use of the universality assumption and, therefore, most research is based on WEIRD samples; Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic samples. These samples cannot be generalized because:

• People from Western societies demonstrate more pronounced responses than people from non-Western societies.
• People from the United States demonstrate more extreme responses than other Westerners.
• Undergraduate students from the United States demonstrate even more different response than the average person from the United States.
• People from industrialized societies demonstrate different responses than people from small-scale societies.

There is a continuum on whether things are universal or culture-specific:

1. Non-universal
   This is a cultural invention.
2. Existential universal
   This is something that exists in all cultures but is not used in the same way across cultures.
3. Functionalism universal
   This is something that is used in the same way in all cultures but is not accessible in the same way across cultures.
4. Accessibility universal
   This is something that is available in the same way across cultures and is, therefore, fully universal.

There are multiple universal properties such as a basic language structure (1) and the need to belong (2).

A culture blind approach refers to assuming that people are the same in all location. This approach can lead to discrimination when group differences are salient and it can lead to discrimination as a result of threatening the identity of the minority group. A multicultural approach refers to attending to and respecting group differences. Ethnocentrism refers to judging people from other cultures by the standards of one’s own culture and it originates in the moral norms and values that are shaped by cultural experience.

An increased understanding (1) and appreciation for cultural differences (2) can reduce discrimination and unintended effects of the culture blind approach.

There are several differences between general psychology and cultural psychology:

There are several different value continuums: