- •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.
- •1.5 All groups with a significant history have culture
- •1.6 Toward an inclusive definition of 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
3.2 The research supporting the evolution of human emotion.
The presence of human emotions is universal and characterizes human behavior and interactions. We are not alone in possessing emotional traits as comparative research shows the presence of emotions in our primate cousins. Apes for example display well-defined emotional reactions including fear and anger (de Waal, 2003). Since humans and apes have shared these emotions with our primate ancestors the traits have probably evolved in response to adaptive pressures. Emotions provide context to our lives and create subjective feelings that help evaluate events or our social interaction. Depending on interpretation emotions are stimuli preparing us to take some action toward people or events. We can know when a person is emotionally affected by the tone of his voice or facial contractions. Facial responses can be universally identified and categorized as to specific emotions. Emotions also produce physiological changes as the affected individual react with faster heart rates and breathing in preparation to deal with flight or fight responses.
Unlike our primate cousins however humans have the capacity of self-reflection. For example negative self-evaluations may produce embarrassment, shame and even guilt. With unique cognitive representations of the self as an intentional and responsible agent, humans also display morally related emotions including disgust and contempt (Haidt, 2001). Although some animals can display disgust as related to food or aversive stimuli, only humans have the capacity for interpersonal disgust as we evaluate the moral behavior of others (Gottman & Levenson, 2002). Human emotions are essentially neurophysiologic events evolved over the deep history of our species, and as discussed above are universal and represented in every society.
3.2.1 Universal temperament and personality traits are evidence of common evolved history.
The presence of differences in children’s temperament at birth has been taken as evidence of the heritability of personality. Some infants are “easy” and sleep through the night, take nutrition readily, and are a pleasure to be around. Other babies are “difficult” often cry and fuss and wake repeatedly for attention throughout the night. Most parents will have observed some of these differences in their children or those of friends and family. Temperament has been defined as the dominant behavioral mode that is more or less consistent across situations (Strelau, 1998). The study of temperament has long been of interest in behavior genetics and is defined as consistent and dominant behavioral reactions across many social situations (Van der Werff, 1985). For example, we may say a person has an irritable temperament thereby describing a person’s constant negative reaction to a variety of stimuli. The genetic basis for these consistencies in temperament is supported in recent research (Strelau, 1998). However there are problems associated with heritability estimates of temperament and other human characteristics. For example, research has not located a single gene pathway link to specific personality traits. Recently more complex approaches have examined the covariance of several genes linked to behavior (Riemann & De Raad, 1998). Temperament may be the genetic component affecting the infant that explains the development of subsequent personality. Generally the environment is not seen as a significant contributor to personality differences as these individual consistencies are maintained despite varying contexts and conditions.
In recent decades research has found solid support for the presence of universal traits of personality based on five distinct dimensions named openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. This universal conceptual model was based on many studies that demonstrated similarities in personality dimensions within cultures, but also cross-culturally. The original research discovered five dimensions from factor analyses of trait adjectives that were used to describe the self and others (Juni, 1996). Research has established heritability estimates of personality in a fashion similar to intelligence estimates determining the proportion of the total variance of that can be attributed to genetic inheritance. Heritability estimates have been calculated for the so-called Big Five, including heritability estimates of about .50 for the extraversion-introversion dimension (Bouchard, McGue, Hur, & Horn, 1998). Other cross-cultural research found similar constellation of traits in various societies employing other personality tests as well as trait adjectives (McCrae, Costa, Del Pilar, & Rolland, 1998; Schmitt, Allik, McCrea & Benet-Martinez, 2007).
The proportion of the total behavioral variation attributed to genetic inheritance was determined by comparing correlations between closely related persons like twins to those less closely related genetically. For example the heritability estimates for extraversion are .51 for identical twins, but only .16 for siblings, and .01 for adopted children. Heritability estimates for extraversion based on twin studies is generally around .50, whereas for the other of the Big Five traits the estimates range from .30 to .50 (Bouchard, McGue, Hur, & Horn, 1998). The low heritability estimates for adopted children suggest that the environment has very small affects on extraversion and that the consistency of personality probably is genetically determined or mediated (Plomin, DeFries, McClearn, & Rutter, 1997).
An impressive body of research has continued to support the presence of the Big Five in all societies studied (Hofstede, Kiers, De Raad, & Goldberg, 1997; McCrae, 2001). The measures of the Big Five were administered in 51 cultures and subsequently subjected to factor analysis. Again the data analysis grouped the personality descriptions into the five major factors (McCrae, Terracciano, Leibovich, Schmidt, Shakespeare-Finch, & Naubauer, 2005). In particular strong support was found for the presence of extraversion and neuroticism utilized in a graphic display of a variety of cultures being high or low on these dimensions. In another study Allik and McCrae (2004) found that the relationship in personality between cultures was a function of geographic closeness with participants more closely related in personality sharing both deep geneographic journeys as well as culture. The overall research suggests the presence of the Big Five as a universal model of personality structure.
Again we must be reminded that the research is far from conclusive since no personality trait is caused by a single gene, and it is not possible to dismiss personality-environmental interactions. Research is increasingly recognizing this complexity including the investigation of multiple genes and their interactions (Plomin & Caspi, 1998). This research is just in its infancy, but the results support an important genetic factor in behavior, and the universal basis for personality communalities independent of culture. The issue will be discussed further in chapter 8 on personality.
The universality of both human characteristics and neurophysiologic mechanisms suggest a response to evolutionary mechanisms. The ubiquitous nature of the personality structure and optimism suggest that they have served evolutionary functions in adaptation and in problem solving, and that one might expect corresponding neurophysiologic brain structures (MacDonald, 1998). For example conscientiousness might be functionally advantageous by helping monitor situations that produce punishments. Conscientiousness might also help create the longer view in humans that is functional when individuals must strive for future goals even when tasks are not intrinsically rewarding. For example students need conscientiousness in order to complete uninteresting requirements for a university degree. Consistent behaviors reflected in personality have evolved to motivate people to perform behaviors that ensure reproductive success and motivate functional outcomes.
The Big Five personality traits have been found in all cultures investigated (McCrea et al, 2005) in studies employing a variety of measurement procedures. Again these traits tend to be stable across the lifespan suggesting little environmental influence (McCrae & Costa, 2003). Further research has shown that the relationship between parent and child has largely temporary affects (Rowe, 1994). The research on identical twins also point to a biological basis as the personalities of twins that are reared in independent environments are more similar than those of fraternal twins reared together (Bouchard & Loehlin, 2001). The persistence of personality traits have also been demonstrated over the long run in longitudinal studies pointing to hard wiring in the brain (Borkenau & Ostendorf, 1998).