The Nature of Culture
Nuts and Bolts
International Baccalaureate Mission Statement
The International Baccalaureate aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect. To this end the IB works with schools, governments and international organizations to develop challenging programs of international education and rigorous assessment. These programs encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.
Why Culture?
Key Question: Is what we know in the field of Psychology applicable to all peoples?Traditionally Psychology has been a Euro American product and isCulturally-bound by the contexts from which they were derivedIs the knowledge traditionally-acquired actually valid in cross-cultural context?Obligation to all of the people whose lives are touched by its knowledge to produce accurate knowledge that reflects and applies to them. Matsumoto, 2004
The Concept of Culture: History and Definition
E. B. Tylor, (1865) capabilities and habits learned as members of a society
Alfred Kroeber, (1952) patterns of behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinct achievement of human groups, including their embodiment in artifacts
DefinitionsMargaret Mead, 1954
The sum total of learned behavior characteristic of a group, composed of material and non material traits, persisting and accumulating over time and transmitted by symbolic language
Difference between Society and CultureSociety refers to the system of interrelationships among people; social networks; found among humans and non-humans.
Culture refers to the meanings associated with social networks; e.g., the meanings associated with family.
Characteristics of Culture
Culture is shared
Culture is learned
Culture is based on symbols
Culture is integrated
Cultural Continuity
Enculturation
Ethnocentrism
Cultural Relativism
Limitations of the Enculturation Concept
Replication of existing patterns
Influence of technological change and the rate of innovation
Continuity vs. evolution of culture
Significant limitations: Globalization
Cultural Change: Diffusion
Definition
PatternsDirect contact
Intermediate contact
Stimulus diffusion
Selective Nature of Diffusion
Utility
Psychological Need
Compatibility
Reinterpretation
Material culture and ideational culture
Mental and Behavioral Aspects of CultureContact, observation and communicationLevels of the ideational culture
Deep structureImplicit patternsExplicit cultureNorms, mores, taboos and sanctions
Behavioral LevelBirthsFuneralsHunting expeditionsWarfaremarriage
Ecological Factors; Subsistence patterns
Social Factors; acculturation; international media
Biological Factors; hormones, size weight
Culture
Enculturation
via
•Family
•Community
•Institutions Childrearing Role assignment Gender stereotyping
Sex role ideology
Psychological Processes
•Attitudes
•Cognitions
•Perceptual
•Conformity
•Achievement motivation
•Values
•Beliefs
•Opinions
•Worldviews
•Norms
•Behaviors
Influences on Culture: How Culture Alters Behavior and Mental Processes
Emics and Etics
Pan Cultural versus Culture Specific
Universal and Specifics
EticsKenneth L. Pike, 1954, phonetics and phonemesPan cultural principlesExample: Rites of passage
EmicsCulturally-specific processescannibalism
Origins of the Terms
Kenneth Pike (1954); phonetics and phonemes
John. W. Berry (1969) emics and etics
Marvin Harris
EticsDefine
Techniques and results of making generalizations about cultural events behavior patterns, artifacts, thoughts and ideology that are independent of the distinctions and beliefs that are significant and appropriate from the native actors’ point of view; pan cultural or universal truths or principles;
Examples: categories and rules for comparison allowing for the generation of scientific theories; kinship, marriage patterns, intelligence; time reference; rites of passage; cultural dimensions
EmicsDefine
Descriptions or judgments concerning behavior, customs, beliefs, values held by the members of a societal group as being culturally appropriate and valid; culturally-specific truths or principles
Example; how to ask someone for a date; appropriate use of kinship terms; cross-cousin marriage; cannibalism polychronic time reference;
Cross Cultural Research
Types of Cross Cultural Studies
Cross Cultural Comparison Studies
Unpackaging studies
Ecological level studies
Cross cultural validation studies
Ethnographies
Special Issues Concerning Cross Cultural Comparison
Equivalence
Theoretical Issues
Methodological issues
Data analysis issues
Interpretation issues
Transforming Cultural into a Measurable Construct
Reducing culture from abstract to finite elements
Identification of meaningful dimensions of cultural variability
Theoretical work on individualism-collectivism
Empirical work on individualism-collectivism
Measuring IC