Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

Grandfathers and Fathers in Ukraine and Across Cultures

David W. Shwalb et al. — Tue, 20 Aug 2019 18:09:15 PDT

This article begins with a review of international research on how cultures and contexts influence the roles of grandfathers and fathers (for book-length reviews, see Shwalb & Hossain, 2018; Shwalb, Shwalb, & Lamb, 2013). Subsequently, this article describes the historical and contemporary background of Ukrainian society, provides a review of the extremely limited existing literature on families in Ukraine, and describes the results of exploratory open-ended interviews with 20 fathers and 20 grandfathers in Lviv City and three nearby villages in western Ukraine. The main finding of the interviews was a confirmation of several contextual influences on grandfathers and fathers, each of which has often been previously cited in the international literature. There were also notable differences between the interview responses of fathers and grandfathers, as well as between subjects in urban vs. rural locations. The interview data serve as a compelling, albeit exploratory, case example of contextual influences on intergenerational relations, and the relationship between psychology and culture.

Cultural-Developmental Perspective: Chinese Immigrant Students’ Academic Achievement Motivation as an Illustrative Example

Jennifer J. Chen — Thu, 06 Jun 2019 09:15:30 PDT

In this article, I present research evidence corroborating that students of Chinese descent are a high-achieving clique compared to other ethnic and cultural groups. A prominent explanation invokes cultural values highly emphasized in Chinese societies, especially those focusing on filial piety and educational achievement. However, for Chinese immigrant adolescents exposed to another cultural model and undergoing developmental changes, the motivation mechanisms underlying their academic achievement are more complex. I posit that this complexity can be understood and unraveled by contextual theories of acculturation and human development. Moreover, expanding on the cultural-developmental perspective as advocated by others, I explicate specifically how acculturative and developmental processes are intertwined to guide the individual’s internalization of cultural imperatives. To illustrate this framework, I draw insights from interviewing three Chinese immigrant adolescents in the United States. The theoretical and empirical underpinnings discussed in this paper aim to contribute knowledge to the literature by demonstrating the role of acculturation and development in Chinese immigrant students’ psychological processing of parental message concerning academic success which, in turn, contributes to their academic achievement motivation.

Institutional Resources with Notable Foci on Psychology and Culture

Walt Lonner et al. — Fri, 08 Mar 2019 00:11:23 PST

The following Centers, Institutes, Programs and Units (hereafter called “entities”), all components of colleges and universities in many countries, are important resources for teaching, research, consultation and services that have some focus on psychology and culture. The aim of this list is to provide brief information about each entity and to identify the main contact person(s) at each.

Contextual Conditions for Acculturation and Adjustment of Adolescent Immigrants – Integrating Theory and Findings

Maja K. Schachner et al. — Sun, 19 Nov 2017 22:04:12 PST

In this paper we review the literature on contextual conditions related to the school, the family, and ethnic or immigrant-group membership, and their association with adjustment outcomes of adolescent immigrants in Europe. Drawing on theories in the areas of acculturation and development, the first aim was to develop a conceptual framework, which integrates acculturative and developmental processes in early adolescence and can guide the literature review in this area. The second aim was to identify the most important conditions for adolescent immigrants’ acculturation and adjustment outcomes in school and the family, and related to immigrant-group membership.

The Historical and Social-Cultural Context of Acculturation of Moroccan-Dutch

Youssef Azghari et al. — Mon, 16 Oct 2017 14:28:33 PDT

Moroccan laborers and their families started migrating to the Netherlands from the 1960s. We used research findings on migration and acculturation to examine the historical and social-cultural context of Moroccan-Dutch. Dutch administration at national, regional, and local level had no integration policy upon their arrival. Later, when many Moroccan-Dutch stayed longer in the Netherlands than anticipated, the Dutch administration favored a multicultural policy based on integration and maintenance of ethnic culture. This contrasted with the Moroccan policy: Moroccans abroad were told not to integrate in Dutch society but to invest in Morocco. Due to the weak outcomes and a negative attitude towards migrants, the focus in Dutch policy changed to assimilation policy. We argue that this policy reinforced the negative factors, such as exclusion, segregation, and low social capital. Compared to other non-western migrants in the Netherlands, Moroccan-Dutch score relatively high on some vital participation domains (e.g., education), but also high on risk factors (e.g., unemployment and ill-health). Studying the sociolinguistic situation and social environment related to migration contributes to a better understanding of acculturation of Moroccan-Dutch. Insights in these factors can shed light on how to understand and improve acculturation outcomes.

Upper Classes and Immorality: Ecological Validation of 50 Years of Power Research

Philippe Cachia — Fri, 09 Jun 2017 22:31:33 PDT

Does power corrupt? Scholars have examined this causality with mixed results. This study uses the World Value Survey (WVS) database to examine the power-corruption link across cultures and time. The WVS inquires respondents’ justification for moral domains of purity/sanctity, authority/respect, and fairness/reciprocity. Power is operationalized as belonging to the upper-class. The study provides evidence that the upper-class respondents are significantly more justifying of breaking moral rules across world regions. But results also indicate that morality of upper classes is diverging with time from the rest of the population, narrowing in some countries, and widening in others. A discussion on the implications of these findings and the need to monitor the morality of those in power is provided.

Culture and Group Processes

Christopher Kavanagh et al. — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 08:46:48 PDT

Contrary to traditional views of North Americans as strongly individualistic, accumulating evidence indicates that they are actually also highly collectivistic, or group-oriented, when compared to people in other parts of the world. Review of previous findings suggest an alternative view; cultural differences in group-behavior and psychology does not reside in the levels of collectivism, or the strength and amount of identity and loyalty to the group, but rather in the type of psychological processes that bring about those phenomena: specifically, an orientation towards intergroup differentiation and comparisons in North American cultures versus an orientation towards intragroup relationships in East Asian cultures. In addition, we offer a possible account for why such a difference could exist based on a socio-ecological perspective, focusing specifically on the role of relational mobility.

Conceptualizing Cultural Variations in Close Friendships

Roger Baumgarte — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 12:47:38 PDT

The goal of this article is to propose a model, new to the field, describing cultural variations in close friendships. The model addresses shortcomings in past research regarding how close friendships differ in individualist compared to collectivist cultures. The model proposes three dimensions, with six overlapping but conceptually useful styles of friendship, Independents versus Interveners, Includers versus Excluders, and Idealists versus Realists. Succinct, simplified descriptors of each style follow: Independents respect each other’s autonomy, value spending quality time with friends, and support each other’s sense of self. Interveners are actively involved in their friends’ lives, reflecting the highly interdependent nature of their relationships. Includers behave in an open and friendly manner with nearly everyone they encounter, distinguishing between close friends and mere acquaintances in cognitive and emotional realms, but not in their outward behaviors. Excluders make clear distinctions between friends and acquaintances behaviorally as well as emotionally and cognitively. Idealists tend to exaggerate their ratings of close friends on anonymous questionnaires and avoid direct confrontations that might cause loss of face. Realist friends tend to rate each other in more nuanced, objective ways, and feel uninhibited about directly confronting friends when they feel that it might be for their friends’ ultimate benefit.

Reconsidering Attachment in Context of Culture: Review of Attachment Studies in Japan

Kazuko Y. Behrens — Sun, 04 Sep 2016 21:02:19 PDT

This paper revisits the attachment controversies, reexamining the debates regarding attachment phenomenon being universal or culture-specific, and reconsiders whether it is possible to conduct culturally sensitive attachment research in non-Western societies while incorporating systematic empirical designs to enable replications across cultures. The goal of this paper is to improve our understanding about the clash between the fields and achieve consensus regarding the value of attachment research while acknowledging the limitations of attachment research in certain cultural contexts. The cultural debate will focus on one non-Western culture – Japan – where the controversy began. Finally, this review proposes the way in which collaborative research can be potentially launched that will benefit researchers across disciplines.

Adult Intimate Relationships: Linkages Between Interpersonal Acceptance-Rejection Theory and Adult Attachment Theory

Karen Ripoll-Núñez et al. — Wed, 17 Aug 2016 22:32:06 PDT

This paper focuses on the contributions of two lifespan-development theories to the study of adult intimate relationships. These are interpersonal acceptance-rejection theory (IPARTheory) and attachment theory. First, we focus on four major points of convergence and four points of divergence between theories in their understanding of intimate relationships in adulthood. Following this, we discuss each theory’s contributions to theoretical and empirical knowledge about adult intimate relationships, their modes of assessment, and the development of clinical interventions. Finally, we suggest possible future developments that could help to enrich both theories.

The Introductory Psychology Text and Cross-Cultural Psychology: Beyond Ekman, Whorf, and Biased I.Q. Tests

Walt Lonner — Sun, 06 Mar 2016 19:23:37 PST

This article is a reprint of the following paper: Lonner, W. J. (1989). The introductory psychology text and cross-cultural psychology: Beyond Ekman, Whorf, and biased I.Q. tests. In D. Keats, D. Munro, & L. Mann (Eds.), Heterogeneity in cross-cultural psychology. (pp. 4-22). Lisse, The Netherlands: Swets and Zeitlinger. Some small changes and format modifications were applied.

Editorial: A Commentary on the Assessment and Analysis of “Culture-Content” in Basic Psychology Texts

Walt Lonner — Wed, 02 Mar 2016 20:13:34 PST

This commentary focuses on one basic question: “How and to what extent do beginning university students in North America (United States as well as Canada) learn about culture’s influence on behavior via introductory psychology texts that are almost always published in the U.S.?” An overarching question permeates the article: What objective methods have been used to find and evaluate the cultural content of beginning psychology texts? These questions are considered important in the teaching of psychology at the basic level and can influence the authors of texts that are central in psychology curricula in general and teaching cross-cultural psychology in particular. In this unit, the earlier article by Lonner and Murdock (2012) and the recently uploaded article by Scott and Safdar (2016) focus on the cultural content of two types of basic texts in psychology. Respectively, they are the workhorse introductory text (IPT) and those that introduce social psychology (SPT). The main purpose of these two studies and seminal writings (Lonner, 1989; Rumple, 1988) was to assess and analyze the extent to which such texts in these areas contain information on culture and its proxies such as ethnicity and diversity.

The Inclusion of Culture in Canadian Social Psychology Textbooks: A Content Analysis of Introductory Texts

Colin Scott et al. — Tue, 12 Jan 2016 08:27:27 PST

Cultural diversity features prominently in Canadian social and political life. Canadian social psychologists, for their part, have led a rich tradition of research on intercultural relations. We identified the undergraduate social psychology textbooks used to introduce students of psychology in Canada to the field and examined the extent that culture is incorporated into the teaching of introductory social psychology. Through a content analysis of Canadian-published introductory social psychology texts, we found that these textbooks are inclusive of cultural diversity, although not all textbooks covered culture with the same depth. Across textbooks, cultural coverage was broad, with many hits across textbooks, whereas discussion of cultural differences was not particularly deep, with most hits being elaborated under one page of text. Results are discussed alongside past research on the inclusion of culture in the teaching of generalized introductory psychology courses in the United States (Lonner & Murdock, 2012; Rumpel, 1988).

Return Migration

Filiz Kunuroglu et al. — Wed, 23 Dec 2015 19:31:43 PST

This article aims to present an overview of the literature on return migration. Through combining the perspectives of various disciplines, notably economy, sociology, and psychology, the main theoretical issues, studies and findings in the field of remigration are presented. In this paper, we concentrate on traditional immigrants with a ‘pull’ incentive (e.g., labor migrants) who migrated mostly for economic or sometimes educational reasons rather than the immigrants who are forced from their own countries and ‘pushed’ (e.g., political refugees) into a new environment (Ward, Bochner, & Furnham, 2001). We address the strengths and the weaknesses of the extant models and theories in explaining the causes and the consequences of the remigration experiences of the traditional migrants. Finally, drawing from a study of Turkish return migration from Western Europe, we discuss the contextual conditions such as attitudes of mainstream groups in the remigration country which are salient moderators of the acculturation process and which makes return migration different from migration.

Is “Culture” a Workable Concept for (Cross-)Cultural Psychology?

Ype Poortinga — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 12:27:11 PDT

In this essay three points are addressed:

First, despite repeated findings of limited cross-cultural variation for core areas of study, research in cross-cultural psychology continues to be directed mainly at finding differences in psychological functioning. This often happens at the cost of attention for similarities between groups, or invariance. As a consequence, cross-cultural psychology as a field is feeding into stereotyped views of “them” versus “us”.

Second, the notion of culture implies a holistic perspective, in which various aspects of the behavior repertoire within a group tend to be seen as hanging together. Such views tend to contribute to ideas of coherence of observed differences between human groups that are supported insufficiently by empirical findings. Researchers need to avoid overgeneralizations when they interpret their findings and should refrain from construing causal or functional patterns of differences when the available evidence is limited to correlations, which may reflect only coincidental relationships.

Third, it has been argued by various authors that the notion of culture escapes unambiguous definition. If this view is correct, researchers can choose their own meaning, which may suit Humpty Dumpty, but is not good for scientific analysis and communication. Giving up the notion of culture in research may facilitate a reorientation in cross-cultural psychology, leading to a better balance in emphasis between what is common to humans and what is unique to some group in distinction of other groups.

Cultural Priming as a Tool to Understand Multiculturalism and Culture

Arzu Aydinli et al. — Mon, 24 Aug 2015 21:30:24 PDT

What is multiculturalism, and how is it typically studied? The current paper provides answers to these questions by introducing approaches to the study of multiculturalism and their implications. We first present the view of multiculturalism as a static and dispositional phenomenon (i.e., demographic, as well as most uni- and bidimensional conceptualizations of acculturation) and then focus on more dynamic approaches to multiculturalism, that view culture as emerging from domain-specificity, situated cognition, or as a dynamic constructivist process. As part of a dynamic approach to culture, two prominent techniques of priming cultural orientations (i.e., priming Individualism - Collectivism versus Cultural Frame Switching) are introduced and compared, and implications are outlined. We propose that it is necessary to perceive culture as more than a categorical variable that is stable over situations, and highlight future research avenues that might help to further advance our understanding of multiculturalism and culture as dynamic constructs.

A Cultural Perspective on Romantic Love

Victor Karandashev — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 19:11:25 PDT

The article presents a conceptual, historical, anthropological, psychological, and sociological review of cultural perspectives on love: how culture affects our experience and expression of love. The evidence suggests that love is a universal emotion experienced by a majority of people, in various historical eras, and in all the world’s cultures, but manifests itself in different ways because culture has an impact on people’s conceptions of love and the way they feel, think, and behave in romantic relationships.

How Death Imitates Life: Cultural Influences on Conceptions of Death and Dying

James Gire — Wed, 31 Dec 2014 07:11:26 PST

Regardless of how or where we are born, what unites people of all cultures is the fact everyone eventually dies. However, cultures vary in how they conceptualize death and what happens when a person dies. In some cultures, death is conceived to involve different conditions, including sleep, illness, and reaching a certain age. In other cultures, death is said to occur only when there is a total cessation of life. Similarly, certain cultural traditions view death as a transition to other forms of existence; others propose a continuous interaction between the dead and the living; some cultures conceive a circular pattern of multiple deaths and rebirths; and yet others view death as the final end, with nothing occurring after death. These different conceptions have a noticeable influence on their lifestyles, their readiness to die for a cause, the degree to which they fear death, their expressions of grief and mourning, and the nature of funeral rituals. Any reasonably broad conceptualization of death issues would necessarily have to incorporate these various cultural variations.

Why Power does not Guarantee Happiness across Cultures

Jesus Alfonso D. Datu — Sun, 26 Oct 2014 20:31:14 PDT

Recent literature has shown that power enhances happiness in the Western context. However, it is likely that this may only hold true in cultures that promote independent and autonomous expression of self. For those in collectivist contexts, it is argued that power could reduce happiness since power can thwart them from achieving relationship harmony. The current paper presents research on the psychological effects of power on happiness carried out in the Western context and the Philippine context. Future directions towards developing a culturally-sensitive theory of power are also elucidated.

Differentiating Ideals versus Practices in the Discussion of Confucian Influences on Chinese Parent–Child Relationships

Yudan Chen Wang et al. — Tue, 05 Aug 2014 22:07:51 PDT

The primary purpose of this essay is to call for a renewed understanding of Confucianism in the discussion of Chinese parent-child relationships. Citing historical evidence, we present the evolution of Confucianism as a school of thought in China. In addition, we present research on Chinese parent–child relationships, which to a varying degree are said to be associated with Confucian influences, in contemporary Chinese communities. By comparing Confucian ideals versus practices in the name of Confucianism, we conclude that Confucianism has been through transformations throughout history and its influences on Chinese parent–child relationships are intertwined with practical needs of the specific historical time and social context. In addition, we suggest focusing on social class variability in the study of Confucian influences represented in parent–child relationships. To conclude, it is important to study the actual beliefs and practices of families, taking into consideration to specific historical time, social contexts, as well as individual circumstances and characteristics of participants.