PSYC 307: Cultural Psychology Chapter 1: A Psychology for a Cultural Species What is Culture? . Any kind of information that is acquired from other members of one's species through social learning that can influence an individual's behaviours . A group of people who are existing within some kind of shared context o Problems with seeing a culture as a group of people Boundaries are not always clear cut (Western Culture) (cultural ideas from other places can permeate) There are other kinds of groups aside from countries that we might say have cultures (LGBTQ) . Their members exist within a shared context, communicate with each other, have norms that distinguish them from other groups and have some common practices and ideas Cultures change over time Variability among individuals who belong to the same culture . 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 these cultural messages in different ways Psychological Processes Can Vary Across Cultures Is the Mind Independent from, or Intertwined with, Culture? . Richard Schweder argued that much of general psychology assumes that the mind operates according to a set of natural and universal laws that are independent from context or content . This is because general psychologists tend to conceive of the mind as a CPU . However cultural psychologists assume that the mind does not operate independently of what it is thinking about · Absolute vs relative task o When euro americans completed the relative taks, they showed more activation in the left inferior parietal lobe and the right precentral gyrus than they did when they completed the absolute taks - indicating that the relative length judgement was more difficult for the Eurpeans americans than the absolute length judgement - the opposite was true for east asians ? Indicates a difference between analytic and holistic reasoning · Brain changes in response to experience o le London cab drivers develop larger hippocampal volumes relative to other humans · Cultural differences in psychological processes can be explained as follows o When people in a culture decide that an idea is important, they will focus on it, creating thoughts behaviours and feelings. This network of information will be activated whenever people encounter a reminder of this cultural idea. If people
consider their networks of information often enough, the networks should become regularly activated such that they come to mind and become prioritzed ahead of other ones . Culture and the mind cannot be separated from each other because culture and the mind make each other up Case Study: The Sambia · Interesting homoerotic rituals . Underscores how humans live in cultural worlds . What aspects of sexuality are human universals ?- as biologically grounded as our sexual motives are, they are shaped by specific cultural beliefs and pratices Psychological Universals and Levels of Analysis · Is psych the same everywhere or does it depend on culture Seems easy