Chapter 1 · We rely on culture which helps us succeed in diverse environments · Culture effects our thoughts and behavior and culture psychology is the studies of those implications A Psychology for a cultural Species · People from different cultures live their life differently: they speak different languages, eat differently, different customs, etc. · A persons lifestyle can be predicted just by knowing their culture · Thesis: People from different cultures also differ in their psychology · Theme: Psychological processes are shaped by experiences · Psychological processes are constrained and afforded by the neurological structures that underlie them. . The brain is identical around the world. What is Culture? . Culture and the way people think is the relation we need to know · Aspects of cultures: symbolic, physical, habits · Culture: - particular kind of information we get through social learning - a group of individuals who are within some kind of shared context, and same cultural ideas - Global level: culture can refer to broad swaths of the earth's population, from many different countries. Ex: Western Culture. · Challenge 1: Boundaries of culture are not always clear-cut, sometimes it's important to look at Nationality for a indicator of culture · Challenge 2: Cultures change over time · Challenge 3: There is much variability among individuals who are in same culture. O People have distinct temperaments - predisposition of having certain kinds of personality traits o People belong in unique collection of various social groups o People have a unique history of individual experiences · Individuals are nothing if not variable and the findings do not apply equally to all members - studies reflect average tendencies within cultural groups · Culture refers to dynamic groups of individuals that share a similar context, are exposed to many similar cultural messages, and contain broad range of different individuals whoa re affected by those cultural messages in different ways. Psychological Processes can vary across cultures · People's psychology differs between cultures is their sense of humor. · What is funny in one culture may not be funny in others. Everyone in USA loved Seinfeld but not Germans. · Humor is a readily observable cultural difference
· Many basic psychological processes such as the way we perceive the world, value sense of right and wrong, and the things that motivate us can emerge differently across cultures. Is the Mind Independent From, or Intertwined With, Culture? · Richard Shweder = father of modern cultural psychology o He says that the mind operates under a set of natural and universal laws that are independent from content or context · General psychologists are more into human universality than about cultural variability. - They think our mind is a CPU - abstract processing unit · Unwanted Noise: Context and Content . We don't want unwanted noise when doing experiment so we use a lab to see the purest view of the CPU. · All human psychology is universally experienced in similar ways. · Cultural psychologists think