Lecture 2 · Academic definitions o Kroeber & Kluckhohn (1952) Descriptive: All social activities Historical: particular strain of social heredity Normative: standardized social procedures/customs; social learning Structural: system of organization of interdependent values, unique to each society Psychological: everything humans have learned to do o Textbook Acquire social learning that can affect one's behaviour Groups of individuals existing in some shared context · Common responses use ethnicity and nationality to define culture o Fuzzy boundaries; not as concrete as borders Possibility of blending; cultural fusion o Constant, gradual changes Ex. legalization of marijuana o Within versus between-culture variations Different regions in countries · General vs Cultural Psychology o Wilhelm Wundt (Germany, 1900s) Focused on low level cognitive processes · Need for experimental control Volkerpsychologie: book about higher level stuff; religion, language and folk stories . No need for experimental control o Behaviourism (USA) Human behaviours can be objectively measured (Joseph B. Watson) · Stimulus-response patterns (S-R arc) · Ignores a lot of what happens in our brains o Cognitive Revolution (1950's) Necessity to study thoughts and feelings; mental processes have meaning Computers used as metaphor for the brain, leading to bad, unintended consequences . Ex. "A brain in China surely is the same as a brain in Germany" o Richard Sweder (1980's) Culture impacts brains, brains impact culture · Mind and environment build each other Lecture 3 · Universality vs Variability o Nonuniversal Cultural invention
Cognitive tool NOT found in ALL cultures Ex. abacus used mostly in East Asian countries o Existential universal Found in ALL cultures; however, has DIFFERENT functions Ex. utilization of criticism (demeaning vs uplifting purpose) o Functional universalism Exists in ALL environments, has the SAME function in all environments Present in different degrees · Ex. use of punishment o Accessibility universal EQUALLY accessible, and serves the same purpose across ALL cultures Ex. social facilitation ? More culturally variable = more specific; more universal = more general · Problems o Lack sufficient data to properly distinguish psychological processes into these two categories o WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) Majority of participants in psych studies were American · Almost all participants are WEIRD, including Canada and EU Most are undergraduate students Odd trying to generalize to the rest of the world with these types of candidates o 16% of the world cannot be generalized for the remaining 96% · Mind vs Environment (line illusions) o Ex. Muller-Lyer Illusion was thought to be universal People were asked how much longer they needed to stretch Line B to look like Line A (PSE) . Results showed a lot of variability . Overall it didn't seem that US data was representative of the human whole o Carpentered-world hypothesis Our visual systems have been conditioned to estimate distances, because of our cultural environment o Brain parts Left inferior parietal lobule · Left side away from top of parietal lobe (small lobe) · Right inferior precentral gyrus · Right side away from top of head before the central fold (ridge) Both associated