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