Introduction to Cross u2013 Cultural Psychology 2 Essay

“Culture is sometimes described as a lens through which we view the world, meaning that one’s culture influences their perceptions and interactions in everyday life” (Davis, 2006). Every culture has different beliefs and customs

Multicultural psychology is "the systematic study of all aspects of human behavior as it occurs in settings where people of different cultural backgrounds encounter each other. Multiculturalism has been considered a "fourth force" in the field of psychology, supplementing behaviorism, psychodynamic theories, and humanistic psychology. It explores such topics as differences in worldviews and in means of communication; the acculturation process; stereotyping, prejudice, discrimination and racism; cultural identity development; and building multicultural competence" (Fhagen-Smith, 2010). Multicultural psychology attempts "to understand and to accurately represent the psychology

Stereotypes happen when we have a certain judgment for a particular group of people beyond their behaviors in the society. Miladinovic declares, “In an intercultural setting, their use increases our sense of security and is psychologically necessary to the degree that we cannot tolerate ambiguity or the sense of helplessness when we cannot understand or deal with other people and situations”(“Overcoming Obstacles Intercultural Communication”). In “An Introduction to Intercultural Communication”, Jandt states, “Psychologists have attempted to explain stereotyping as mistakes our brains make

The human species is constantly evolving. One of the key factors behind why people from different cultures treat others differently – despite the fact that our genetic makeup is the same – is that we all come from different backgrounds and have adapted to our culture’s values and traditions. Culture, as defined in the textbook, is “the total of learned traditions of a group of people” (Stanford, Allen, & Anton, 2013, p. 4). Other factors that influence the way we treat people from different cultures is because of stereotypes. Stereotypes are "generalizations or assumptions that individuals make about the characteristics of all members

Recent theoretical and empirical developments in psychology have brought the field to the point where researchers need to be mindful of the generalizability of Western findings to other cultural contexts (Heine & Norenzayan, 2006). Another shortcoming of psychological research is the majority of most influential research giving focus to comparisons of North Americans and East Asians. It is perhaps logical that North Americans specifically and Westerners more generally have usually served as the point of comparison in these studies, due to the majority of psychological theories did in fact arise from such samples. Nevertheless, this ought not to be the case. Heine and Norenzayan (2006) calls for cultural psychological research to go beyond only comparisons of East Asians nations with Western nations. At present, despite the growth of cross-cultural research, very little is known about the psychological processes of the majority of cultures of the world. Another shortcoming of psychological research is that it has largely been limited to explorations of the extent to which concepts and occurrences that have been developed and identified in the West generalize to non-Western cultures.

It’s the study of human behaviour and mental state including both variability and invariance under diverse culture conditions. It’s a way of recognizing culture variance in behaviour, language and meaning it seeks to extend and develop psychology.

Cultural differences are celebrated as a way to welcome diversity in todays society. A culture defines the way individuals think by grouping likeminded individuals for the sake of society. Culture is defined as a shared belief, values, and behaviors amongst other individuals. With many individuals being a part of a certain culture, these individuals have different experiences. Essentially, having a different culture causes a different perception of the embodied experiences. Nature vs. Nurture is one of the oldest arguments concerning how an individual perceives the outside world as well as themselves. This argument tries to explain if whether a nurturing environment such as culture plays a role in development or if the science of nature is more influential. In Ethan Watters text titled “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan” the Japanese culture influenced the society on how to process certain emotions. This clouds the true emotions felt by individuals. In Barbara Frederickson’s piece titled “Selections from Love 2.0: How Our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do, and Become” culture clouds the true biological feelings of love. This starts a debate regarding the influence of science and culture on society. Culture shapes the scientific practices used in different societies by altering mindsets to explain society’s needs and wants.

I. Four topics prevail in the study of cultural psychology: A. The experience of the interpersonal world during childhood being shaped through: 1. Function, size, composition, social density, and boundedness of the community; 2. Practices and strategies of parents (as well as alternative caregivers, if any); and 3. Type and quality of age-graded activities. B.

People’s attitudes can be influenced by the culture they are apart of, this is because individual thoughts, actions and feelings are influenced by social groups (Social influence, n.d.). This is also known as social influence which can contribute to the development of our attitudes as it may encourage members to change their beliefs, thoughts and feelings. People can conform with people in culture to have the same attitudes. Conformity can be formed through direct interaction between family, friends and teachers as well

As stated earlier, cross-cultural psychology is the scientific comparison of two completely different cultures. In order to compare two or more things with one another, one must possess a certain set of critical thinking skills (Shiraev & Levy, 2010). Therefore, the ability to think critically is necessary in order to do any type of research in cross-cultural psychology. Many of the questions that research in cross-cultural psychology tries to answer include such things like how different cultures or people within that culture react to similar situations (Shiraev & Levy, 2010). An example would be when an earthquake has hit certain cultures. If we were to look at how people in California handle or react to earthquakes and then look at how the people of Haiti react to an earthquake, we would find out how differently these cultures react to the same devastation.

Social and culture psychology is the way individuals act in social situations. Also, it is the way individuals think and feel about the world around them. In psychology, social psychology is how one’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by others. On the other hand, culture psychology is how one’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by one’s culture. In the paper, four questions are going to be answered that were learned throughout the course.

Cultural psychology is a field in psychology that assumes that the idea that culture and mind are inseparable and that psychological theories in one culture are likely to be limited in applicability when applied to different cultures.

Cross cultural psychology and cultural psychology are two fields of psychology that are often confused. Cross-cultural psychology and cultural psychology have many similarities and they differ in a few areas. Cross-cultural psychology is a comparative field of psychology that studies the cultural effects on human psychology. A cross-cultural study draws its conclusions from at least two samples of at least two different cultures and compares them in order to examine underlying reasons for diversity between the cultures, as well as the universals that each culture shares with another. Cultural psychology seeks to find the meaningful links between a culture and the psychology of the individuals living within that culture. Cultural psychology's main message is that human behavior is only meaningful when you're studying the behavior of individuals within the particular sociocultural, or in the culture in which the behavior occurs. The comparisons that cross-cultural psychology makes about each culture must begin with cultural studies.

“While cross-cultural psychology and anthropology often overlap, both tends to focus on different aspects of a culture. The areas of interest to psychologists are not addressed by anthropologists who have concerns with kinship, land distribution, and rituals” (Cross-Cultural Psychology). Even though anthropologists has a focus on rituals, psychology can be used to study ritual behaviors and become a benefit with anthropology. Knowing the differences between cultural and individual behaviors is a part of studying psychology which transforms into informative knowledge that is shared with everyone else to also understand the cultures. Not only can psychology benefit in understanding people and their cultures, but also in the workplace and several jobs.

Culture is defined as the group of similar values, goals, outlooks, ideas and traditions that a shared by a certain group of people. The human race is diverse and varied, filled with many cultures. There are many differences in these cultures and because of these differences; the definition of normal differs from culture to culture. It only makes sense that diagnoses of psychopathologic disorders vary from culture to culture. However certain things will not change because fundamentally, we all still belong to the same species.