Cultural Psychology

1
Cultural Psychology

• Individualism / Collectivism
• Egocentric vs. Sociocentric Selves
• Patriarchal Connectivity

2
Cross-Cultural Psychology

• 1910s-1930s Culture and Personality
• Every culture a distinctive psychological
  configuration
• 1940s-1950s National Character studies
• Every culture has a basic or modal personality

3
Cross-Cultural Psychology

• 1960s-1970s Critique and rejection
• Sophisticated field quantitative work
• 1980s-1990s Cultural Psychology
• Culture and emotion universals display
  patterns
• Culture and self egocentrism vs. sociocentrism,
  I vs C

4
Culture Self Background

• Cross-cultural comparisons of traits and
  self-conceptions
• Based on questionnaires and surveys differences
  between averaged responses (1980 Hofstede survey
  of IBM)
• Consensus individualism (the West)
• vs.
• collectivism (the rest)

5
Individualism vs. CollectivismEgocentric vs.
Sociocentric Self
6
I vs. C
7
I vs. C
8
Criticisms of I vs. C

• Eurocentrism Westerners individuals
  non-Westerners submerged in social roles and
  relationships
• Average scores obscure co-existence of
  ego-centrism and socio-centrism
• Matsumotos Oysermans meta-analysis
  generalization doesnt hold, even for U.S. vs.
  Japan

9
Japanese, Korean, Indian, Chinese Researchers

• Individuals both I and C orientations
• Cultures domains valuing I and domains
  valuing C
• Individuals and cultures differ not in I vs.
  C trait, but in configuration of I and C
  orientations

10
GenderChodorow-Gilligan Theory

• Men develop by separating from mother create
  autonomous selves
• ? ethic of autonomy
• Women develop in relationship with mother,
  develop relational selves
• ? ethic of care

11
Suad Joseph

• Most scholars see MENA as collectivist
• Families, clans, tribes, etc. fragmented
  often feuding
• Prevents emergence of modern individualism
• Minority see MENA as individualist
• Society fragmented by individualism
• Prevents cooperative social action

12
Suad Joseph relational matrices

• In Arab societies, persons are embedded in
  relational matrices that shape their sense of
  self
• Children have been socialized to feel lifelong
  responsibility for their parents and siblings.
• Older children, often, have been given parental
  responsibility for younger ones.
• Men have been encouraged to control and be
  responsible for their female kin.

13
Suad Joseph relational matrices

• Women have been called upon to serve and to
  regard male kin as their protectors.
• Non-kin relationships have been absorbed into
  the family or appropriated family idioms and
  morality to legitimate patriarchal connectivity
  outside kin groups.

14
Suad Joseph

• Patriarchical connectivity
• development of self enmeshed in family
  relationships of hierarchy and authority
• But individualism also develops
• persons in these Arab families have often
  resisted, constructed alternatives, or created
  networks that crossed the boundaries of family,
  neighborhood, class, religion, ethnicity, etc.

15
Suad Joseph

• In patriarchal societies connectivity can
  become a psychodynamic instrument of domination
• Intertwined, connectivity and patriarchy have
  helped produce selves trained in the
  psychodynamics of domination, knowing how to
  control and be controlled.