• Cultural Psychology is an interdisciplinary study of how culture reflects and
shapes the mind and behavior of its members.
• Cultural psychology unites psychologists, anthropologists, linguists, and
philosophers for a common pursuit: the study of how cultural meanings,
practices, and institutions influence and reflect individual human psychologies.
• The main position of cultural psychology is that mind and culture are
inseparable.
• Culture is much more than foods, festivals, and costumes.
• According to social psychologist, Chi-Yue Chiu, people create, apply,
reproduce, transform, and transmit their cultural routines in their daily social
interactions.
• Culture is defined as a patterns of learned and shared behavior that are
cumulative and transmitted across generations.
• Understanding culture as a learned pattern of thoughts and behaviors highlight
the ways groups can come into conflict with one another.
RDQ: True or False
• Understanding that culture is learned is important because it means that
people can adopt an appreciation of patterns of behavior that are different than
their own.
• Understanding that culture is learned but cannot be helpful in developing self-
awareness.
• To impart the wisdom of cultural differences, it is recommended to have a
lengthy period of fieldwork, replete with language learning, and participant-
observation rather than having an interview or video-taping.
RDQ: True or False
• Cross-cultural psychology is different from cultural psychology.
• Incorporating a cultural perspective in psychological research helps to ensure
that the knowledge we learn is more accurate and descriptive of all people.
• What is the connection of cultural relativism to cultural psychology?
• Stereotyping and ethnocentric bias can occur when we view other cultures
from our own perspective which often results in a misunderstanding or
disparagement of unfamiliar cultures.
• Majority of psychological research has focused on Western, Educated,
Industrial, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) cultures.
• In an attempt to show the interrelated interests
of cultural and indigenous psychology, cultural
psychologist Pradeep Chakkarath emphasizes
that international mainstream psychology, as it
has been exported to most regions of the world
by the so-called West, is only one among many
indigenous psychologies and therefore may not
have enough intercultural expertise to claim, as
it frequently does, that its theories have
universal validity. Indigenous
Psychologies
• Despite its contributions to the field of
psychology, there have been criticisms
of cultural psychology including
cultural stereotyping and
methodological issues.
• Self-report data for cross-cultural
comparisons of attitudes and values
can lead to relatively unstable and
ultimately misleading data and
interpretations.
• Mutual constitution is the notion that the
society and the individual have an influencing
effect on one another.
• Because a society is composed of individuals,
the behavior and actions of the individuals
directly impact the society.
• In the same manner, society directly impacts the
individual living within it.
• The values, morals, and ways of life a society
exemplifies will have an immediate impact on
the way an individual is shaped as a person.
