The Personality Puzzle - Ch 13

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1. Cross-Culture Psychology: Psychological research and theorizing that at-
tempts to account for the psychological differences between and within different
cultural groups.
2. Culture and Psychology: Personality psychology focuses on psychological dif-
ferences between individuals. Culture comes into play for two reasons. First, indi-
viduals may differ from each other to some extent because they belong to different
cultural groups.Second, members of some groups may differ from each other in dis-
tinctive ways.Like parents of different cultures that particular personality differences
vary from one culture to another, or distinguish among individuals within different
cultures.
3. Cross-Cultural Universals Versus Specificity: culture influences how people
vary both across and within cultures, as well as evidence for a common core to
human nature.
4. What Is Culture?: The term culture refers to psychological attributes of groups.
These include "customs, habits, beliefs and values that shape emotions, behavior
and life patterns" Culture also may include language, modes of thinking, and perhaps
even fundamental views of reality. Any group of people who are identifiably distinct
can be a candidate. Traditionally, cultural groups have been defined in terms of
ethnicity, nationality, and language, but important cultural Can also be defined on
the basis of history, geography, religion, philosophy, or even politics.
5. Enculturation: A child picks up the culture into which she is born
6. Acculturation: and a person who moves from one country to another may grad-
ually pick up the culture of her new home
7. The Importance of Cross-Cultural Differences: Psychologists are interested in
cross-cultural differences for three good reasons.Understanding cultural differences
is important for increasing international understanding for assessing the degree to
which psychology applies to people around the world for appreciating the possible
varieties of human experience.
8. Cross-Cultural Understanding: Different cultural attitudes, values, and behav-
ioral styles frequently cause misunderstandings. The consequences can range from
trivial to serious.
9. Generalizability of Theory and Research: As was discussed in Chapter 2, a
basic worry about the generalizability of research findings concerns the degree to
which the results of modern empirical research applies to humanity at large.
10. Varieties of Human Experience: An intriguing possibility to consider is how the
world might look if you were from some other culture Living Abroad makes you more
creative. experience-near constructs, Do people raised and living in different cultural
environments see the same colors, feel the same emotions, desire the same goals,

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or organize their thoughts in comparable ways?"Culture imposes a set of lenses for
seeing the world"
11. Characteristics of Cultures: Etics and Emics, Tough and Easy, Achievement
and Affiliation, Complexity, Tightness and Looseness, Head Versus Heart, Collec-
tivism and Individualism, Honor, Face, and Dignity
12. Etics: that any idea or concept has aspects that are the same across cultures
13. Emics: aspects particular to a specific culture
14. Tough: only a few goals are viewed as valuable and few ways are available to
achieve them.
15. Easy: individuals can pursue many different goals and at least some of them are
relatively simple to attain;
16. Achievement and Affiliation: To achieve To Love Based on the themes of
stories told to children
17. Complexity: ( Politics, relation ships) Modern/industrial vs. hunter/gatherer
18. Tightness: very little deviation from proper behavior. that ethnically homoge-
neous and densely populated societies tend to be culturally tighter than societies
that are more diverse or where people are more spread out.people must be similar
enough to agree on those norms, and because strict norms of behavior are more
necessary when people must live close together.
19. Looseness: with those that allow fairly large deviations from cultural norms
20. Heart: as fairness, mercy, gratitude, hope, love, and religiosity.
21. Head: as artistic excellence, creativity, curiosity, critical thinking, and learning.
22. Head v Heart Raise two questions: Why does this matter?, why would cities
vary on dimensions like this?
23. Why does this matter?: Cities that scored high on creativity, defined in this way,
tended to have better job growth, lower unemployment, and diverse immigration
patterns. And these same cities tended to be the ones with higher strengths of the
head, and lower strengths of the heart.
24. why would cities vary on dimensions like this?: Three possible answers
Selective migration People of a certain way may prefer one city over another social
influence can affect a person's values. if you I've near people with some strong
beliefs that may affect your own beliefs ecological factors may influence cultural
differences between cities (or other geographical areas).lack of much sun leads to
depression heat leads to violence
25. Collectivism: example, the needs of the group (the "collective") are more im-
portant than the rights of individuals women and ethnics are more collective than
whites and men
26. Individualism: People are viewed as separate from each other, and indepen-
dence and prominence are important virtues.individualist view also leads to phe-
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nomena such as existential anxiety, the concern over whether one is living life in the
right way. Because the philosophy of individualism isolates people from each other,
members of individualist cultures may be particularly vulnerable to problems such
as loneliness and depression
27. Personality and Collectivism: personality in the Western sense is less mean-
ingful in Eastern contexts. In collectivist countries, satisfaction with life is based on
the harmony of one's relationships with others; in individualist countries, self-esteem
is more important.
28. Regardless of Collectivism individualism do All people want to stand
out?: Yes, In individualist culture people be different In Collective culture people go
for high authority rolesBecause of their need to stand out, members of individualist
cultures may self-enhance (describing themselves as better than they really are),
whereas members of collectivist cultures, free of this need, may describe them-
selves more accurately.
29. holier-than-thou phenomenon,: in which people describe themselves as being
more likely than they really are to perform acts such as donating money or avoiding
being rude. Members of individualistic cultures (English and German participants)
were more likely to describe themselves as better ("holier") than they really were,
than were members of collectivist cultures (Spanish and Chinese American partic-
ipants). Interestingly, this bias applied only to perceptions of self: Collectivists and
individualists were both fairly accurate in predicting the future virtuous behavior of
their acquaintances.
30. Self-Regard: The individualist's need for positive self-regard may be felt less
acutely by a member of a collectivist culture
31. Sociable and C V I: Collectivist cultures are more sociable.In general, members
of individualist cultures spend less time with more people; members of collectivist
cultures spend more time with fewer people
32. Emotion and C V I: Members of individualist and collectivist cultures may
experience emotion differently. People in individualist countries report experiencing
more self-focused emotions (such as anger), compared with people in collectivist
countries, who are more likely to report experiencing other-focused emotions (such
as sympathy)
33. Motivation and C V I: People in individualist and collectivist cultures also may
have different fundamental motivations. According to one theory, a primary danger
in collectivist society is "losing face," or respect by one's social group. While respect
by others can be lost quickly, it can be increased or regained only slowly, so it makes
sense to become risk-averse and attentive to the possibility of loss. In individualist
cultures, the focus is more on individual achievement that stands apart from the
group, so doing better for oneself is more important than the risk of losing face.
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34. Stimulus and CVI: Collective culture remember the absence and presences of
Negative stimuli and Individualistic culture remember the absence and presence of
Positive stimuli.
35. Behavioral Consistency and Individualism: self-determination.The individu-
alist view of the self assumes that the cause of behavior lies within the person. As
a result, an individual is expected to behave consistently from one situation to the
next. Indeed, in American culture, behavioral consistency is associated with mental
health
36. Behavioral Consistency and collectivism: The more socially embedded
member of a collectivist culture, by contrast, might be expected to change his
behavior more as a function of the particular immediate situation. As a result, a
member of a collectivist culture might feel less pressure to behave consistently and
less conflicted about inconsistent behavior. consistency can be conceptualized and
analyzed in two ways.
37. absolute consistency: One way focuses on the degree to which an individual
varies his behavior or experience from one situation to the next—absolute consis-
tency.
38. relative consistency.: The other focuses on the degree to which an individual
maintains his differences from other people across situations
39. Vertical societies: assume that individual people are importantly different from
each other
40. Horizontal societies: tend to view all persons as essentially equal.
41. Vertical-Collectivism: Self different from others Communal sharing Authority
ranking Low freedom Low equality
42. Horizontal-Collectivism: Self same as others Communal sharing Low freedom
High equality
43. Vertical-individualism: Self different from others, Market economy, Authority
ranking, High freedom, Low equality
44. Horizontal-individualism: Self same as others, Market economy, High free-
dom, High equality
45. Cautions About Collectivism/Individualism: The Japanese Case: collectivist
cultures being seen as basically "all alike" and even as lacking personalities altogeth-
er, an attitude that edges uncomfortably close to dehumanization. The Japanese
case should remind us that not all initial cultural comparisons will be supported
by the evidence that accumulates over time, and that we should be careful that
comparisons between cultures not lead us to forget the wide variety of distinctive
individuals who inhabit every culture on Earth.
46. Dignity: Western cultures in general, and the United States in particular, are
said to be dignity cultures.The key idea is that individuals are valuable in their own
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right and this value does not come from what other people think of them.Internal
strength and sturdiness allows one to be true to oneself, which means living up to
one's own values and not necessarily the values of anyone else.
47. Honor: Cultures of honor are said to emerge in environments where the forces
of civilization—such as laws and police—are weak or nonexistent and people must
protect themselves, their families, and their own property.
48. Face: cultures of face emerge in societies that have stable hierarchies based
on cooperation, such as Japan or China. People in such a culture are motivated
to protect each others' social image by being careful not to insult, overtly criticize,
or even disagree with each other in public.Authority figures are respected and
obeyed, and controversy is avoided. Such behaviors protect the "3 H's" of hierarchy,
humility, and harmony that are centrally importantThese findings underline yet
again a theme that is emerging as increasingly important in the study of cultural
differences: Individual differences within a society are every bit as important, if not
more important, than the differences between them.
49. Psychologists have also used more familiar personality trait concepts
to understand cross-cultural differences. Researchers have done this in two
ways.: The first is to try to characterize cultural differences by assessing the degree
to which average levels of specific traits vary between cultures. The second is to
dive a bit more deeply into the cultures being compared by assessing the degree to
which the traits that characterize people in one culture can meaningfully characterize
people in another.
50. Comparing the Same Traits Across Cultures: At present, the most common
way to compare the personalities of different cultures is using the Big Five. Single na-
tions can contain different subcultures.For example, another trait that varies around
the world is self-esteem. According to one study, residents of Canada have higher
self-esteem than those in any other country in the world,A further complication
when comparing personality around the world is that the same outcome may be
associated with different traits.A further complication when comparing personality
around the world is that the same outcome may be associated with different traits.
These are people who get along well with others and tend to follow social norms,
whatever they may be.Gender differences are constant through out culture more so
in western developed culture
51. Different Traits for Different Cultures?: they depend on a not-so-hidden as-
sumption—that the same traits can be used to describe people in different cul-
tures.only three of the Big Five—conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeable-
ness— should be considered truly universal. Chinese and Spanish Have 7 big 5 but
not similar to each other

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52. item response theory (IRT).: IRT analyses go deep into personality inventories
by looking not just at mean scores, but at patterns in how participants respond to
specific items. These recent findings serve as a caution that, when comparing mean
trait scores between cultures, there may be more (or less) than meets the eye.
53. Holistic Perception: explaining events in context. This finding was interpreted
to mean that the self is a broader concept for Chinese, because it includes important
other people
54. Self Perception: seeking to integrate divergent points of view rather than set
one against another
55. Values: People feel deeply about matters of right and wrong, and may be not
merely surprised but also upset and angry when they find that other people do not
share their views.
56. The Search for Universal Values Implications: One track seeks values that
are universal to all cultures. Finding universal values would have two implications.
First, we might infer that a value held in all cultures is in some sense a "real" value
that goes beyond cultural judgment, a value we can be confident should be valued.
Second, if we could find a set of common values, we might be able to use these to
settle disputes between cultures by developing compromises based on the areas of
universal agreement.
57. The 10 possibly universal values: are power, achievement, hedonism, stimu-
lation, self-direction, understanding, benevolence, tradition, conformity, and security.
goals that everybody, everywhere, wants to achieve. Can be organized in terms of
two dimensions. One is the openness to change-conservatism dimension, and the
other they called the self-transcendence-self-enhancement dimension.
58. Cultural Differences in Moral reasoning: A long-standing interest of many
researchers has been the differences between collectivist and individualist cultures
in their styles of moral reasoning The collectivist style of moral reasoning imposes a
group norm; the individualist style emphasizes independent and individual choice.
59. The Origins of Cultural Differences. Avoiding the Issue: One approach to
cultural psychology, influential until fairly recently, regarded these questions as
essentially unanswerable.
60. Deconstructionism: reality has no meaning apart from what humans invent,
or "construct." Translated into cultural psychology, deconstructionism implies that
any answer to why a culture is the way it is would itself have to be based on the
assumptions of another culture
61. The Origins of Cultural Differences. The Ecological Approach: The most
reasonable answer would seem to be that different cultures developed, over a long
period of time, in different circumstances, and with the need to deal with different
problems.
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62. Ecology Culture Socialization Personality Behavior: Even small differences
in ecology can lead to large cultural differences that help to shape personality.
63. Ecology: physical layout and resources of the land where the culture originated,
together with the distinctive tasks and challenges this culture has faced.
64. The Origins of Cultural Differences. culture produce personality: Even pro-
ponents of this idea are quick to acknowledge its hazards. points out that any discus-
sion of genetic differences between cultural groups should be sure to emphasize the
following:The differences are small, at most. 2. Traits are likely to be even weaker
predictors of behavior at the cultural level than they are at the individual level. 3.
People within cultures are widely different from each other. 4. The data available so
far can be explained in several different ways.
65. Challenges and New Directions for Cross-Cultural Research: Ethnocen-
trism, The Exaggeration of Cultural Differences, Cultures and Values, Subcultures
and Multiculturalism
66. Ethnocentrism: judging another culture from the point of view of your own when
the "real" nature of the situation seems most obvious.
67. The Exaggeration of Cultural Differences: Cross-cultural research sometimes
exaggerates differences by acting almost as if all members of a given culture
are alike Cultural differences tend to be exaggerated for at least three reasons.
One is that cross-cultural psychology has long been in the business of finding
differences.Many studies of cultural differences use significance tests rather than
examining effect sizes.
68. Outgroup Homogeneity Bias: One's own group naturally seems to contain
individuals who differ widely from each other. But members of groups to which one
does not belong seem to be "all the same."
69. cultural relativism: is the phenomenologically based idea that all cultural views
of reality are equally valid, and that it is presumptuous and ethnocentric to judge any
of them as good or bad.
70. Multiculturalism: Another study suggested that bilingual individuals may, in
some sense, have "two personalities" so many individuals may have two person-
alities, in some sense. But such biculturalism does not always come easy. Some
people integrate multiple cultural identities to gain the maximum benefit from each,
while others experience conflict and even stress
71. The concept of bicultural identity integration (BII): has been introduced to
measure and explain this difference Individuals who score high on BII are said to
see themselves as members of a combined or emergent joint culture that integrates
aspects of both source cultures. Score low on BII, by contrast, experience conflict
between their two cultures and feel stress from being unsure which one they really
belong to.
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72. The Universal Human Condition: Other recent research suggests that culture
may influence more how a person wants to feel rather than how she does feel.
73. Cognitive Affective Personality System (CAPS), Walter Mischel: A Stable
system that mediates how the individual selects, construes and process social
information and generates social behavior thoughts, feelings, and behavior are the
product of compromises between these different processes; Some overlap with
psychodynamic theory (Freud) and connectionist models The underlying system
that generates variability in our behavior and at the same time provides organization
and coherence.
74. stable if then profiles: The idea is that you are presented a situation then you
behave somewhat constant, and Variable. its sort of like a meta theory. How did
you interrupt the situationPeople have different things that they encode They have
different values
75. The Cognitive Affective Units: Individuals differ because of availability/acces-
sibility these units; their organization/ interactions , and which features are salient in
a situation.encoding and constructs (interpretation)Expectations and Belief Feeling
and Emotions (affects) Maybe you have more negative emotions
76. CAPS: IF... Then: If ... then contingencies = Behavioral signature Feature A-X,
but feature B—> y Advantage more situation specificity predict/ explain inconsicen-
tancy across situations useful for changing/modify behavior Examining organization,
associations hot activation and cold activation.
77. ideocentrism versus allocentrism:: a dimension of personal values that fo-
cuses on whether one believes that the group is more important than the individual
(allocentrism), or vice versa (ideocentrism)
78. Holistic thinking: explain events in context; integrate divergent points of view
versus explain events in isolation; divergent views against each other; East Asians
are more holistic than Americans; more willing than Americans to describe them-
selves in contradictory terms & with holistic phrases (I am a living form)
79. Independent Thinking: a controversial area; seen more in European American
than Asian students; difference may be due to culture suppressing self-expression,
ability to think and talk at the same time (more difficult for Asian than European
Americans), or to the importance placed on learning about an area before attempting
to formulate new ideas or ask questions (very important, based on Confucian
philosophy; more important in Asian cultures)
80. Moral reasoning: of individualist versus collectivist cultures;: long-standing
research interestSeen in the debate on abortion: Individualists see the mother and
her choice as the most important; collectivists see the baby as part of the group and
something to be protected
81. Socialization:: explicit and implicit teaching during childhood
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