The Nature of Culture

1. The Nature of Culture Nuts and Bolts

2. 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.

3. 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 is • Culturally-bound by the contexts from which they were derived • Is 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

4. 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

5. Definitions • Margaret 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 Culture • Society 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.

6. Characteristics of Culture • Culture is shared • Culture is learned • Culture is based on symbols • Culture is integrated

7. Cultural Continuity • Enculturation • Ethnocentrism • Cultural Relativism

8. 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

9. Cultural Change: Diffusion • Definition • Patterns • Direct contact • Intermediate contact • Stimulus diffusion

10. Selective Nature of Diffusion • Utility • Psychological Need • Compatibility • Reinterpretation • Material culture and ideational culture

11. Mental and Behavioral Aspects of Culture • Contact, observation and communication • Levels of the ideational culture • Deep structure • Implicit patterns • Explicit culture • Norms, mores, taboos and sanctions • Behavioral Level • Births • Funerals • Hunting expeditions • Warfare • marriage

12. Influences on Culture: How Culture Alters Behavior and Mental Processes Ecological Factors; Subsistence patterns • Psychological Processes • Attitudes • Cognitions • Perceptual • Conformity • Achievement motivation • Values • Beliefs • Opinions • Worldviews • Norms • Behaviors • Enculturation • via • Family • Community • Institutions Childrearing Role assignment Gender stereotyping • Sex role ideology Social Factors; acculturation; international media Culture Biological Factors; hormones, size weight

13. Emics and Etics Pan Cultural versus Culture Specific

14. Universal and Specifics • Etics • Kenneth L. Pike, 1954, phonetics and phonemes • Pan cultural principles • Example: Rites of passage • Emics • Culturally-specific processes • cannibalism

15. Origins of the Terms • Kenneth Pike (1954); phonetics and phonemes • John. W. Berry (1969) emics and etics • Marvin Harris

16. Etics • Define • 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

17. Emics • Define • 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;

18. Cross Cultural Research

19. Types of Cross Cultural Studies • Cross Cultural Comparison Studies • Unpackaging studies • Ecological level studies • Cross cultural validation studies • Ethnographies

20. Special Issues Concerning Cross Cultural Comparison • Equivalence • Theoretical Issues • Methodological issues • Data analysis issues • Interpretation issues

21. 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