The Handbook of Culture and Psychology - Matsumoto D..pdf - Culture - lady_kitty

An Introduction to the Study

of Culture and Psychology

Cultural diversity is one of the most important topics in the world today. Here

in the United States, we live, work, and play with an increasing number of

people from all cultures, countries, and walks of life. New immigrants alone

make up 10% of the total U.S. population, and that does not include all of the

cultural diversity that has existed in this country for decades. In many other

countries as well—in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania—people of different

countries and cultures come together more today than ever before. While this

increasingly diversifying world has created a wonderful environment for per-

sonal challenge and growth, it also brings with it an increased potential for mis-

understandings that can lead to confusion and anger. “Diversity” is a buzzword

for “difference,” and conflicts and misunderstandings often arise because of

these differences.

Cultural diversity is one of our biggest challenges. Corporate America is at-

tempting to address that challenge through workshops, seminars, and educa-

tion in diversity throughout the workforce. The educational system has ad-

dressed diversity by hiring and retaining faculty of color and infusing material

related to different cultures throughout the curriculum. Government has at-

tempted to deal with diversity through policies such as equal employment op-

portunity and affirmative action.

At the same time, the challenges that face us in the name of cultural diver-

sity and intercultural relations also represent our biggest opportunities. If we

can meet those challenges and turn them to our favor, we can actualize a poten-

tial in diversity and intercultural relations that will result in far more than the

sum of the individual components that comprise that diverse universe. This

An Introduction to the Study of Culture and Psychology

Chapter 1

sum will result in tremendous personal growth for many individuals, as well as

positive social evolution.

It is in this belief that this book was written—to meet the challenge of di-

versity and turn that challenge into opportunity. Doing so is not easy. It re-

quires each of us to take an honest look at our own cultural background and

heritage, their merits and limitations. Fear, rigidity, and sometimes stubborn

pride come with any type of honest assessment. Yet without that assessment,

we cannot meet the challenge of diversity and improve intercultural relations.

In academia, that assessment brings with it fundamental questions about

what is taught in our colleges and universities today. To ask how cultural diver-

sity colors the nature of the truths and principles of human behavior delivered

in the halls of science is to question the pillars of much of our knowledge about

the world and about human behavior. From time to time, we need to shake

those pillars to see just how sturdy they are. This is especially true in the social

sciences and particularly in psychology—the science specifically concerned

with the mental processes and behavioral characteristics of people.

The Goals of Psychology

No field is better equipped to meet the challenge of cultural diversity than psy-

chology. And in fact, psychology has met, and continues to meet, the challenge

of culture through a subfield known as cross-cultural psychology. To get a bet-

ter handle on what cross-cultural psychology is all about, it is important first to

have a good grasp of the goals of psychology.

Psychology essentially has two main goals. The first is to build a body of

knowledge about people. Psychologists seek to understand behavior when it

happens, explain why it happens, and even predict it before it happens. Two

aspects of psychology are important in achieving this goal: the conduct of psy-

chological research and the creation of theoretical models of behavior. Research

and theory go hand in hand in psychology.

The second goal of psychology involves taking that body of knowledge and

applying it to intervene in people’s lives, hopefully to make those lives better.

Psychologists perform various important roles in pursuit of this goal: as thera-

pists for individuals, families, and groups; as counselors in schools, universi-

ties, churches, and other community organizations; as trainers in businesses

and work organizations; and as consultants for police, lawyers, courts, sport

organizations, athletes, and teams. Psychologists work on the front lines, deal-

ing directly with people to affect their lives in a positive fashion.

The two goals of psychology—creating a body of knowledge and applying

that knowledge—are not mutually exclusive. They share a close relationship, as

well they should. Psychologists who are on the front lines do not work in a

vacuum; they take what psychology as a field has collectively learned about

human behavior and use that knowledge as a basis for their applications and

interventions. This learning initially comes in the form of academic training of

counselors, therapists, and consultants as they achieve academic degrees from

An Introduction to the Study of Culture and Psychology

universities. But it continues well after formal education has ended, through

continuing education programs and individual scholarship—reviewing the lit-

erature, attending conferences, joining and participating in professional orga-

nizations. Applied psychologists engage in a lifelong learning process that helps

them intervene in people’s lives more effectively. Likewise, research psycholo-

gists are cognizant of the practical and applied implications of their work. In

fact, most researchers and theoreticians are well aware that the value of psy-

chological theory and research is often judged by its practical usefulness in so-

ciety (see, for example, Gergen, Gulerce, Lock, & Misra, 1996). Theories are

often tested for their validity not only in the halls of science but also on the

streets, and they often have to be revised because of what happens in those

streets.

Theory/research and application/intervention are thus the two goals of psy-

chology as we see them. Although some psychologists may choose to focus on

one or the other, it is important to remember that psychology as a collective

whole seeks to achieve both. Cross-cultural psychology has a special meaning

to mainstream psychology because of these goals.

Cross-Cultural Research and Psychology

Most research on human behavior conducted in the United States involves

American university students as study participants. The reasons are largely

pragmatic. University faculty need to do research, for themselves as much as

for the field, and the easiest population to access is often university student

volunteers. Another reason has been a lack of concern about issues of diversity

and its impact on theory and research, and quite frankly, some of the political

ramifications of doing such research. As a result, the majority of the informa-

tion and research you read about in textbooks and research articles in main-

stream psychology is based on studies involving American college or university

student participants or samples.

There is nothing wrong with such research, and the findings obtained from

such samples are definitely true for those samples. These findings may be rep-

licated across multiple samples using different methodologies. In short, many

findings may weather tests for scientific rigor that would normally render them

acceptable as a truth or principle about human behavior. However, a basic

question still remains: Is what we know as truth or principle about human be-

havior true for all people, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, culture, class, or

lifestyle? This question has particular import when you consider the nature of

the samples generally included in psychological research.

Cross-cultural research * asks these questions by examining and testing

them in people of differing cultural backgrounds. In cross-cultural research,

these questions are addressed quite simply—by including participants of more

than one cultural background and then comparing data obtained across the

*Boldface terms are defined in the glossary at the end of the chapter.

An Introduction to the Study of Culture and Psychology

Chapter 1

cultural groups. This research approach is primarily concerned with examining

how our knowledge about people and their behaviors from one culture may or

may not hold for people from another culture.

Cross-cultural research can be understood in relation to mainstream aca-

demic psychology as a matter of scientific philosophy. This term refers to the

logic underlying the methods used to conduct research and generate knowledge

in psychology. Knowledge depends on research to confirm or disconfirm hy-

potheses; research involves a methodology designed to collect data that can fal-

sify or support hypotheses. Methods involve many specific parameters, one of

which includes decisions about the number and nature of the participants in

the study. Cross-cultural research involves the inclusion of people of different

cultural backgrounds—a specific type of change in one of the parameters of

methodology.

What is the difference between cross-cultural research and other types of re-

search that change a parameter of a study? If we consider cross-cultural research

from the standpoint of scientific philosophy, other studies that change other

parameters of research—such as the specific tests or measures that are used, or

the procedures by which data are collected—also raise important questions

about the generalizability of findings. Changes can also occur in characteristics

of the participants other than their cultural background, such as their socio-

economic class, age, gender, or place of residence. All these types of changes are

important in relation to the philosophy underlying psychology’s science. But the

meaning of a study and its findings differs if it compares different cultures than

if it compares different ways of measuring a variable, for example. This differ-

ence is related to what may be considered the cross-cultural approach.

The cross-cultural approach that cross-cultural research brings to main-

stream psychology goes far beyond simple methodological changes in the stud-

ies conducted to test hypotheses related to truth and knowledge. It is a way of

understanding truth and principles about human behaviors within a global,

cross-cultural perspective. Cross-cultural research not only tests similarities

and differences in behaviors; it also tests possible limitations of our traditional

knowledge by studying people of different cultures. In its narrowest sense,

cross-cultural research simply involves including participants from different

cultural backgrounds and testing possible differences between these different

groups of participants. In its broadest sense, however, the cross-cultural ap-

proach is concerned with understanding truth and psychological principles as

either universal (true for all people of all cultures) or culture-specific (true for

some people of some cultures).

Some truths are true for all. Psychologists call these universals. Some truths

and principles, however, are not absolutes; they are culturally relative and cul-

turally bound. There is much about the world and about human behavior that

is true for one culture but not for others. It may very well be the case, therefore,

that even though a finding is replicated in studies involving subjects from a

given culture and society, it is not true for another culture or society, and vice

versa. The results of psychological research are bound by our methods, and the

very standards of care we use when we evaluate the scientific rigor and quality

An Introduction to the Study of Culture and Psychology

of research are also bound by the cultural frameworks within which our sci-

ence occurs (Pe-Pua, 1989).

In the United States, as in many countries, psychology is segmented into

specific topic areas—for example, clinical, social, developmental, personality,

and the like. Cross-cultural psychology and cross-cultural approaches are not

topic-specific. Cross-cultural researchers are interested in a broad range of phe-

nomena related to human behavior—from perception to language, child rearing

to psychopathology. Cross-cultural psychologists and cross-cultural research

can be found in any specific area or subdiscipline within psychology. What dis-

tinguishes a cross-cultural approach from a traditional or mainstream ap-

proach, therefore, is not the phenomenon of interest but the testing of limita-

tions to knowledge by examining whether that knowledge is applicable to

people of different cultural backgrounds. The approach, not the topic, is what

is important in cross-cultural psychology.

In the past few years, cross-cultural research in psychology has gained

newfound popularity. Much of this popularity is due to the current focus on

cultural diversity and intergroup relations and the increasing diversity of the

U.S. population. Increasing problems and tensions in intercultural relations

and a growing recognition of the limitations of the psychological literature have

also enhanced awareness of the need for a cross-cultural approach. Interest in

cross-cultural research is certain to increase, especially with events such as the

terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001.

In a much larger sense, an increased interest in cross-cultural psychology is

a normal and healthy development, questioning the nature of the truths and

principles amassed to date and searching for ways to provide an even more ac-

curate picture of human behavior across people of different cultural back-

grounds. As psychology has matured and such questions have been raised,

many scientists and writers have come to recognize that much (but not all) of

the research and the literature once thought to be universal for all people is

indeed culture-bound. The increasing importance and recognition of cross-

cultural approaches in the social sciences, and in psychology in particular, are

reactions to this realization. Cross-cultural research and scholarship have had

a profound impact on our understanding of truths and principles about human

behavior.

Defining Culture

It is fashionable today in mainstream psychology to talk about culture. Unfor-

tunately, many psychologists and laypersons alike use the words culture, race,

nationality, and ethnicity interchangeably, as if they were all the same terms

denoting the same concepts. Do these terms all refer to the same concept? Al-

though there is clearly some overlap among them, there are also important dif-

ferences among them. Recognition of these differences is important for a

clearer understanding of cross-cultural research and its impact on psychologi-

cal knowledge.

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