Final Exam - Cultural Psychology

The immigrant paradox refers to the finding that

children of immigrants tend to experience greater negative outcomes in educational achievement and health compared to their immigrant parents.

Heine and colleagues (2011) studied immigrants in Vancouver, Canada, who came from Hong Kong. They found that identification with Canadian culture depended on how long immigrants had lived in Canada,

but only if they came as children.

Kartika believes that people should have emotional "smoothness." This means that she

tries to avoid strong displays of emotions.

Which of the following statements about the relationships between authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles is true?

Authoritative parenting uses more democratic reasoning than does authoritarian parenting.

Which of the following people may have particularly bad health outcomes?

Ronaldo, who is low SES but lives in a high-SES neighborhood

What is the problem with relying too much on WEIRD societies for samples in psychology research?

WEIRD samples represent a very narrow slice of the world's population

What does the acronym "WEIRD" stand for?

Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic

Analytic thinking is argued to be associated with

dispositional attributions

Maria perceives the world around her as an integrated whole. This suggests that Maria is a(n) ________, who would also attend to ________.

holistic thinker; how central figures relate to the background of a scene

Which of the following is an example of a culture-bound syndrome?

hysteria

According to research by Shweder and others, the most important consideration in deciding on sleeping arrangements in both Indian and American families is

incest avoidance.

Cultures that tend to encourage self-consistency also tend to support the belief that success comes from

innate abilities.

Research suggests that the emotion of ________ is also universal but is expressed with the whole body, not just the face.

pride

A person takes a dialectical view on life is LEAST likely to say

"When faced with contradictory information, a person needs to decide what is right and what is wrong."

The four parenting styles described by Western psychologists are combinations of which of the following dimensions?

warmth and parental control

The basic emotions can best be characterized as

at least functional universals.

The research evidence for self-enhancement motivation shows that stronger self-enhancement motivations are associated with

high scores—above the midpoint—on self-esteem questionnaires.

The acculturation strategy that predicts the most favorable outcomes is

integration.

According to research, which of the following could at least partially explain why children at East Asian schools tend to do better at math than children at American schools?

East Asian teachers tend to use more concrete examples when teaching math than American teachers.

Which of the following statements best describes the sleep pattern in medieval Europe?

It matches the pattern found for American adults in a room that is kept dark the majority of the time.

How do the color-blind and multicultural approaches compare to each other?

The color-blind approach ignores group differences, while the multicultural approach focuses on group differences.

Research discussed in the textbook reveals that the relation between socioeconomic status and health is explained by

All of these options are correct

Cross-cultural research on math achievement at school reveals that

Americans are more satisfied with their math performance than are East Asians.

Despite malgri, agonias, koro, and dhat all being described very differently, they all share one underlying similarity. Is this true or false?

True: They all share the element of anxiety.

Which of the following is an example of the "epidemiological paradox"?

Immigrants to the United States from certain countries (e.g., Mexico) can have lower SES than locally born people but still have better health.

Analytic and holistic thinking differ in that analytic thinking involves ________ and holistic thinking involves ________.

gaining knowledge by applying fixed, abstract concepts; gaining knowledge through experience

You are chatting with a stranger in a coffee shop. Every time you ask him something about himself, he talks about associations to which he belongs and clubs he has joined. He rarely talks about his own attributes. Which of the following best describes him?

interdependent view of self

adolescent rebellion

is more pronounced in societies with greater numbers of role distinctions and opportunities.

According to the propinquity effect, which of the following people are most likely to become friends?

Amy and Alyssa, who interact with each other at the bus stop every day

Research finds that the Big Five model does not provide a complete list of personality traits in all cultures. Which of the following is FALSE regarding the additional personality factors found in various non-U.S. cultures?

An ambition factor was found in Spain

Which of the following statements about subjective well-being across cultures is true?

Greater equality of opportunity in a country is associated with greater subjective well-being.

According to the textbook, which of the following is true about culture and parenting styles?

Strong parental control is more associated with positive outcomes in East Asia than in the West.

What is the key difference between an integration and an assimilation acculturation strategy?

The integration strategy has more positive attitudes toward the heritage culture than the assimilation strategy.

According to the Williamson (2014) article (the "White Ghetto" article), what is an example of the "poison" of monthly welfare checks in Appalachia?

They are an incentive for families to take their children out of literacy classes to preserve their disability status and monthly checks.

Which of the following defines culture, according to the textbook?

any information learned from other members of one's species that can influence an individual's behavior

With which of the following is a low-context culture most closely associated?

explicit communication

Whereas analytic thinking is related to ________, holistic thinking is related to ________.

independent self-views; interdependent self-views

Jaden has a strong sense of his own identity and does not see a strong divide between strangers he has just met and his family members. What is this characteristic of?

independent theory of self

In Western cultures, ________. In East Asian cultures, ________.

the social world is viewed as more changeable than are individuals; individuals are viewed as more changeable than the social world.

One possible mechanism thought to explain higher rates of somatization in certain cultures is

the tendency in some cultures to focus attention away from emotions.

Research reveals that the French paradox (the tendency for French people to have low body fat percentages despite eating a diet high in fat) is due, in part, to the French

consuming fewer calories

According to the Jones (1994) article (the "African American Duality Dilemma" article), what does the author say about how African Americans might experience racism?

It lurks constantly as a force that has meaning for who you are and what you will become. It is stimulating, tragic, dangerous, wonderful, and important.

Engai is a member of the Masai indigenous group in Kenya and Joseph is an American college student. Based on your knowledge of Ma and Schoeneman's (1997) study on self-descriptions, how is each person most likely to finish the statement "I am . . ."?

Engai: "I am a member of the elders council"; Joseph: "I am outgoing"

A research study by Williams and Best (1990) examined gender equality by asking men and women from 14 different countries to answer questions about how each gender should act. Which of the following statements is an accurate description of their findings?

In most of the countries surveyed, men had more traditional views on gender than women.

According to Zaharna (2000), which of the following communication styles (also called "cultural continuums") would be best characterized by the following: Relies more on the factual accuracy of a message than its emotional resonance. This may relate to the historical purpose of the written word -- to record, preserve, and transmit. They also favor evidence, reasoning, and analysis over the less rational, more intuitive approach.

Literate

According to Zaharna (2000), which of the following communication styles (also called "cultural continuums") would be best characterized by the following: tend to place more meaning in the language code and very little meaning in the context. For this reason, communication tends to be specific, explicit, and analytical (Ting-Toomey, 1985). In analyzing messages, tendency to focus on "what was said" and give literal meaning to each word.

Low-context

You are a therapist who is hoping to treat a patient by asking him to understand his own past, to accept that his past is a part of him, and to learn to feel gratitude toward those around him. What type of treatment is this?

Naikan therapy

Leticia knows Spanish as her native language and learned English as a very young child. Amy knows English as her native language and learned Spanish as an adult. Which of the following will be true?

The same location of Leticia's brain will be activated when she processes English or Spanish.

Which of the following is an example of secondary control?

You convince yourself that taking the bus to work is not so bad after all.

Gregory has been diagnosed with depression by his psychiatrists; however, he does not really report experiencing a negative affect. He primarily experiences stomach and sleep problems. Which of the following most accurately characterizes Gregory's experience?

somatzation

Your friend recently entered a few chess competitions but lost them all badly. Which of the following statements is he most likely to make if he possesses an entity theory of self?

"I just wasn't born with the 'chess gene.'"

Which of the following statements is TRUE regarding the research findings on cultural influences on primary and secondary control?

Both Japanese and U.S. participants report that primary control experiences feel more powerful than secondary control experiences.

People in Culture A breastfeed their children from birth until at least age 3, and people in Culture B never breastfeed their children and instead feed them formula from birth. People in both cultures think the other culture is feeding their children the wrong way. Which of the following most accurately describes this example?

Both cultures are ethnocentric in their views

How does cultural distance differ from cultural fit?

Cultural distance refers to culture-culture matching of variables, whereas cultural fit refers to person-culture matching of variables.

which of the following is an example of ethnocentrism?

"Those people from Culture X are weird. Rather than using forks to eat like we do—like people are supposed to—they like to eat by picking things up using sticks."

A researcher is conducting some of the first health investigations in a society that has not yet been widely studied. There is a minority group that experiences considerable discrimination and social disadvantage and that also has higher rates of hypertension than the majority. Based on existing research, what is the most plausible hypothesis?

Discrimination against people in this minority group leads to stress that in turn creates risk for hypertension.

Patients with schizophrenia living in less-developed societies should move to more developed societies if they want to have the best prognosis. Is this true or false?

False: The prognosis for schizophrenia is better in less-developed societies than in more developed societies.

You are on a committee tasked with hiring new employees. Given what you know about the self-serving bias, you are concerned that applicants may exaggerate their qualifications in their application or during their interview. What can you do to prevent applicants' self-serving biases from influencing the interview process?

Focus your attention on qualifications that are clearly observable and backed up by concrete evidence.

According to Zaharna (2000), which of the following communication styles (also called "cultural continuums") would be best characterized by the following: "What was said" cannot be understood by the words alone - one has to look at who said it, when they said it, where they said it, how they said it, the circumstances in which they said it, to whom they said it, etc.

High-context

Lara has a low socioeconomic status (SES) and lives in a low-SES neighborhood. Larry has a low SES but lives in a high-SES neighborhood. (Note that low SES here means a maximum of $30,000 per year.) Which of the two people will likely have a longer life expectancy?

Lara will have a longer life expectancy.

A certain country has been experiencing huge gains in its economy. Based on research about economic effects covered in this textbook, which of the following is the most likely consequence of these gains?

On average, newborns in that country will grow up to be taller.

According to Zaharna (2000), which of the following communication styles (also called "cultural continuums") would be best characterized by the following: there appears to be greater involvement on the part of the audience, and this in turn, affects the importance of style and devices that enhance audience rapport.

Oral

According to Zaharna (2000), which of the following communication styles (also called "cultural continuums") would be best characterized by the following: Because time is not linear or segmented, matching specific activities with specific time frames is not done. Times and activities are fluid. There can be a circular or cyclical quality to time ("what goes around, comes around", "life is a circle"). Punctuality and scheduling is done but rarely with great fervor.

Polychronic

Recent fieldwork suggests that the Saami people (an indigenous people living in parts of northern Europe) have almost 100 words to describe various kinds of reindeer. English, on the other hand, has only a tiny fraction of words used to describe reindeer. According to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, what cultural difference between English and Saami speakers would result from this disparity in the size of reindeer-related vocabulary?

Saami speakers are better able to categorize reindeer than English speakers.

Romantic love, which is discussed within the context of monogamous human relationships in the textbook, exists because it was evolutionarily advantageous for our ancestors. Is this true or false? Why?

True: More children from parents who experienced romantic love survive to pass on their genes, compared to children of parents without romantic love.

The tendency for Indians to sometimes bite their tongues—an expression not recognized elsewhere—reflects

a ritualized display.

What is the highest level of universality?

accessibility universal

Compare anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Which of these disorders is culture-bound, and why?

bulimia nervosa, because it requires a surplus of food and privacy

The fact that people from some cultures lack an enzyme that allows them to digest milk reflects the fact that

cultural practices can affect human evolution.

Sending your boss a Christmas card after he has first sent you one would best be seen as an example of

equality matching.

Depression is a condition that is

found in every culture that has been explored

Megan's baby is crying and she is trying to understand why. Megan would be making the fundamental attribution error if she were to conclude that her baby

has a cranky temperament while disregarding the fact that the baby has a soiled diaper.

According to the Marin (1994) article (the "Being Hispanic in the United States" article), which of the following values is not a part of Hispanic values?

individualism

Mia loves visiting foreign countries and travels every chance she gets, usually staying for up to a month in each country. "I don't think I will ever get tired of traveling," she says. "Every single culture I've experienced has been so amazing and exciting!" According to the acculturation curve, which stage has Mia experienced?

honeymoon stage

Wendy, an American patient with depression, reports feeling suicidal, with a depressed mood and trouble sleeping. She is prescribed antidepressants. Weiwei, a Chinese patient with depression, is

less likely to report depressed mood

The self-serving bias is ________. This explains why Spencer, an American college student, is likely to recall more ________ compared to Hirohito, a Japanese college student, who is likely to recall more ________.

more common among Westerners than East Asians; success memories; failure memories

Among people who immigrate before they are adults, self-esteem is related to acculturation in that

people's self-esteem comes to approximate the self-esteem norms in the host culture as they acculturate.

According to the Lee and Hall (1994) article (the "Being Asian in North America" article), racism primarily includes what?

the attitudes, practices, and policies that result from a belief that skin tone determines attitudes and behaviors

Research on the perception of phonemes by infants reveals that

the lack of exposure to a language can lead people to be unable to distinguish between two phonemes from that language as they get older.

According to evolutionary theory, facial features such as clear complexion and bilateral symmetry are considered universally attractive because

they are believed to indicate a person's good health and therefore imply that future offspring are also likely to be healthy and survive.

Someone with an incremental theory of the self

thinks that he or she could be a different person in the future.

Which of the followings statements accurately describes the relationship between social class and individualism?

Higher social class is associated with independence in Western cultures and interdependence in Eastern cultures.

You have a set of photographs of Fore people from Papua New Guinea displaying happiness, disgust, sadness, and fear. You present these photographs to groups of participants from the United States, Argentina, and Japan and ask them to identify which emotion is being expressed. Which of the following results is most likely?

People from all cultural groups will be able to identify emotions correctly in the majority of the photographs.

Your friend Pedram is planning to immigrate somewhere and wants to go to a place where he will have the best chance of adjusting to the new culture. Which of the following should you recommend as being the best place for him?

a society that espouses values that match Pedram's personality

Which of the following statements is true about the relationship between talking and thinking? Eastern cultural traditions emphasize that talking and thinking

are unrelated, such that more talking does not necessarily reflect more thinking.

Schachter and Singer's (1962) study of emotions found that people

attend to situational cues to interpret their bodily sensations

Which of the following is reliably associated with reduced acculturative stress?

cultural fit

According to the textbook, which of the following has NOT been noted as a result of becoming more acculturated to North American culture?

decreased risk of coronary heart disease

Your research team found evidence that people in multiple cultures walk with their shoes on their heads, but this "shoe-on-head" way of walking is activated for different reasons across cultures. This would be evidence of a(n)

existential universal

A key difference between cultural psychologists and general psychologists is that

general psychologists believe that the mind is independent from context and content, whereas cultural psychologists believe that the mind cannot be separated from context and content.

According to research by Alesina and colleagues (2011), regions that used ________ in farming centuries earlier were found to have ________ today.

plow cultivation; less egalitarian gender norms

Jamie, an Asian American from New York (i.e., a member of a visible cultural minority within the United States) experienced identity denial yesterday. This means that, of the following situations, he experienced

someone of European descent not believing that Jamie was born in New York and insisting that he must have been born somewhere in Asia.

Molly and Marvin live in two different societies and they both want to eat some nuts. Based on Rozin and colleagues' research on portion size, what is the best predictor of how much they will eat?

the average size of the nut packages that are sold in local stores

According to the James-Lange theory of emotions, which of the following precedes an emotion in a scenario where Ed meets his boss for the first time?

the profuse perspiration that Ed experiences on seeing his boss

Celebrating birthdays is a functional universal. This means that in two cultures, the purpose of birthdays is ________ across the cultures and the amount birthdays are celebrated is ________ across the cultures.

the same; different

Leslie is going on a date with Jessica. While planning the date, Leslie thinks, "I really want Jessica to feel happy with me." Leslie decides to take Jessica to watch a highly rated comedic film. Jessica feels very happy because the film was so funny but attributes her happiness to Leslie instead. Which of the following explains Jessica's attribution of her happiness to Leslie?

two-factor theory of emotions

According to research, what cultural shift has been directly associated with changing rates of eating disorders?

changes in norms about the ideal body as reflected in cultural products

Your health psychology professor says, "Suppressing intense emotions will negatively affect your health." Do you agree?

It depends; research shows that suppression is associated with poorer health for North Americans, but unrelated to health for East Asians.

According to Zaharna (2000), which of the following communication styles (also called "cultural continuums") would be best characterized by the following: stresses beginnings and ends of events, unitary themes, is object-oriented rather than people or event-oriented, and is empirical in its use of evidence.

Linear

You work at your university's tutoring center, where you are tutoring two students taking the same Nursing course: Kimberly, a European American student, and Meilin, an Asian American student. Both students are studying for a first aid exam where they will be required to assess and treat different types of injuries by applying a multi-step process. Given what you know about cultural differences in thinking aloud, what study advice would you give to each student?

You would encourage Kimberly to verbally describe how she is assessing and treating each injury but you would encourage Meilin to remain silent as she assesses and treats each injury.