Psyc 307: Final Exam

Hikikomori

"pull inward" or "social withdrawal" characterized by the voluntary absence of social interaction outside of family members for at least 6 months Common among adolescent Japanese students when they decide to withdraw socially and stop going to school (sometimes as a response to bullying) This self-imposed confinement can last for decades Estimated around 1% of Japanese suffer from this psychological condition

kufungisisa

"thinking too much" Zimbabwe A condition associated with anxiety and physical problems believed to stem from mental exhaustion feeling that their mind has been damaged by fatigue and can no longer properly function, people experience panic attacks and irritability. variations of this culture-bound syndrome have been observed in several groups in Africa and the Caribbean, as well as Native Americans and East Asians. These various culture-bound disorders do not correspond closely to any syndromes commonly identified in the West. The range of these conditions underscores the diversity of ways in which cultural context shapes psychological experiences: both normal and abnormal.

There are 2 very different ways we can consider happiness:

-The sum total of all the happy feelings you have experienced -How you retrospectively evaluate your happiness Much research finds that it's people's retrospective evaluations of their happiness that guide their decisions in life

What are some geographical selection pressures that lead to physical adaptations?

-climate -heat stress -altitude (ethnic Tibetans have genetic variants that enable them to thrive at high altitude) -the presence of local pathogens (ex: Spaniards had better genetic resistance to smallpox than the Incas because they had lived alongside smallpox-carrying livestock for years)

What are some often-discussed key reasons for the obesity rates increasing globally?

-greater consumption of high-calorie food -larger portion sizes -a sedentary lifestyle marked by spending excessive amounts of time online/watching TV -living in suburban locations with a greater amount of driving -less exercise

What are some examples of cultural influences on shaping the genome?

-lactase persistence: associated with areas where cows have been domesticated for the longest periods (evidenced by the highest genetic diversity in the cattle populations); the cultural practice of dairy farming led to the adaptation of lactase persistance -Different regions of the world differ in the prevalence of variants of genes associated with an enzyme that detoxifies alcohol. Asians are less likely than Europeans to have this variant, and they are more likely to turn red when drinking-the so-called "Asian flush." This might have emerged because it leads to less alcohol abuse. It might not have emerged in Europe, because in the Middle Ages Europeans drank alcohol to avoid contaminated water, whereas Asians boiled water to make tea. -dietary practices, such as starch consumption: in general, people in agricultural societies consume more starch than those in most foraging societies. And in societies where starch is a staple people are more likely to have a genetic mutation that increases the amount of amylase protein in their saliva to help better digest it -disease resistance: cultural practice of yam farming led to more pools of standing water which led to more malaria-carrying mosquitos serving as a selective force for changing specific disease resistance.

What aspects of emotion have received the most study?

1. An objectively visible aspect (i.e. facial expressions) 2. A subjective aspect (i.e. people's descriptions of their own emotional experiences

Why is hikikomori unique to Japanese culture?

1. the hypothesized causes of the disorder are less likely to be present anywhere else. 2. the typical reactions of Japanese parents to hikikomori behavior are different than in other cultures 3. the characteristic symptoms of hikikomori do not match any other set of symptoms in the DSM-5 It appears to be largely unique form of psychopathology in its presentation and prevalence

susto

A condition peculiar to Latin America where people feel a frightening experience has caused their soul to get dislodged from their body, leading to a wide range of physical and psychological symptoms.

Culture-bound syndrome

A cultural concept of distress (according to DSM-5) A group of psychological symptoms that appear to be greatly influenced by cultural factors and therefore occur far less often, or are manifested in highly diverse ways, in other cultures. In other cultures the symptoms that characterize them are often absent or do not cluster together, do not occur in the same kinds of circumstances, or are not as prevalent as where they were primarily identified.

Commitment

A desire to stay together with your partner On average, feelings of commitment are stronger in Asia than in the West. This may reflect the culture's low relational mobility. Another indicator of cultural variability in relationship commitment is the frequency of divorce. Among other things, divorce rates correlate highly with a country's degree of individualism and relational mobility. However, in recent years the divorce rates in several non-Western countries have been climbing. In addition, relationship satsifaction is predicted more by levels of commitment with Asian relationships than within Western ones. One study found an association between idealization of people's partner and their likelihood to be together several months later. The reasoning for this association was that positively distorted views of one's partner should protect one from having to entertain thoughts about their unlovable characteristics. It is, therefore, a way to avoid dissonance-this person behaved badly, I love this person, therefore I will positively distort their image to interpret bad behaviors as positive qualities. When partners perceive each other in this way the relationship has a kind of buffer that possibly allows it to last longer. Idealization appears to be more pronounced from people in Western cultures, although more cross-cultural research is needed-this is likely because in collectivistic cultures people are less likely to view others in terms of their personal dispositions therefore they should theoretically be less likely to ensure that one's partners personality is idealized.

Deception

A form of corruption: acting dishonestly for one's own benefit.

Sleep Study: comparison of infant and toddler sleep in different countries:

A large-scale sleeping survey of the parents of 29,000 infants and toddlers in 17 countries was conducted using standardized methods; parents reported on several different questions regarding sleep practices Results displayed that lowest end of sleep in Asia descent countries and highest of European-descent The authors noted that the causes of these differences remain entirely unknown

Cross-cultural evidence for Kohlberg's model:

A meta-analysis summarized evidence from 27 different cultures In all cultures there were adults at level 2, in no cultures were most adults at level 1. Everywhere there were more children at level 1 then adults; (evidence of the universality of Kohlberg's model) In all urban cultures there were at least some adults at level 3 (especially Western cultures) In no tribal societies were there adults at level 3 What can we make of this cultural variation? Are some cultures not developed enough to have advanced moral reasoning? Or are the stages biased towards a Western understanding of morality?

Dictator Game

A mutually anonymous behavioral economics game in which one person ("the dictator") unilaterally determines how to split an amount of money with the second player.

Cooperative exchange

A non-zero-sum situation, in which one person's gains do not necessarily come at the expense of the opponent. Can have outcomes in which both parties win. Both parties benefit from the exchange and these situations provide a basis for profitable cooperation.

Does language influence thought?

A strong version of the Whorfian hypothesis is that language determines thought-the words we have available to us influences the way we think This version is pretty much universally rejected, although people still talk about it Evidence against this is shown in evidence of infants thinking complex thought (I.e. referring to someone in a wheelchair as physically challenged instead of handicapped that people should feel more empowered (this shows evidence that words influence the way people think)) A weaker version of the hypothesis is that language influences thought. Ongoing controversy for this hypothesis, which has slowly been shifting toward more evidence and support for this hypothesis This is relevant to cross-cultural research as one way that cultures differ is in their languages and the words that are available to them

Study: What makes life satisfying?

A study looked at dozens of countries individuals, life satisfaction, positive emotion, and cultural norms scores In the most individualistic countries, life satisfaction was more strongly predicted by people's overall level of positive effect In the least, life satisfaction was more strongly predicted by the extent to which people felt they were living up to cultural norms

A ringi system

A system of management in Japan that involves proposals at lower levels being signed and passed along to higher-level management in an effort to build consensus before being implemented. This approach has the advantage of ensuring everybody has the chance of initiating and having a say in any new proposals. However, it can be slow to consider new ideas (especially with negotiating disagreements) and it is difficult for truly novel ideas to emerge out of consensus.

Culture Wars

A term coined by sociologist James Davison Hunter to describe the struggle between partisans of conflicting cultural, moral, and religious values in the United States since the 1960s and 1970s. The term can have a pejorative meaning but has in some cases been adopted positively by those who see themselves as engaged in cultural warfare aimed at the victory of their particular beliefs.

Competitive exchange

A zero-sum situation in which one person's gains are entirely at the expense of the opponent (i.e. chess)

Protestantism, Predestination, and Capitalism

According to Weber, these ideas made it a moral duty to work to achieve; People needed to find their calling and devote their lives to it; Bc no one knew whether they were among the "elect," they needed to look for clues. One was that God would only reward the elect. Perceived as sinful to enjoy the fruits of one's labor, so one should reinvest to further pursue their calling...this accumulation of capital laid the groundwork for capitalism Worth highlighting that this is an unpopular theory in many circles (i.e. Catholic, Protestants, Marxists, economists etc.) Kind of argues that everything they are doing is in service of their religious beliefs, which is why many groups may not approve of this theory BUT still a very influential idea because there's a lot of evidence in support of it Some evidence in support: German Protestants have stronger achievement motivations than German Catholics Protestant parents encourage their children to become self-reliant earlier than Catholic parents American Protestants who are primed with words regarding "salvation" work harder than those not primed Protestants suffer a bigger blow to their well-being when they become unemployed Show a preference for staying focused on the task at hand rather than working groups where people strive to maintain a warm and hospitable environment

Political views and moral intuitions

According to one study, Americans who identify themselves as politically liberal tend to feel strongly about avoiding harm and protecting fairness, but not as strongly about the other three intuitions. Americans who identify themselves as Conservative, in contrast, tend to have fairly strong feelings about all five. Liberals are primarily concerned with avoiding harm and protecting fairness; conservatives are also concerned about ingroup loyalty, respecting authority, and achieving purity. Similar patterns have been found in a wide range of cultures around the world.

Seniority system

Age or time spent as an employee in the company is rewarded..principle of equality because no salary competition

Color terms from different cultures around the world

All correspond to a small number of different possible sets of color terms

Study: the manifestation of depression cross-culturally

All patients had to report at least one of the nine diagnostic markers of depression. Patient's symptoms were assessed with three different methods: A spontaneous problem report, where they described their concerns with little prompting. A standard clinical interview, in which the patients responded to specific questions about symptoms from an interviewer. A standard questionnaire, which was completed in private, in which patients gave answers to specific symptom questions. Patients also completed measures of stigma and attention to emotional states. Results: Chinese expressed greater somatic symptoms than Canadians with all measures except the private questionnaire. Canadians expressed greater psychological symptoms with all the measures. Chinese scored higher than Canadians on a concern for stigma. However, concerns with stigma correlated with the severity of all symptoms, both psychological and somatic-Chinese thus do not somatize more because of stigma concerns. Chinese scored lower than Canadians on emotional attentiveness. This measure mediated the cultural differences in somatic symptom reporting. Hence, a key reason that Chinese somatize depression symptoms more than Westerners is that they attend less to their emotions.

Language and color perception:

Although color exists along a continuum, color terms are discrete Color terms vary dramatically around the world, although there are only a limited number of patterns of color terms in all languages Languages with the least number of color terms-black or white Other languages have three color terms: word for red, black, and white Four color terms: red, black, white, green or yellow Five color terms: red, black, white, green AND yellow Six color terms plus blue Seven color terms plus brown Eight color terms plus purple, pink, gray, or orange

Is religion growing?

Although religiosity has been dropping in such places as Scandinavia and East Asia, in much of the world it remains a significant force. In the United States, depsite having the strongest global economy and being home to the greatest number of scientific advances over the past century, religion remains a potent force. Approximately 94% of Americans report believing in God, and there are some signs that religiosity has increased in recent decades in the U.S. Many of the religions in the world, especially Islam and Christianity, are growing quickly. If anything, religion may even be growing in importance across the planet.

Evidence for cultural variability in facial expressions

Although research clearly reveals that in every culture studied some people seem to recognize the facial expressions of the six basic emotions, there are some cultural differences. When shown pictures of posed facial expressions from one culture, people from some cultures perform a little better than others. The success rate for identifying American-posed faces was better for English speakers than speakers of other Indo-European languages as well as those who spoke non Indo-European languages and ALL of these groups performed better than those from preliterate societies. Building on this observation, researchers conducted a meta-analysis on cross-cultural recognition of facial expressions. On average, people were about 9% more accurate at judging the facial expressions of people from their own culture than from another culture (about 58% accuracy overall). Therefore, there is a large universal component of recognizing facial expressions and a smaller culturally specific component. The link between certain facial expressions and inferred emotions thus appears to be a functional universal: the faces are interpreted to indicate similar emotions across cultures, but the degree to which each expression is recognized varies. When you show people a picture of a person's eyes and ask them to guess their emotion they tend to score better when the subject is from their own culture than another (a tool also used to diagnose autism). brain imaging displays a stronger fear response when people look at facial expressions of fear from people in their own culture. Indicating, that people are more attentive to signs of fear as expressed in culturally familiar ways. In general, then, people are best at recognizing the emotional expressions of those to whom they've had the most exposure.

Research surrounding group performance and cultural differences:

American employee performance has been shown to increase by an individual focused training program. On the other hand, Chinese employee performance has been shown to increase by a group-focused training program. When Americans work on a group task in which they make more successful contributions than the rest of the team, they come to form negative impressions of their group and think of the other members as holding them back. This is not shown to occur when Chinese outperform other team members.

Study: social loafing

American participants were brought into a lab and were asked to pull on a rope that was attached to a measuring device. The conditions varied in how many people appeared to be pulling the rope. In actuality, it was always only the participant pulling the rope-the other people were researchers merely pretending to pull. When participant was alone they could pull on average about 130lbs on their own; With these other conditions the participant could pull on average about 118lbs with one person, 107lbs with two other people, and 101lbs with five other people Just thinking there are other people also pulling makes them try less hard than when they are just being evaluated themselves; this is also an example of a task in which it's impossible to tell for sure how much each individual is contributing to the group task.

How does the value of leadership differentiate across cultures?

Americans are said to romanticize their leaders (i.e. CEOs have highest average salary to any other country and ratio between pay of CEO and average worker is way higher...Steve Jobs) Europeans tend to feel more ambivalent about their leaders and in Latin America, people prefer leaders who act strong and can be somewhat autocratic. In Asia, people often prefer a leader who can serve as a moral role model and offer guidance to employees about both their professional and personal lives (i.e. Masataka Shimizue retiring after nuclear reactors were destroyed in a tsunami-he had no direct role in the accident yet took responsibility)

Cultural fit and diet

Americans who have a more independent view of the self tend to have healthier eating habits than those with an interdependent view of the self In Japan those with a more interdependent view of self have healthier eating habits than those with an independent view of self (the opposite) these findings indicate that a self-image that feels "appropriate" is associated with a healthier lifestyle

Research on residential mobility and identity:

Americans who have never moved view group membership to be almost as important as personality traits for their identity Those who move value personality traits more, and group memberships less The relative importance of personality traits increase by number of moves and group membership decreases by # of move

Different attitudes toward friendship cross-cultures

Americans: tend to have an easy attitude about forming friendships; known for being friendly; have a higher average amount of friends than most other countries In collectivistic cultures, an important aspect of friendship is giving advice, and this is typically offered whether the listener wants it or not (i.e "mind your own business" does not translate well in Russian) Ghanians are likely to have fewer friends than Americans, and friendships are perceived to involve more obligations-not just about sharing good times but also involve some substantial costs when obligations need to be fulfilled low relational mobility/high relational mobility are likely indicators of attitudes toward friendship (i.e. East Asian cultures have a more cautious attitude towards friends than Americans) Latin America: Simpatico

agonias

An anxiety disorder identified among Portugese and Azoreans that can include a wide array of symptoms such as a burning sensation, a loss of breath, hysterical blindness, sleeping disorders, and eating disorders

Understanding other people's behavior:

Analytic thinkers focusing on object's component parts, whereas holistic thinkers consider object's relations with the context. The same distinction can be applied to how we understand people. Explaining people's behavior by attending to their personal characteristics is known as a dispositional attribution. Explaining people's behaviors by attending to contextual variables is known as a situational attribution.

Emotion and Language

Anna Wierzbicka (Pyscholinguist) pointed out that English has clear names for all of the universal emotions, but many other languages do not. If someone had proposed a universal theory in a language with limited emotion terms, the names for the basic emotions would probably not correspond to the English ones. i.e. Natyashastra (an Indian treatise on many subjects written in Sanskrit during the second century A.D.) includes four emotions not typically considered basic emotions: love, amusement, enthusiasm, and wonder but not happiness or surprise. There is tremendous cultural variation in how different cultures describe their emotional experiences (i.e. the English language has more than 2,000 different emotion words where the Chewong of Malaysia have exactly eight-and only anger and fear are included from Friesen's six basic emotions. People also categorize their emotional descriptions in very different ways. For example, the Luganda speakers in Uganda do not make a distinction between sorrow and anger. The Gidjingali aborigines of Australia use one word to express both shame and fea. Samoans use one word (alofa) to express both love and pity. The Utku Eskimos do not differentiate between feelings of kindness and gratitude. The Ifaluk in Micronesia do not even have a word for "emotion" but instead lump all internal states together. The emotional lexicon is carved up in remarkably different ways across cultures. There are also many emotion words that do not exist in English. Some of which, however, reflect feelings with which English speakers are likely familiar. i.e. schadenfreude: German word describing the pleasure one gets when witnessing the hard time befall another. i.e. liget-as previously discussed. i.e. Iklas: refers to the somewhat leasant feeling of frustration; Javanese term. i.e. amae: Japanese word to capture the relatively pleasant feeling one experiences when allowed to claim is or her dependence on another. Often involves the tendency to behave inappropriately toward a close other, as a gesture to demonstrate how secure the relationship is.

Public Goods Game

Another economic game that has been used to explore people's motivations for fairness/cooperation In a Public Goods Game people play in a group where money is contributed to a pot where it is multiplied before being distributed to everyone. The game is set up in a way where the group will get the best return if everyone put in all of their money. The best individual maximized profit would be if you kept your money to yourself and everyone else put their money into the pool. The idea is that people stop cooperating as they start to realize that others are not cooperating and that the game is set up to best benefit those who do not cooperate (as long as everyone else is). However, the game adds another rule-if a player wants they can choose to pay some of their own money to punish another player of the game, by having some of their money taken away. Researchers find that when this rule is added, that cooperation jumps. People are now under a fear of being punished by others and they choose to better cooperate (even though the punisher is willing to spend their own money to enact that punishment) Research with WEIRD samples led to the evolutionary models that argued that it was a desire to engage in altruistic punishment that allowed for humans to engage in sufficient cooperation to form these large societies.

World Religion and predicting fairness

Another predictor of fairness was the percentage of the sample in a given country who participated in a world religion. A world religion is one that has spread widely to be found in multiple countries around the world (i.e. Judaism, Christianity, etc.) Religions are not found everywhere, but in many tribal religions the gods do not offer much moral guidance (i.e. they are not punishing individuals based on immoral behavior)-gods in the world's religions do offer moral guidance (i.e. and there is punishment for immoral behavior). Religious people play economic games more fairly apparently because they believe their behavior is not anonymous in the eyes of God.

Study: examining people's moral judgements in eight traditional small-scale societies around the world

Another way we can see different attitudes toward the theory that bad thought is related to bad behavior is reflected in how much people condemn behaviors that were unintentional I.e. unintentionally took someone's laptop thinking it was your own vs. intentionally stealing someone's laptop Generally people believe intentional bad behavior to be much worse than unintentional bad behavior but the degree to which people consider intentions/actions varies somewhat While people in all of these cultures considered intention when forming moral judgements, the degree to which they did so varied considerably. For example, the Yasawans from Fiji observe a cultural norm in which trying to speculate about the reasons for other people's behaviors is frowned upon. In contrast to participants from Western societies, they viewed unintentional bad actions to be almost as morally problematic as intentional ones. The role of people's mental state is not considered a moral concern to the same extent everywhere. In contrast to Westerners, they view unintentional bad actions to be almost as morally bad as the intentional ones This theory is supported by the idea that the victim will still receive the same negative consequences, regardless of intention However, Westerners believe in weighing the importance of intention when reviewing a crime

How universal are standards of interpersonal attraction?

Answering this question requires contrasting the similarities and differences in the ways people go about trying to make themselves more attractive. A sampling of body and facial decorations reveals a good deal of cultural variation in what's viewed as attractive. ex: women elongate their necks in Paduang, Thailand; in Ethiopia women stretch their lower lip; makeup in the West Around the world, physical attractiveness plays a bigger role in interpersonal attraction for women than for men (although also a concern for men) Despite the studding array of diverse strategies humans adopt to make themselves more physically appealing to others, there are many commonalities across cultures in perceptions of personal beauty. mere exposure effect

What are some generally universal cross-cultural perceptions of personal beauty? Where do these come from evolutionarily?

Appealing faces: clear complexion (skin free of blemishes, blotches, rashes, etc.) Evolutionary reason: People are unconsciously thinking about selecting healthy mates who would likely produce healthy offspring that would survive bilateral symmetry (particularly in the face) evolutionary reason: evolutionary biologists say it is an indicator of developmental stability. Given ideal growing conditions, the right and left sides will develp identically, but genetic mutations, pollutions, pathogens, etc. in womb would lead to unbalanced development and possibly ill health. This attraction is not limited to humans, and a study finds that symmetrical scorpion flies are more attractive to other flies and get more mates. average sized features (although in Industrialized societies men tend to be more attracted to youthful features whereas women tend to prefer some masculine features in men) evolutionary reason: people with average features are less likely to have abnormalities, thus reflecting genetic health. It is also easier to mentally process something that resembles a prototype and quick processing is associated with good feelings/sense of attraction.

Comparison in India of "love scale" for arranged vs. love marriages:

At the start there's more love in love marriage than arranged, but then overtime in arranged marriages the love tends to grow In love marriages it tends to drop over time (a lot of research finds it coincides with when children are born, and tends to rise when the kids leave the home) In arranged marriages it tends to grow over time, more in males than females

Ethnocentrism and cross-cultural morality

Avoiding ethnocentric perspective is difficult because people are socialized to think in ways consistent with their cultural values and to evaluate their own behaviors in terms of how well they fit within their culture's views on right and wrong. Because of their ethnocentric biases, it is an enormous challenge for people to consider standards for psychological processes that would be universally valid, rather than those favored by their own culture.

Moral Intuitions: Ethic of Autonomy

Avoiding harm Protecting fairness

Joe Henrich and colleagues wanted to test these claims (only previously tested on WEIRD samples) by studying economic games in more than a dozen small-scale societies

Because if this is truly a result of evolving, these claims should be found everywhere Roots of human sociality study: tested foragers, herders, and subsistence farmers societies and compared them to WEIRD societies All money in the game is real-the stake is the average of one day's wage. Games are always one-shot and completely anonymous. Procedures are identical everywhere and have been carefully translated. There are many standardized pre-game tests to ensure rules are understood (participants must show that they pass all of these tests). Results: dictator average offers in % was pretty variable in terms of how likely people were to act fairly. The American pattern of an internalized norm for fairness was not held to the same extent elsewhere (most extreme on chart). In the small-scale societies, people acted in more rational ways. The results fit better if you do not assume that people have an internalized concern for their reputation. If economists had studied small-scale societies they would have different theories of how human cooperation motives evolved. The researchers explored what variable best predicted people's norms for fairness: MARKET INTEGRATION and PERCENTAGE OF PEOPLE WHO PARTICIPATE IN A WORLD RELIGION.

Field independence:

Being able to separate objects from each other; easier for those with a more analytic thinking system

Collectivism facilitates useful ideas:

Being concerned about others leads to solutions that fit with the goals of the group Working with others leads Asians to generate more appropriate ideas When Koreans were more motivated to do well, they came up with more useful ideas. When Dutch (a more individualistic country) were motivated to do well, they came up with more original ideas.

Ethnocentrism

Belief in the superiority of one's nation or ethnic group.

Richard Shweder's "Big Three" of ethics

Believes Kohlberg's model of moral development describes just one of three codes of ethics that guide people's moral judgements around the world. Comes up with three universal three code of ethics: -ethic of autonomy -ethic of community -ethic of divinity

Jeitinho

Brazil indigenous cultural concept for navigating hierarchies the "little way out"; reflects the challenge of living in a system that sometimes has inflexible difficult rules and regulation. More practically, reflects strategies of avoiding conflicts with superiors. Captures a range of behaviors, including doing favors for people, breaking social norms, finding ways to negotiate strict hierarchies, coming up with creative pragmatic solutions, and, less positively, engaging in corruption.

What does happiness mean?

Challenging enterprise to compare cultures because it is difficult to measure (really only self-report measure) How often do people have a similar understanding of these terms? Even looking at how happiness is talked about in books: -When researchers examined dictionaries in 30 countries they found that luck was part of the definition of happiness in all places except the United States, Spain, Argentina, Ecuador, India, and Kenya (those that live in countries where happiness is described as good luck report feeling less happy than those where luck is not part of the definition). -Over time the expression "happy person" is more common than "happy nation" in published American books; happiness has become more of an individual concept rather than a country Cultures vary in terms of how much importance they place on happiness

Intimacy

Characterized by liking your partner Cultures differ in terms of the amount of intimacy individuals express/share. Western couples experience a great deal of intimacy, especially in terms of self-disclosure compared to East Asian couples. East Asians and Mexicans, who are more acculturated to Western ways, confide in and reveal more to their romantic partners than those who are less acculturated. Lower levels of intimacy may be explained by interdependent self-concepts having their intimacy needs met across a larger network of close relationships, and the spouse or partner does not occupy such a central position. (i.e. Ghanians and Taiwanese are more likely to prioritize the needs of their mothers ahead of their spouses. Perhaps this indicates romantic relationships might claim a higher position in the hierarchical network of close relationships for people from Western cultures) relational mobility is a key predictor of intimacy in close relationships in terms of self-disclosure; when people have the opportunities to form new relationships they have to invest more in their existing ones in order to keep them and self-disclosure is one way to do that. Self-disclosure and intimacy are more closely related in the West: Research has indicated that among Westerners it's clear that confiding in one's romantic partner is essential to intimacy. Outside of the west it is not considered as necessary for romantic intimacy. Kindness, for instance, has been found to be a key predictor of relationship success across several diverse cultures.

Evidence for cultural universality in facial expressions

Charles Darwin was one of the first scientists to seriously consider whether emotional facial expressions are common to all people of the world (i.e. a product of natural selection). Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen have contributed to this research: in one study, investigators took thousands of photographs of people making six different emotional expressions: happiness, disgust, surprise, sadness, anger, and fear. They reduced their set of photos to those that were most easily recognized by Americans, and then showed this set to individuals in the U.S., Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and Japan. Participants were asked to select which of a set of six emotion terms best matched the feeling a person was showing in a photo. If people had no idea and simply guessed, they would have identified about one our of six correctly. Yet, they identified the emotion correctly in 80-90% of the photos. In other words, people in the five different cultures showed a great deal of agreement about what feelings the facial poses were expressing. However, all of these cultures studied were industrialized, literate cultures, and the diverse participants had all been exposed to a lot of the same media things. So, Ekman went to Papua New Guinea and did a study on The Fore, asking them to match an expression to various situations. He found universality in those six emotions.

Study: Cooperation vs. Competition

Children played with an opponent on an apparatus that would allow them to win a marble if they took turns, but would cause them to lose a marble if they competed. The dependent variable was how many marbles they won after playing 10 trials of the game. They do a first set of trials without any training on the best strategy and then they are told if they take turns that is the way each pair will get the maximum amount of marbles and another set of trials is conducted. Results: very young American children tended to cooperate, but by the time they reached the age of 7 they preferred competition over cooperation. Older American kids therefore won very few marbles. On the other hand, Mexican children enjoyed cooperating enough that they rarely competed, and consequently earned more marbles (especially after the training).

What do cognitive and perception psychologists study?

Claim to explain the most elementary and essential psychological processes. Explore how the brain processes the streams of information people encounter as they go about their lives. These investigators strive to isolate the building blocks of the psychological experience. It is remarkable that this research area has yielded some of the strongest evidence for cross-cultural variation, challenging basic assumptions about the working mind.

Study: The link between control and health

Classic series of studies, in which residents of a nursing home were divided into two groups. One group received an intervention that enabled them to have control over a number of minor life events (i.e. deciding when a plant should be watered, when visitors should come etc.). Those in the other group did not receive any such control intervention. As the months went by, participants who had been given opportunities for control ended up requiring fewer medications, were rated as being in better health, and ultimately, on average, lived longer than those in the no-intervention group.

Social Loafing

Comes into play when an individual is being evaluated based on their group accomplishments; people respond differently when it isn't clear how much any individual is contributing, people often don't work as hard

Study: will Jews and Christians view people with impure thoughts differently?

Compared Jews and Protestants in how they responded to various vignettes where someone thinks about inappropriate things When participants were asked if it was immoral if a man actually had an affair there were no differences between Jews and Protestant-both agreed equally that this would be immoral behavior However, Protestants viewed the man more negatively than Jews just for thinking about having an affair Protestants are also more likely than Jews to believe that thoughts are under one's control Protestants also view thoughts as being more likely to lead to behaviors than do Jews

Sleep Study: Are Japanese somehow suffering from their short sleep durations, but this is not evident because of other cultural protective factors, such as diet?

Comparison of International sleep datasets: We found 10 different datasets regarding cross-cultural comparisons of sleep. These varied in method (i.e. fitness tracker, self report, sleep diary, parental report) Each dataset contained sleep data for a number of countries (range 7-48) A total of 64 countries are represented Japan was included in 9 of the datasets Of those 9, Japan had the least sleep for 6 of them, and the second least sleep for 3 of them. Japan averaged about one hour less sleep than the average of Western countries. Explored whether national average sleep duration predicted several outcomes that have been associated with sleep within cultures. Specifically they looked at whether sleep predicted longevity, heart disease rates, obesity, diabetes, and school performance. They included controls: GDP per capita, a nutrition index, latitude of largest city, economic inequality While longevity was predicted by GDP and global nutrition index but there was no relation with sleep duration (i.e. the country that slept more on average did not live longer) No relation with global heart disease and global diabetes rates Obesity findings went in the opposite of what was hypothesized (i.e. countries that slept more were globally more obese) Global school performance was not correlated with sleep duration

Rational Persuasion

Considered especially effective among American managers for exerting influence on others Involves obtaining some factual evidence, conveying it with well-reasoned arguments, and then suggesting approaches for solutions. relied upon less in some societies, such as China, because it can provoke overt disagreement which can disrupt the organizational hierarchy.

What does the relationship between effort and principle of fairness depend on?

Cultural context For example, Japanese workers have traditionally been among the hardest in the world and they tend to work depending on principle of equality

Facial expressions and emotion: continued research

Cultural variations are distinct enough that people can reliably guess the nationality of those who are expressing emotions, even if they have similar cultural backgrounds (i.e. Japanese vs. Japanese American OR American vs. Australian) but not if they are simply making a neutral expression Studies also show that people from a lower socioeconomic background are more accurate at identifying emotions in facial expressions, suggesting that those who have relatively less status pay closer attention to the possible thoughts and feelings of those of higher socioeconomic status.

Friendship variation cross-culturally

Cultures vary in attitudes towards friends North America, being high in relational mobility, people tend to have a rather casual attitude towards friendships and form them easily Americans report having more friends than people in other countries, and are relatively quick to make/end friendships; Americans are quite likely to strike up conversations with strangers as well (something you don't typically see in low relational mobility societies)

What can we ultimately conclude about sleep and culture?

Despite that research regulars find health/cognitive difficulties correlate with sleep duration within countries, there is no such relation between countries. They suggest that people learn cultural norms for a typical night's sleep (speculative, needs more research). The range of this norm varies across countries by 1-2 hrs duration. Health problems are associated with deviations from a local cultural norm, rather than deviations from a species-wide standard. The amount that people need to sleep thus seems to be correlated with cultures.

Why is defining a disorder difficult?

Disorders are usually described as behaviors that are rare and cause some kind of impairment to the individual, but this is not always the case and not so simple. The issue of definition becomes even more difficult when certain behaviors are viewed as problematic in one culture but not in another.

Benefits of having a more culturally diverse team:

Diverse teams bring more perspectives and information Having all of these extra perspectives can lead to more creative solutions Teams may process information more carefully (Perhaps because there is less of this sense of trust among others, so people feel the need to work extra hard themselves to make sure this information is being understood) Heightened creativity

Study: cultural influence on Doctor's beliefs about health

Doctors and lay people were asked 25 questions about diet, eating, and health in five Western countries: France, Germany, Italy, UK and USA Sample questions included the value of vitamin pills, healthiness of dairy products, wine, meat, the importance of food, exercise, and moderation for health Participant's answers to the 25 questions were correlated with other participant's answers to the same questions (either from the same culture or different cultures) Results: physicians show much agreement with lay people from their own culture However, when physicians show rather poor agreement with physicians or lay people from other cultures, underscoring the cultural foundation of their views on health and diet

Study: creativity in Dutch vs. Korean societies

Dutch participants who were motivated to do their best on a brainstorming task came up with more original ideas, but not more useful ones, compared to those who were not motivated to do their best. In contrast, when Korean participants were especially motivated, they came up with more useful ideas, but not more original ones. The usefulness component of creativity seems to be promoted in East Asian contexts.

Whorfian question, if people don't have a word for green do they still see green the same way?

Earlier research was conducted with the Dugum Dani who only have 2 color terms. The studies showed that the Dani could better learn new color terms that were closer to the ptototypes of English color labels, than they could learn new color terms that were further from the English prototypes. This research was enormously influential in arguing that language is independent of thought. However, numerous researchers called attention to the various technical problems with these studies. Recently, new research has been exploring whether color terms affect perception of colors.

Attention study

East Asians and Westerners showed different patterns of attention to stimuli. Researchers asked European Americans and Chinese Americans to describe what they saw in some Rorschach inkblots. The Rorschach test is a psychological measure in which people report what they perceive in an ambiguous visual stimulus-an inkblot on a card. Results: revealed that these two groups of Americans apparently saw things quite differently. The European Americans tended to describe what they saw based on a single aspect of the image. In contrast, the Chinese Americans generally gave "whole-card" responses, describing what they saw based on the entire image.

What else did the GLOBE find?

Effective leadership in a particular culture is achieved when the behavior of a leader matched the leadership style that is desired within that culture.

liget

Emotion found in an indigenous hunter-gatherer tribe in the northern Philippenes closest approximation is a combination of anger passion and energy An emotional response to insult, disappointment, or irritation, and especially envy. Seen as a wellspring of energy, valued as a source of life and work derives from human interactions, particularly when people compete and become envious of each others accomplishments also sometimes cultivated through various magic rituals Primarily, characterizes striving youths, energentic hunters, and violent men i.e. shown in the ritual of head hunting...described as the reason for head-hunting raids on neighboring tribes in the past ULTIMATELY it is: a frothy feeling of anger, passion, and energy that can lead to either extreme concentration and productivity or to chaos.

Which of Shweder's three codes of ethics are typically used by the orthodox and progressivists when they think about moral issues?

Ethic of divinity seems to bear close affinity with orthodox conceptions of morality; sacred guidelines granted by a transcendent authority in an attempt to come closer to moral and spiritual purity. The ethic of autonomy has many similarities with the progressive conception of morality: allows individuals to make decisions about rightness/wrongness, provided they don't encroach the rights of others or cause harm. The ethic of community, however, seems to characterize all religious viewpoints, regardless of whether one is more orthodox or progressive. In sum, we might expect that the two camps of the culture war can be characterized by the ethics they use to make sense of what is morally correct and incorrect.

Two kinds of satisfaction study:

Euro-americans are more likely than Asian Americans to possess a theory that they are happy, even their daily reports might not be

Perceptual styles and Art:

Examining art from different cultures is one way to view the differences in perspective and perception. Western landscape example: has a strong sense of perspective; horizon; emphasizes the objects to the POV of the artist/viewer East Asian landscape example: looks like POV is sort of floating above the scene; the horizon is off the page; privileging the objects to the surrounding objects rather than the viewer of the picture; relative size of the objects stays constant no matter where they are in the image (flattens the scene and deemphasizes distance from the artist/viewer perspective) Western portrait example: the person being painted is really focused on, attention drawn to them East Asian portrait example: the person is much smaller, part of scenery is displayed, less defined in comparison to the background

Cross-cultural physical variations that exist independently to genetics

Example: The Moken, a tribe of sea nomads in Southeast Asia, spend most of the year living on boats and get most food from the ocean. They have more than twice the underwater visual acuity of European children. Possibly because of controlled visual accommodation followed by maximal pupil constriction- a process similar to what enables seals to see clearly underwater. This is likely not a genetic adaptation because research shows that this specialized ability is acquired through practice and European children can be trained to develop the same kind of visual acuity underwater. Another example is myopia: Rates of myopia have been increasing around the world. This is not due to changes in genes, but to change in lifestyles. In the past generation, the percentage of Americans with myopia increased from 25% to 42%. Among East Asians living in cities, over 80% of high school students have myopia. One study with Chinese children found that spending an extra 40 minutes a day in outdoor activities was associated with lower myopia rates. another example is the previously discussed foot shape example: People who never wear shoes develop a wider forefoot and big toe sticks out more to the side and the arch is higher and more pronounced height: correlated with income and healthier diet (Dutch have tallest people in world; South Korean women and Iranian men have gained the most amount of height over the past century)

Does suppressing anger increase health risks?

Extensive research with Westerners has revealed that people with hostile tendencies are at increased risk for cardiovascular disease. Many maintain that the reason is that hostile people have more need to inhibit their anger. In other words, the suppression of an anger response accelerates the heart rate followed by slow recovery to normal. If inhibiting anger leads to cardiovascular stress for people from all cultures, it would seem logical that cultures that suppress their anger would have more heart disease in their populations. However, if cultures where expressing anger is problematic experience that anger less intensely, than suppression of anger is likely not an increased health risk. Studies that focus on this: -one study asked Chinese Canadians and European Canadians to address a situation in which they are treated unfairly at a restaurant. The results revealed that Chinese Canadians, on average, found the scenarios to be less anger-provoking than European Canadians. -In a second study (in a lab setting), Chinese Canadians and European Canadians were exposed to a rude and unprofessional experimenter. Participants from both cultural groups initially responded with similar degrees of anger to the disagreeable experience (as measured by both a self-report questionnaire as well as blood pressure readings. Both groups had an initial jump in systolic blood pressure indicating an anger response. However, it is noteworthy that the Chinese Canadian's blood pressure returned to normal much quicker than the European Canadian's blood pressure. -further research has suggested that compared with Americans, intense emotions in East Asians are associated with fewer negative health outcomes. In addition, less of a neurological response in East Asians when suppressing their emotions indicates it's not that hard for them to do so.

Machiguengan men have different shaped feet from American men. Which of the following is the best explanation for this?

Feet grow differently depending on the kind of foot-coverings that are worn

What is a study holistic thinkers should be good at?

Finding relationships between individual pictures; When shown pairs of pictures on a computer Chinese students indicated the likelihood that the other picture would be shown in response

What are emotions?

Focal points of our subjective world Not easy to describe Two theories guide the discussions about the universality or variability of emotional experience: The James-Lange theory and the two-factor theory

Study: shame about work on the job and Collectivist vs. Individualistic cultures

For Filipinos in the study (a collectivist culture) their shame in the workplace led to a greater effort to improve customer relations, as they sought to restore social harmony in the workplace. In contrast, feelings of shame among Dutch in the study (individualistic culture) led to reduced effort to improve customer relations-creating distance between them and their regular buyers.

Epidemiological paradox

For the most part, Latinos health outcomes on a variety of measures are similar to those of European Americans, and in several cases unexpectedly positive. Compared to European Americans, Latinos tend to have lower mortality rates for 10/15 leading causes of death and this puzzles researchers because Latinos tend to be of lower SES than European Americans and therefore should be expected to have poorer health.

frigophobia

Found largely in China A morbid fear of getting cold People will avoid cold air, eating cold food, and dress with several layers, even in Summer.

Is race genetic?

Gene frequencies vary around the world. This is how companies like 23andme can estimate where one's ancestors come from. They look at all of the alleles you have and they have databases that show how common those alleles are around the world in order to make estimation. However, most of this variation is due to random genetic drift and not actually associated with making proteins but are randomly passed down. Genetic variation that is due to identified selective forces are largely the product of differences in climate, dietary practices, and pathogen prevalence. For the most part, genes don't cluster well into racial categories. Of all the genetic variability in the world, only about 4% of it distinguishes people from different continental races. The vast majority of genetic variation occurs between people of the same ethnic heritage. Human genetic variability is small compared to that of other species. For example, the different "races" of chimpanzees account for over 30% of chimpanzee genetic variability. Human races are less genetically distinct because we all descend from a very small population of humans living in Africa and because, unlike chimpanzees, humans have traveled the entire globe, mating with people they have encountered along the way.

What is skin color a good example of?

Genetic variability; the most compelling explanation lies in the body's ability to synthesize vitmain D from sunlight, which is necessary for the intestines to absorb calcium and phosphorus from food to use for bone growth and repair. Too much UBR can cause the breakdown of folic acid which is problematic. Humans first emerged in Africa where UVR levels are high, and they evolved to have enough melatonin, or pigment, in their skin to allow the absorption of sufficient UVR to make vitamin D, but not enough to break down follic acid. When humans moved to places with lower UVR they had to absorb relatively more UVR thus those with less melanin in their skin had a survival advantage over their darker-skinned relatives, and their skin color evolved accordingly. Research displays that the amount of UVR reaching Earth's surface correlates strongly with skin color. Skin color is an adaptive response to climate. Adaptations like this represent one large area of genetic variability across populations. Climate is a strong selection pressure, and people who are better adapted to the local climate will produce more surviving offsping.

Enemies: Ghana vs. America

Ghanians also report having more enemies than Americans (about 71% vs. 26%-large difference) Many Westerners say they don't have enemies because they avoid people they don't really like, so they never develop enemies (the default state is having no relationship unless there is a desire for one; for low relational mobility the relationship exists as a default and therefore enemies seem inevitable) This view seems naive to many Ghanaians, as they view enemies as a natural state of life When Westerners acknowledge enemies they most often identify outgroup members On the other hand, Ghanaians often identify enemies as ingroup members

EX: What foundations are applied, for instance, to being vegetarian?

Harm: the basis that we should try and prevent suffering/cruelty toward animals Purity: filling bodies with impurities like meat, and should be enriching ourselves with fruits/vegetables Different values can be applied to the same moral dilemma

Countries with more corruption:

Have more inequality Have more poverty Tend to be more collectivistic (This is understandable because in addition to this ethic of autonomy there is this ethic of communion where people will think of interpersonal obligations in moral terms (they need to consider their relationships, this can lead to a greater amount of corruption i.e. nepotism)) Have more power distance and are more accepting of whatever the powerful do. (Power distance is accepting that some individuals have much more power than others and that society is very hierarchical...and countries that have more power distance tend to have more corruption rates.) The relationship appears to be bidirectional.; corruption itself leads to more inequality because the corrupt people keep more money to themselves and more poverty causes more corruption etc.

How did Kohlberg study moral development?

He studied this by posing moral dilemmas to people and seeing what reasons they offered for their decisions; claimed that his model represented a universal pattern of moral development globally.

The Importance of Moral Psychology:

Helps us understand: Why people hold different values Why different individuals, groups, and societies disagree so intensely Why people will go to extremes to defend their values Helps us resolve real-world social problems: Promotes cultural understanding Helps us see that people who disagree with us are not necessarily "evil" or "bad" people Suggests ways to help resolve moral conflicts

Why do some cultures encourage more emotional expressivity in their communication?

High-context cultures: people are good at inferring meaning from one another without the need for explicit communication (because they live in more homogeneous societies where their populations descended from distant ancestors in the same region and share much accumulated knowledge). In contrast, in more heterogeneous cultures, people don't share as much knowledge and have to be more open and precise in their communications in order to be understood. Research has found this correlation to in fact exist (heterogeneity of a country vs. emotional expressivity).

Which is more prevalent: analytic vs. holistic thinking?

Holistic reasoning is more broad in groups around the world... (apart from WEIRD samples) appear to dominate the world's views

Attributional Theory:

How people make attributions to other's behavior There is lots of research focused on this field currently; Research with Westerners consistently finds that they attend more to dispositional information than situation information, even when the situational constraints are obvious

Social Facilitation

How the presence of others helps performance on well-learned tasks, but interferes with performance on poorly-learned tasks. The presence of others creates arousal which leads to these effects. The reason for social facilitation is because arousal brings out our default reflexive responses (and with well learned tasks our default responses are those that help us to do better and the opposite for non well learned tasks) Fundamental process that has been identified across many species (including cockroaches, and is universal cross-culturally) In this way practice is very important for success!

Field dependence:

How we actually see the world is one way to differentiate the thinking systems: a more holistic thinker will see the world as an integrated whole and this can make it challenging to separate it into different parts

What are the two explanations for cross-cultural biological variation?

Humans in various parts of the world were subject to different selection pressures over many generations, which resulted in the human genome diverging across different populations. In other words, there are innate biological differences. People living in diverse locations have experiences within their lifetimes that have an impact on their biology. In other words, they have acquired biological differences.

Americans turn more to their spouses for intimacy needs as they spend less time with others

I.e. percent of individuals who see their parents and siblings more are never married/previously married Married people see both their parents and siblings less Intimacy needs are concentrated more on one person, who becomes a bigger part of your life Irony is that as people expect more from marriages on average they become less happy with them Finkel argues then that the best marriages of today are more satisfying than in the past...what will the future hold?

Different combinations of Sternberg's triangular theory of love:

If commitment is all you are getting it is called "empty love" If Passion is all you have it is called "infatuation" Fatuous love: passion + commitment Companionate love: intimacy + commitment i.e. May be what characterizes many long term marriages (as passion is often the most fleeting characteristic in a relationship) Romantic love: passion + intimacy i.e. Often characterizes early stages in relationships Consummate love: intimacy + passion + commitment: i.e. Usually the time people are thinking "let's get married"

Display rules cross-culturally

In certain Arab populations, it is dishonorable if a man does not respond to an insult with a greater demonstration of anger. The Kaluli of New Guinea tend to show their emotions intensely and dramatically Among the Utku Eskimos, public expressions of anger are strongly condemned. Similarly, the Balinese have a preference for emotional "smoothness", with an emphasis on avoiding strong displays of emotion (both positive and negative).

Why are collectivistic societies often associated with the generation of useful rather than novel ideas?

In collectivistic cultures, people are socialised to be concerned about the opinions of others and to find solutions that will fit with the goals of their groups. This orientation toward finding practical solutions that can fit within an existing set of social concerns appears to lead to skills for creating useful ideas more generally. Ex: Researchers documented that when people in Singapore were working with another person, they elaborated more on the appropriateness of their ideas than when they were by themselves, yet they became less original in their ideas. Contrastly, Israelis were not affected by the presence of others in the same way.

Cross-cultural variations and fairness

In general, many cross-cultural studies find that people from individualistic cultures favor equity in allocating resources, regardless of group membership, although there are exceptions to this pattern. In contrast, people from collectivistic cultures often rely more on equality when rewarding ingroup members and equity for outgroup members.

How does culture impact sleep?

In industrialized societies, the bed is often in a sterile environment, with little sensory stimulation In many subsistence environments, sleep is a noisy event, around a campfire, with people chatting, absence of comfortable bedding, with many people entangled The notion of a single 8-hour period of sleep is also not found universally. In pre-industrialized Europe, it was common for people to have two sleeps interrupted by a period of activity in the middle of the night. Some Mediterranean and small-scale cultures have biphasic sleep, meaning their sleep is broken into two phases: a daytime sleep (siesta, nap) and a nighttime sleep cosleeping with children varies across cultures Japanese and Korean adults report sleeping about an hour less per day than French adults do. Likewise, adolescents in a variety of Asian countries sleep about 40-60 minutes less than those in North America, and 60-120 minutes less than those in Europe. These cultural differences are evident in much younger people as well, with Japanese infants sleeping about 1.5 hours less than North American infants. Dutch infants sleep about 1.3 hours more than American infants.

Simpatico

In many Latin American cultures, people place an emphasis on maintaining harmonious relationships, and on making expressive displays of graciousness, hospitality, and congeniality. Highly valued relational style known as Simpatico; characterized by a self-concept that is easygoing, respectful, courteous, and agreeable. Latin Americans also expect interactions with others to be dominated by positive social behaviors, with minimal negativity, compared with the expectations of European Americans. Also clear in the workplace: preference for working in groups where people strive to maintain a warm and hospitable atmosphere. In general more sociable than European Americans. Speak more, make more eye contact, and show more positive feelings toward each other than European Americans or African Americans. Even in a study placing European Americans and African Americans with their own culture vs. Latin Americans they were more likely to show more interest in interacting again with the latin American in the future.

Cultural competence

In multicultural settings, therapists can expect to work with clients of a different culture from their own. Achieving cultural competence requires: Recognizing their own cultural influences. Developing knowledge about the cultural background of their client, and learning of their client's expectations. Responding in culturally sensitive ways. Know that this disorder may be something that is treated differently based on cultural stigma, gender, family involvement etc. Always treating the client as an individual, and listening carefully to see whether the client is approaching things in ways more similar to their heritage culture or their cultural background.

Study: Attributional theory

In one classic study, American students were asked to evaluate an essay writer's true attitudes by reading an essay that they had written which espoused either positive or critical attitudes towards Fidel Castro Participants assumed that the writer of the pro-Castro essay had more positive views In other conditions, participants were told of some significant situational constraints on the essay-writers behaviors In one condition, participants were told that the authors had been assigned their positions (i.e. either pro-Castro or anti-Castro) Regardless, participants assumed that the person reading the anti-Castro essay had more negative feelings towards Castro than the person reading the pro-Castro essay. This is termed the "fundamental attribution error"

Emotional intensity: Japanese vs. Americans

In one study, Japanese and American participants were asked to report on occasions when they had experienced certain emotions. The Americans reported feeling those emotions longer and more intensely than the Japanese did. In another study, Japanese and American students completed a questionnaire several times per day over a week to indicate their emotions. The Japanese were about three times more likely to say they had NOT been feeling any emotions at all. Other research has found that East Asians are less attentive to their gut feelings when compared to Westerners. Ghanians have also been found to attend less to their emotions than Americans. These studies suggest that the cultural display rules governing the deamplifying and masking of emotions in East Asia are also associated with East Asians experiencing fewer and less intense emotions than Americans.

Why does emotional intensity vary cross-culturally?

In some cultural contexts, expressing intense emotions may make it hard to fit in well with others, particularly an interpersonally disruptive emotion such as anger. It can be difficult for an interdependent group to function well if members are angry with each other, especially if someone lower in the hierarchy feels anger to someone above them. The individual would likely do best to not express that anger at all.

high relational mobility

In some cultures, people have a lot of freedom in deciding who they will have a relationship with-there is a sense of opportunity to form new relationships on a regular basis (not just romantic, but friendships, collaborative working relationships etc.) This is called high relational mobility. In these contexts people feel that they have the power to choose who they form a relationship with Canadian undergrad life tends to be a high relational mobility context, and this affects the ways people present themselves: many students move away from home and are thus not as bound to their past relationships. They're living and socializing with many others in a variety of contexts, including classes, dorms, student clubs, parties, and shared interest groups. High mobility contexts open markets for relationships-any kinds of qualities that attract relationship partners are more important Physical attractiveness should be associated with better outcomes in these contexts

Obesity rates: France vs. U.S. (The French Paradox)

In the U.S., the obesity rate is about five times the rate of France...this fact is even more surprising considering the typical French cuisine (rich with fat and sugar-heavy products) French Paradox: Although the French tend to have higher blood cholesterol levels than Americans, they are thinner and have a longer lifespan; in addition, heart disease rates are lower than for Americans..this has puzzled researchers

What factors contribute to UNIVERSAL overall satisfaction people have with their lives?

Income level: the association seems to be strongest at very low income levels where a little money can make a big difference and is weaker in developed nations Human rights protection: countries that promote human rights the most generally have the happiest citizens. Conversely, countries where people live under the constant threat of imprisonment for being suspected of plotting against the government are, on average, not as happy. overall equality among people (i.e. as seen in Nordic countries) Countries that abide by the law more and have lower rates of corruption

Obesity rates

Increased quite a bit over time and there is concern with the associated negative health risks Across all countries in the study (Japan, Netherlands, Finland, UK, USA) obesity rates have increased over time and they are the lowest in Japan and the highest in the US the increase has been the most extreme. There has been debate over what causes it-the large increase over short span of time suggests it may be culturally/socially driven (rather than genetic, for instance)

A problem with cross-cultural psychiatric diagnosis:

It may be obvious that applying an unfamiliar cultural diagnostic category to North Americans would be pointless, the reverse of this situation is the way much of cross-cultural psychiatry has been conducted. The field of psychiatry was largely developed in the West and so disorders that are observed in the West are often viewed as the basic categories of diagnosis. Additionally, when psychiatry is practiced in non-Western cultures, there is a tendency to evaluate local psychological problems in terms of how well they fit into Western categories.

What would the optimal creative team look like?

It would include people from both individualistic and collectivistic cultures so they could share their respective strengths. The exposure to many ways of seeing problems that multicultural teams often have leads to an advantage in generating creative ideas and solving problems. Study: the best creative thinking resulted when team members were primed with collectivistic as well as individualistic ideas; another study: the most creativity emerged when people were exposed to aspects of multiple cultures.

Why is sleep one of the most poorly understood aspects of human life?

It's difficult to measure directly and unobtrusively Most research relies on self-reports (this may reflect notions on how they should be sleeping as opposed to actual time spent asleep)

Religious orthodoxy vs. Progressivism

James Hunter proposed that lines are drawn between those who have an "impulse toward orthodoxy" and those that have an "impulse toward progressivism" regardless of their religious denomination. Orthodox religions: committed to the idea of transcendent authority; believe this authority existed long before humans, operates independently of people, and is more knowledgeable and powerful than all of human experience. Individuals and society are expected to adapt themselves to this ordained moral code. Progressive religions: importance of human agency in understanding and formulating a moral code; reject the view that a transcendent authority reveals itself and its will to humans; believe people play an integral role in the formulation of a moral code. They also maintain that because social circumstances change, the moral code must change along with them. In this important way, progressives differ from the orthodox. This is, however, a broad distinction, and an individual's religious impulses and political values do not always fall neatly into these two categories.

Heine Study: Sleep study with Japanese, European Canadian, and Asian Canadian university students

Japan scores the lowest in the world in cross-cultural comparisons of sleep. They also have more tolerance for "inemuri"-napping while present. Ruth Benedict (1946)- "When one goes to Japan one must cease to believe that it is a bounden duty to prepare for work tomorrow by sleep and rest tonight. One is to consider sleep apart from questions of recuperation, rest, and recreation." Student's saying is "pass with 4, fail with 5" Confucion teaching emphasized that reducing sleep was important for most effective functioning. Study: had 196 UBC students and 97 Japanese University students wear an Actiwatch for one week measuring the amount of time spent sleeping, as well as various indicators of sleep efficiency (how much time your in bed you are actually sleeping) Results: Time spent sleeping: Japanese slept about 1 hour less than the two Canadian samples Japanese and Asian-Canadians report napping about 13 minutes more per day than Euro-Canadians. (but doesn't appear that they are napping enough to make up for lack of nighttime sleep) But overall Japanese still sleep much less per day than both groups of Canadians. Japanese are NOT sleeping less because they are more efficient sleepers. In fact, they are actually less efficient sleepers than Canadians. Japanese spend considerably less time in bed sleeping than Canadians. Japanese do not seem to sleep less because they are busier: in an ideal world Japanese reported they would sleep about one hour less than Canadians (everyone wants to sleep more than they do). Despite sleeping less, Japanese rated themselves as LESS tired during the day compared with Canadians. They also examined health ratings: controlling for health at the beginning of study, Japanese had significantly better self-reported health than Euro-Canadians at the end of the study. How is this the case? Belief in the relationship between sleep and health: Japanese perceive a weaker relationship between sleep and health than Canadians, although both groups believed there was an important link. Asian-Canadians and Euro-Canadians did not differ on most measures. This suggests that cultural sleeping norms are affected by local norms, and are not innate, nor do they persist across immigration (these cultural norms are adapted quite quickly).

Study: cultural variability in facial expressions of emotion

Japanese and American participants viewed photos of people's faces in which the top half of the face had a different emotional expression than the bottom half (the researchers swapped the halves). Participants were asked to judge what emotion the person was expressing. Results: the Japanese judgements were more influenced by the top half of the photos (the eyes), and the Americans were more influenced by the bottom half (the mouths) Conceptually similar findings have emerged in studies showing that Europeans recognized facial expressions by observing both the eyes and the mouths, whereas East Asians did so primarily focusing on the eyes. In addition, there are different patterns of brain activation when East Asians are looking at faces compared with Westerners, consistent with the differences in the facial regions people from different cultures look at. (i.e. anime characters have big eyes)

Study: contrasting American Baptists who belonged to either fundamentalists sects or mainline sects

Jensen Participants were asked to explain their moral judgements on a variety of politically charged issues, such as suicide and divorce. Jensen examined their responses to see how similar their justifications were to each of the three codes of ethics. For example, participants were asked whether they felt abortion is wrong, and to explain their answer. Results: Of the orthodox participants, 100% gave at least one reason that was consistent with the ethic of divinity-that is, they spoke of God's exclusive authority to end human life, or they referred to the biblical injunction against taking another person's life. In contrast, when the progressives explained their views on abortion, 90% of them offered at least one reason that was consistent with the ethic of autonomy-that is, they tended to emphasize that individuals had to interpret scriptures and reach a conclusion for themselves that avoided haring others. The most pronounced differences were with respect to the ethic of divinity and autonomy, and these differences in moral viewpoint between religious faiths tend to increase with age.

Most productive human activities occur in the contexts of groups. How does working in a group affect people's behaviors?

Just being in the presence of others can affect people's performance.

Accepted reasons to explain the epidemiological paradox:

Latinos tend to have healthy habits; they are less likely to drink and smoke than non-Latinos (although they exercise less)-and the greater amount of time they live in the U.S., the more likely they are to develop unhealthy drinking, smoking, and eating habits. Parallel findings of decreasing mental health alongside acculturation have also been found for Latinos. Cultural factors in Latino communities also contribute to relatively good health. High value is placed on raising families, and emotional support is often provided by family and community members. They have unusually high levels of positive emotions. Studies show that this yields health benefits. The epidemiological paradox still remains unresolved for the most part.

How might cross-cultural studies examine the extent that genetic variation impacts psychological differences?

Looking at how immigrants and their children are genetically similar to people in their heritage culture, yet they participate in cultural practices from their host culture...they are therefore ideal for detecting whether cultural experiences play a role in variations in psychological processes. Every cross-cultural study Heine discusses that includes immigrant samples provides evidence for cultural factors contributing to psychological differences. And many other studies find similar results after manipulating cultural variables, such as priming culture or situation sampling. These kinds of studies demonstrate the role of cultural experiences accounting for the observed differences. Yet not all of the cross-cultural studies in this book have included such kinds of experimental designs, so the role of genes in psychological differences across cultures for other phenomena remains an untested theoretical possibility. Over the next decade or so we'll have access to far more data that will let us evaluate the extent to which genes underlie any cultural differences in psychological processes.

How is guanxi established and maintained in China?

Loosely translated to mean connections and relationships Indicated by the feelings relationship partners have toward each other. It is expected that one's business associations will go beyond the organizational context and will also be included in one's personal life. Once guanxi has been established, people can assume their partners will work to preserve the relationship, and both of them will have a sense of mutual obligation. However, unreasonable requests could potentially damage guanxi, so people need to rely more on indirect forms of influence. In China this includes giving gifts, making appeals to superiors, seeking the assistance of a third party, and trying to build coalitions. These strategies serve the purpose of influencing others while protecting against damage to guanxi.

Indigenous healing practices

Many therapies focus on family first, rather than on individuals, as they share the suffering and the stigma. Also, in many cultures mental illness is considered a spiritual challenge and is often treated as such. A popular international therapy that originated in Japan, Morita therapy, which doesn't try to change a client's symptoms, but to get their clients to accept them as they are.

Another way marriages can be understood cross-culturally: across history

Marriages have changed across history (can look at three specific periods) 1776-1850: institutional era Households were a lot like corporations, and primary function of marriage was to help fulfill basic needs, like food production, shelter, and safety 1850-1965: companionate era Typical family had the husband as breadwinner and wife as homemaker; the primary function of marriage was to fulfill psychological needs such as being loved, experiencing passion 1965-present: Self-expressive era Typically both partners work, marriage fulfills both love needs but also self-actualization needs (in terms of having a partner that is going to help me be the kind of person who I ideally need to be); pursument of growth and development

Study: propinquity effect at police academy

Maryland State Police Academy in the early 1970s lined recruits up according to alphabetical order (where they sat in class and where their dorm rooms were located) and asked who their closest friend was at the academy there was a surprisingly significant correlation The propinquity effect is surprisingly powerful: the simple fact of proximity is often more important than personality, background, or religious belief. Friendships are not so much chosen voluntarily, but can be influenced by the circumstances that bring people together.

Religion and Achievement Motivation:

Max Weber German sociologist, wrote a book in 20th century Argued that the birth of capitalism was tied to ideas that came out of the Protestant Reformation Motivations for achievement are importantly tied to Protestant Reformation Some ideas from early Protestant sects included: People have an individualized relation with God and God communicates directly person-to person (rather than using the priest as the middleman); God will answer prayers directly; Each person has a "calling", a unique God-given purpose to fulfill the earth; Hard Work is in the service of God and allows them to serve God through their calling A belief in "predestination": before one was born it was already determined whether one was going to heaven/hell Only lasted a few generations, but became a part of people's secular views and brought with it the idea that working hard would have these moral overtones You may think people's reaction to this would be that if things are predetermined then individuals should not care about their actions on Earth, however, it was more of an unsettling/alienating idea that caused people to really want to believe they had been predestined for heaven and see themselves as a member of the elect AND if you had any doubt in your status then you are not a part of the elect (you should be confident in your status of being predestined for heaven, and the idea being that if you have achieved wealth it was a sign God favored you...and this caused people to be motivated to work hard, etc.)

Ethic of autonomy

Morality in that which protects justice and individual rights Concerned with whether or not someone was harmed, denied their rights, acted unfairly, tried to dominate someone else Kohlberg's model taps into the "Ethic of Autonomy"

Kohlberg's Postconventional level

Morality is based on internalized standards of abstract ethical principles regarding JUSTICE and INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS based on the consideration of abstract ethical principles about right or wrong, and moral decisions are reached based on the logical extensions of those principles-whether others agree or there are rules that contradict behavior is irrelevant to whether that behavior is moral. Regardless of what society might say (if it is violating people's rights than it is immoral)

Ethic of community

Morality is tied to an individual's interpersonal obligations within the social order Concerned with whether someone showed a lack of loyalty, betrayed their group, failed to fulfill the duties of their role The ethic of community is especially pronounced in China (Mei dao de: closest chinese word to the english word immoral; translates more often to behaviors that reflect incivility, such as not respecting parents/befouling public spaces)

More residentially unstable neighborhoods:

More "fair-weather" sports fans Fans who support the winning team Higher crime rates Lower pro-community action More national chain stores per capita and more goods sold at those stores and fewer local stores (if people are moving around a lot chain stores are more familiar) Rural regions are generally more residentially stable

Level of income inequality and attitudes about distributive justice

More generally, the smaller the level of income inequality in a country the stronger the preference to distribute rewards equally.

voodoo death

Most common in Africa a condition in which people are convinced a curse has been put on them, or they have broken a taboo. the resulting fear sometimes leads to their own death.

amok

Most common in Southeast Asia One theory is that because there aren't a lot of culturally approved ways of expressing anger/violence there and so it sort of bottles up and may be expressed this bad way An acute, outburst of unrestrained violent and homicidal attacks, preceded by brooding, and followed by exhaustion and amnesia. Could have parallels with Western mass homicidal attacks. It seems different in that these individuals tend to be premediated.

Kohlberg's stage theory of morality

Most influential model of moral reasoning; maintained that cognitive abilities underlie moral reasoning and that those abilities progress as individuals develop, mature, and are educated. The ways people conceive of what is right and wrong hinge on the stage of moral development they have reached. Three level framework: preconventional, conventional, postconventional

Medicine and Culture

Much medical knowledge derives from cultural learning Modern medicine finds that the three leading causes of illness are deteriorating organ systems, stress, or infections In contrast, among traditional societies, none of these causes were common-supernatural causes of illness are the most common Even among industrialized societies there is considerable variation in medical attitudes For example, In China the body is considered to be healthy when there is a balance of the opposing forces yin and yang..In France, the metaphor of the body is the the "terrain," which emphasizes a sense of balance French doctors prescribe long rests/spa visits Dirt and germs are seen as something that can strengthen one's terrain, and as a consequence, there is relatively less emphasis placed on daily bathing (more so in the past) VS. US: the metaphor of the body is a machine; American doctors are far more likely to treat body with surgery, fixing malfunctioning parts to the machine Also, American doctors view germs to be a key threat to health, and they prescribe more antibiotics than anywhere else The different attitudes that countries have toward health therefore affect how they treat their patients

anorexia/bulimia nervosa:

Much more common in West and North America Anorexia: a person refuses to maintain a normal body weight because of a preoccupation with their body Bulimia: one uncontrollably binge eats and then takes inappropriate measures to prevent weight gain (Bulimia is a culture-bound syndrome as it is absent in most cultures of the world) Tends to be difficult to understand in cultures where food is scarce, for instance Anorexia is more complicated. Rates of anorexia have increased in this century, and some cultures show much less evidence of it; However, there are reports of self-starvation in numerous cultural contexts but for different reasons that bodily preoccupations (which is the defining characteristic of anorexia) i.e. spiritual purity etc. Unlike bulimia, which has all the hallmarks of a culture-bound syndrome, some of the symptoms of anorexia are universal, although they are still influenced a great deal by culture. It could be an existential universal because of its presence everywhere, although the frequency varies considerably across culture. It does not meet the standards for a functional universal, however, because in some contexts a similar motivation is associated with different ends. -This is part of the challenge in general when looking at psychopathologies across cultures because there are often these collections of symptoms and it can be difficult to say if they are the same psychopathology or different

Gilligan

Much research has been conducted on the important role of the ethic of community in guiding moral reasoning. Psychologist Gilligan has made the case that interpersonal obligations represent a kind of morality that is distinct from individual rights, and that women are more likely to reason this way than men are...although there has been much controversy over whether such gender differences in moral reasoning really exist, the development of Gilligan's claim for an interpersonal foundation of moral reasoning, one that is more prominent in some non-Western cultures, has also been explored.

Jewish vs. Christian worldviews

New Testament: discusses private thoughts as moral domains Specifies how one is not saved without the appropriate beliefs Discusses how impure thoughts themselves are sins Old Testament: has little to say about beliefs, but is mostly about the morality of behaviors 8/10 commandments are related to behaviors and the remaining 2 appear to be interpreted differently by Jews and Christians (honoring one's parents and not coveting anything of your neighbor's) I.e. Jewish people are more likely to think of honoring one's parents as taking care of them whereas Christians seem to think of it as not thinking badly about them Judaism emphasizes a wider variety of behaviors, such as keeping kosher, than does Christianity The Jewish faith is really about behaving in certain ways rather than thinking in certain ways & in some instances being able to behave a certain way (even while thinking impurely/wanting to do the opposite) is considered even stronger and therefore may be interpreted as even more morally sound

Where do these reasoning differences come from? (i.e. analytic vs. holistic reasoning)

Nisbett argued that these reasoning differences reflect habits of thought dating back to classical Greek and Confucian Chinese thought Analytic thought is evident in Aristotle's view that objects possess properties such as "gravity," and the Platonic view that the world consists of discrete unchanging objects operating by universal laws Holistic thought is evident in classical Chinese ideas of harmony, interconnectedness, and change, e.g., early Chinese discoveries of action at a distance and in Chinese medical traditions However, more recent research finds evidence for holistic thinking pretty much everywhere outside of the Western world

What is it about SES that causes lower health risks for higher SES individuals?

No simple single answer Access to health care cannot explain this-the relation is similar where there is universal health care and for conditions that are the least amenable to treatment. One may assume the result is because lower SES people engage in more unhealthy habits, such as smoking, and eating fast food. However, the SES differences still remain if you control for health habits. One mediating role between status and health outcomes for stress.

Why do people sometimes assume that Westerners seem to perform better in creative areas than East Asians?

Nobel Prizes have been disproportionately awarded to people in Western cultures (Switzerland is leader per-capita) and relatively few have gone to people in East Asian countries. However, Chinese scientific innovations arguably led the world in the 15th century. Some argue Asian art, compared to Western art, tends to be more about mastering the techniques of a model rather than producing original works and Asians have excelled more in genres such as classical music (which disciplined reproduction is prioritized ahead of novelty) Socratic (self-discovery) vs. Confucian (mastery of material) learning styles

What overlap between the four relationship forms and four different types of measuring scales in Psychology exists?

Nominal/Categorical (i.e. gender) I.e. the idea that everyone within a category is treated the same Ordinal (rank order) Similar to authority ranking Interval Most commonly used scales in questionnaire measure The distance between each point is equally measured (equality matching) Ratio We can measure things right to the decimal point (absolute value 0) Market pricing

Places of lower relational mobility:

North and west africa, middle east, south and east Asia Rural areas Farming communities

How universal is the similarity-attraction effect?

Not as universal across species like mere exposure effect is (i.e. not seen in chickens) Has been studied most exclusively in Western cultural contexts; Heine collection of studies that compared the similarity-attraction effect among Japanese and North Americans. One had Japanese and Canadian participants come into a lab where they briefly met a stranger of the same sex and nationality. They then went into separate rooms and completed questionnaires about either their personality or social background. Next they were shown what was apparently the personality or social background of the stranger. However, the profile of the stranger the participants saw had actually been filled out by the experimenter, who had made these "responses" highly similar to those of the participant (a high-similarity condition) or quite dissimilar (a low-similarity condition). Participants were then asked to indicate how much they felt they would like the stranger. Results: Canadians showed evidence of the similarity-attraction effect, replicating much past research. They liked the highly similar person more than the dissimilar one. For the Japanese, in contrast, their liking for the stranger was much less affected by their apparent similarity. The pattern of results was identical regardless of whether participants found out about the stranger's personality or social background. Other studies also find that the similarity-attraction effect is stronger among North Americans than Japanese. In some studies, Japanese do show a similarity-attraction effect, but it is consistently weaker than for North Americans.

Kohlberg's Conventional level

Now, how people are judging what is moral is based on external standards, regarding that which maintains the social order (actions are considered morally correct if they help maintain and facilitate the social order) That which protects the society's rules or laws is considered moral behavior This level doesn't allow for the possibility that the society may have immoral laws (i.e. such as slavery)

Contradiction: Aristotle:

Offered three principles: -Law of identity -Law of excluded middle -Law of noncontradiction According to this perspective, there cannot be any contradiction

What happens when these ethics collide?

Often how morality is studying: by proposing a moral dilemma pitting different concerns against each other

Ethnicity and health

On average, African Americans have much lower SES than European Americans, and this helps explain their higher mortality rate. Historically, there was a tendency to assume genetic differences between races note for health differences. However, a comparison of hypertension rates of Americans and West Africans in Africa reveals that West Africans have similar rates of those of European Americans, and it is only African Americans who score especially high compared to these other groups. There is likely something about being African American in the U.S., with the accompanying racism and discrimination, that causes stress and leads to high blood pressure. In fact, perceptions of discrimination and education are positively correlated among African Americans. Research displays that African Americans that want to succeed in the face of discrimination have a greater risk of hypertension and other health problems. Being the target of racism and discrimination may directly be related to poor health in African Americans.

Emotions and Facial Expressions

On the one hand, facial expressions are a way to communicate with others and many other forms of communication depend on cultural socialization; on the other hand, there appear to be reflexive facial expressions that even infants make, suggesting a universality as part of our biological makeup.

How does depression vary in symptoms cross-culturally?

One challenge in comparing depression across cultures is that the presentation of depression varies. Some symptoms of depression are primarily physiological, such as appetite and sleep disorders; known as somatization. Other symptoms of primarily psychological such as mood or feelings of guilt; known as psychologization. These sets of symptoms seems to vary in their commonality across cultures: Many Chinese psychiatric patients are diagnosed with neurasthenia, characterized by poor appetite, headaches, insomnia, and an inability to concentrate Dropped from the DSM because it seemed to be more about physiological symptoms rather than a psychopathology. Arthur Kleinman argued that most Chinese neurasthenia patients could be diagnosed as having depression, even though only 9% of them reported depressed mood as a chief complaint. Depression manifests itself along Chinese chiefly through somatization.

Research on talking/thinking affected by analytic vs. holistic thought processes

One example of this is seen in facial recognition: Studies find that when people verbally describe a face that this later impairs their recognition of the face, apparently because one's verbal descriptions do not capture the whole of the face We don't process the face as a collection of parts on average, it is a holistic process People do better on the task if they were not verbally asked to describe the face (because when they are, they are only focused on certain aspects of the face...putting holistic thoughts into words impairs our thinking of them)

How did analytic and holistic thinking develop across cultures?

One explanation is the socialization experiences in individualistic vs. collectivistic societies. People in collectivistic cultures tend to be socialized in terms of relationships with others whereas people in individualistic societies tend to be socialized to be independent with their attention focused on objects...these kinds of cultural experiences lead people to have primarily either an independent or interdependent view of self. Researchers further suggest that a distinction between analytic and holistic thinking was also present in Greeks and Chinese 2,500 years ago-analytic thinking is evident in Plato's perspective that the world is a collection of discrete, unchanging objects that can be categorized by reference to a set of universal properties. The same type of reasoning occurs in Aristotle's view that a stone falls through the air because the stone possesses the property of "gravity". Analytic thinking also appears in the Greek development of an elaborate formal logic system that searched for the truth according to abstract rules and syllogisms existing independently of observations. the ancient Chinese demonstrated holistic thinking in their intellectual traditions of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, which emphasized harmony, interconnectedness, and change. The best guess as to why we see cultural differences to make since of the physical world is because they are generalizations of how we think of the social world; we project our social world onto our physical world In independent cultures, people tend to think of others as being independent from each other and composed of their component parts...likewise, the physical world can be understood in the same way In an interdependent context people tend to view others in terms of their relationships with others...this is generalized to an attention of relations among objects in one's environment

Tolerance for contradiction:

One kind of reasoning, related to holistic reasoning, may have come from China Chinese show a relative acceptance for contradiction, which has been termed "naive dialecticism" Based on a view that everything is connected and is constantly in flux. Symbolized by the yin and the yang-the universe moves back and forth between opposite poles This view can also be applied to ideas: "Belief A" is connected to and is always changing into its opposite, "Belief Not A". Hence, there can be no real logical contradiction

Schizophrenia

One of the most debilitating mental disorders, and is universally found around the world. A diagnosis requires that an individual has two or more of the following symptoms for a significant period of time: Delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior, or negative symptoms (i.e. a loss of speech, or flattening of mood). Relevant genetic factors, prenatal experiences, and neuroanatomical features. The biological basis of schizophrenia is better understood than other mental disorders. Rates of schizophrenia range somewhere from 0.7 to 1.4 annual incidents per 10,000 across diverse cultures; a narrower range of cultural variation than for most other mental disorders (reflecting the biological basis of this condition). However, despite its biological basis there are some noteworthy cultural variations. Subtypes of schizophrenia vary substantially: Most common subtype among Westerners is paranoid schizophrenia with rates as high as 75% of schizophrenics in the UK, but only about 15% in India. In contrast, catatonic schizophrenia accounts for only 1-3% of schizophrenics in the UK, but 20% in India. People have not been able to explain what is behind this variation. The most noteworthy cultural variation has to do with the rate of recovery. Patients in less-developed societies have a far greater rate of recovery than in more industrialized societies. This pattern is opposite to that for almost all other physical and mental pathologies and there is still debate as to why this is. This may be that schizophrenics are more likely to remain members of a community in less-developed societies, rather than becoming homeless in industrial societies, and then they are separate to the resources their community can provide. It may also be because of different stigmas surrounding schizophrenia (i.e. considering the person as being able to talk to the spiritual world vs. thinking people are crazy)

hysteria

One of the most diagnosed disorders throughout Europe in the 19th century. Includes symptoms such as fainting, insomnia, sudden paralysis, temporary blindness, and loss of appetite. It is no longer common to be diagnosed, and has been removed from the DSM. Some argue that people with hysteria-like symptoms are now diagnosed with other disorders, such as disassociation disorders and schizophrenia. Others say its prevalence was a cultural response to the repressive social norms of Victorian Europe, and the great attention it received led people to express their distress with familiar symptoms (because it was kind of culturally accepted or at least seen more frequently)

ataques de nervios

One of the most studied culture-bound syndromes Most commonly identified with Puerto Ricans Characterized by convulsions, loss of consciousness, and outburst within days after a stressful event an episode is usually brief and can happen to people across the lifespan more common in women culturally recognized means of communicating strong emotions and to protest unfair treatment (particularly with family relationships) symptoms overlap somewhat with panic disorder, the vast majority of adults with this do not meet the criteria for a diagnosis

Socioeconomic Status (SES) and Health:

One of the strongest predictors of health within a given country is SES The higher an individual's SES, the longer they live, on average. There even remain some differences at the highest end of the income range. Evidence has been found in every industrialized country investigated, but also in some non-industrialized countries; Ex: In Burkina Faso there are three ethnic groups: Fulani, Mossi, and Rimaibe A major cause of death in the region is malaria. The Mossi and Rimaibe have evolved genetic resistance over thousands of years. The Fulani arrived less than 200 years ago, and lack most of the genetic resistance to malaria. However, the Fulani have higher SES: they conquered the other groups. Despite the fact that they have less genetic resistance to malaria, the Fulani contract malaria less often than do either the Mossi or the Rimaibe. This is one example of the importance of SES on health outcomes.

Why are there these different artistic traditions?

One possibility is just because in different cultures there are different norms and everyone copies those norms Researchers examined if these traditions are persisting, not looking at artists but university students: Found that even among university students (non-artists), East Asians still draw higher horizons and have more contextually rich (more objects) in their scenes. Researchers then asked participants to take photos (to examine self-portrait without making them draw), and they found that consistently when comparing the photos, the ratio of the face to the frame was significantly greater for Americans over East Asians. This was also seen to be true for Facebook profile pictures.

Study: Social Loafing and Collectivistic vs. Individualistic cultures

One study compared the efforts on a managerial task among American, Chinese, and Israeli managers. People were assigned to either work by themselves, work with members of an ingroup, or to work with some strangers on a task. Their personal performance was compared across conditions. Results: Americans showed evidence for loafing. They performed better if they worked on a task alone than if they worked with others, regardless of the group. Chinese and Israeli (somewhat collectivistic society as well) participants showed social striving-they worked harder on the task with an ingroup than by themselves. In contrast, they loafed more with outgroups. Another study...contrasted Chinese children in Taiwan compared to American children in Florida (groups of sixth graders and ninth graders): Children were told to listen to tones in either their left or right ear. In some conditions the children were tested by themselves, and in some they were tested with a classmate. Sixth graders showed no signs of social loafing, but there was a cultural difference for the ninth graders. American children showed significant social loafing, as they performed 11.7% worse when they were in a pair versus being evaluated alone. On the other hand...Chinese children actually performed 8.7% better displaying evidence of social striving.

Study: Code of ethics in Indian and American adults

One study contrasted Indian and American adults by giving them moral dilemmas comparing the two ethics autonomy and community People read scenarios to which moral violations ranged from minor to extreme (I.e. Ben/train ticket to San Francisco example) Typically quite evenly split as to whether or not it's immoral to take the ticket The results displayed that the percent of people protecting interpersonal obligation (i.e. taking the ticket-making it to your friend's wedding with the rings) There's quite a range of opinion Almost half of the americans say they would take the ticket whereas almost 80% of the Indians said they would (interpersonal vs. ethic of autonomy) Some evidence to show that people view the idea of protecting interpersonal obligations in moral terms For Americans, there are fewer situations they consider moral breaches then there are for Indians Ethic of autonomy would be to not take the ticket

Study: How much does becoming happy play into the decisions you make in your life? (i.e. choosing major)

One study gave participants two tasks to choose between: one game was described as very fun (not useful) and the other was considered dull (but would improve thinking skills) Results displayed that Euro-Canadians overwhelmingly preferred the enjoyable over useful game whereas the Asian-Canadians the decision was much smaller (although fun one still won) Similar findings were found when people chose hypothetical university courses

Explanation for the French paradox

One study looks at the fact that in French cultures food portions are much smaller than American food portions. Large American portion sizes are the result of fairly recent cultural changes-from the 1950s to 2003 portions have increasingly grown in size. Besides portion sizes, the French have different attitudes toward food than Americans French savor their food more and take more time eating it (i.e. they spend about twice as long as Americans at McDonalds) A far smaller proportion of French food products have been altered to make them healthier, such as being low salt, low fat, or sugar-free and Americans are more likely to associate food with fat (and negative association with food) People were asked to choose the best metaphor for the human body: the French chose a tree, whereas the Americans chose a car Additionally they drink more wine, which serves to inhibit platelet aggregation thereby reducing the risk of coronary heart disease. they consume significantly fewer calories per day because of their cultural influences on portion size.

Rod and Frame test

One test for field dependence/independence a rod is inside a frame and they are both rotated This is a task of field dependence, because to be able to do well on this you must be able to ignore the background and focus just on the line ("rod"); those with greater analytic thinking system will likely do better...meaning, Western cultures typically do better on this test

Why do you think these different presentations of depression exist? (with Chinese being more somatized and Canadians being more psychologized)

One theory is that perhaps depressed Chinese are worried about the stigma of having a mental disorder, and thus conceal it with somatic symptom reporting. Alternatively, Westerners may be more attentive than Chinese to their emotions. Western psychological symptoms may therefore be more accessible to them. They may ask "why am I feeling this way...what is causing these feelings?" for example..

The price of different moral violations:

One way of assessing how important these ethics are to a person is to ask how much they would need to be paid to do various (typically considered) immoral acts... I.e. stick a pin into the palm of a child you don't know (autonomy) Say something about your country while calling in, anonymously, to talk-radio show in a foreign country (community) Performance art piece where people act like animals and pee everywhere/are naked (divinity)

Low relational mobility

Other cultures have less freedom in deciding-known as low relational mobility (significant relationships come from various ingroups i.e. family, neighborhood, etc.-you are born into your relationships)

Study: Corruption and deception

Participant is given a single six-sided die in a cup, are asked to roll it twice and to report what they roll. this is done alone in a room. participant is told they will be paid money based on what they report for the first die and that the second die won't earn them anything...they'l be paid a dollar times the value of their first die roll with the key exception that if they roll a 6 they'll get nothing. There is a temptation to be dishonest and report a higher-paying roll. Researchers estimated cheating based on performance of the total of all participants should follow laws of statistics, meaning that about one-sixth of the people should have rolled each of the numbers on the first die...the expected payoff for the game (if played honestly) is $2.50, but if played in a maximally dishonest way they would be expected to report a payoff of $5. Researchers found that in every country at least some participants were dishonest. There were no societies where everyone was maximally dishonest, the average payoff for each country was less than $5, which is in line with common findings that it is actually quite rare for people to outright lie. Typically, we find that people may lie or cheat just enough so they can convince themselves their behavior is not really dishonest. "bending the rules rather than breaking them"...researchers label this as "justified dishonesty". Finally, researchers compared how individual participants played the game with some national indicators of corruption (i.e. does the government rig elections?) and unsuprisingly found a clear relationship: people who grew up in countries where there was more evidence of corruption were more likely to claim they were owed more money than was actually the case. The way people learn private behavior is shaped by what they learn throughout their lives: in more corrupt societies people cut corners in a way they convinced themselves they are not really being all that dishonest, rather than leading them to behave in a maximally dishonest way.

Recognition accuracy with different backgrounds:

Participants are asked to describe the original pictures while they are looking at them Describing the focal object within an image is more analytic I.e. When Westerners describe scenes, they typically begin by describing the focal animal, whereas East Asians typically begin by describing the scene Participants are later shown other photos, some of which they've seen before, and some which include the original animal with a different background...testing if this changes how they see the image Westerner's performance is relatively unaffected by the background of the scene East Asian's performance is worse if the background of the scene is switched on them East Asians appear to see the scene as bound together in an irreducible whole. Westerners see it as a collection of parts.

Divinity violation scenarios were posed to high and low socioeconomic status Americans vs. Brazilians

Participants were asked if this was a moral violation-that is, is it universally wrong, and should it be regulated? (not on the basis that there is a law against it, and that even if there was a law against it that it would still be right/wrong) Results displayed that both high-socioeconomic status Americans and Brazilians (especially Americans) were more likely to view the actions in non-moral terms; both low socioeconomic status Americans and Brazilians viewed the actions as immoral (associated with eliciting strong feelings of disgust, how bothered they were with it) High socioeconomic status participants (especially Americans) viewed the actions as more immoral if they perceived harm had been done (in line with the ethic of autonomy)

Study: contrasted Americans and Indians principle of fairness they value most

Participants were asked to imagine how a company might best distribute money for a bonus between two employees: One employee is a very effective worker, whereas the other does not contribute so much. However, the latter employee is in a poor financial situation (because of an illness in their family). So, the question is what is the best way to distribute the money-which principle do you rely on? Results: the most popular principle for Indians was need-this was the least popular principle for the Americans; Americans preferred the principle of Equity and this was the least popular solution among Indians (so, the exact opposite pattern). They had the same likelihood for observing the principle of equality and Indians were more likely to make decisions based on seniority. In this way, perceptions of fairness vary across cultures.

What does subsequent research display about the factors associated with social loafing?

People are inclined to loaf more on simple tasks than difficult ones (this is because if a task is challenging enough than it is intrinsically rewarding enough that people are less likely to loaf) If people think they can get away with it they are more likely to loaf less with friends than strangers (people care more about their relationships with friends than strangers) less with women than men (this is contributed to the idea that women care more about their relationships with the other members of the group on average then men do) less with collectivistic cultures (where connections with one another matters more)

The Propinquity Effect

People are more likely to become friends with those with whom they frequently interact. Relationship may develop online, but they are still based on interactions. In the context of cultural psychology, it is hard to imagine a culture in which the propinquity effect would not hold true. An accessibility universal

Ethic of divinity

People are viewed as bearers of something holy, and have obligations not to degrade that holiness Concerned with whether someone has violated standards of purity, were not able to control their desires, or acted in a way that God would disapprove of Obligation to respect and preserve the sanctity of the natural order of things, as dictated by a transcendent moral authority; Immoral actions, according to this ethic, are those that are perceived to violate the natural order of things.

Why does art look different in Western cultures versus East Asian cultures?

People from these cultures are literally seeing the world differently; in other words, the aesthetic conventions reflect some fundamental differences in basic cognitive and perceptual processes between these two cultures.

What factors contribute to VARIABLE cross-cultural satisfaction people have with their lives?

People in individualistic societies are way more likely than collectivistic societies to base their life satisfaction on how many positive emotions they are experiencing (i.e. if people have a more independent view of self, satisfaction with life should be based on whether they feel they are acting in ways consistent with their inner desires AND if someone acts in ways consistent with their inner desires it should feel good because it was a culturally appropriate way of being People in interdependent societies feel good if they are living up to others' standards for being a good person; being respected by others for living up to cultural norms; more likely to pursue happiness by way of social engagement

Cross-cultural directness of communication?

People in low-context cultures tend to communicate explicitly, in a rather direct manner, and there is less emphasis on shared nonverbal communication cues. In contrast, people in high-context cultures communicate more indirectly and much information is conveyed through assumptions about shared perspectives and nonverbal cues. Low-context cultures will appeal more to rationality and logic whereas high-context cultures will appeal more to emotions and feelings of sympathy Research shows that when either two American teams negotiate or two Japanese teams negotiate they produce a higher joint outcome for both sides than when intercultural teams negotiate.

Similarity-attraction effect

People tend to be attracted to those who are most like themselves. Much research displays a greater likelihood for a friendship/relationship if both people are similar in attitudes, personality, religion, social background, economic level, and activities. It is one of the most powerful and reliable predictors of the development of interpersonal relationships.

How can the shape of your feet be seen as a cultural product?

People who never wear shoes develop a wider forefoot and big toe sticks out more to the side and the arch is higher and more pronounced What is our true nature/biological physical nature? It depends on the cultural experiences you have

Why is there a suspicious attitude toward friendship in Ghana?

Poem about being beware of friendships from Ghana (low relational mobility culture) In low relational mobility contexts, you're not in a position to really choose who all of your friends are-you have to deal with them regardless if you like them or not Kind of like many individual's relationships with their in-laws Friendship in many low mobility contexts are more ambivalent constructs that an individual just has to deal with Ghanaians report having fewer friends than Americans, and believe that someone who has many friends is foolish

How is distributive justice in modern industrialized societies?

Principle of need through practices such as universal health insurance, welfare system, and also people's belief in distributing resources informally (i.e. donating to charities)

Healthy migrant hypothesis

Proposes that only the healthiest Latinos were able to endure and survive the often taxing and potentially dangerous move to the United States. As a result, U.S. mortality rates represent only the healthiest subset of Latinos. Not supported by the evidence and largely discounted

TKS

Related culture-bound syndrome from East Asia, called taijin kyoufushou (TKS), which translates to the fear of confronting others. Similar to social anxiety, this fear is elicited by social situations (only similarity). However, the primary concerns are physical symptoms (many imaginary): body odor, blushing, sweating, and a penetrating gaze. People with severe TKS are afraid of the discomfort that OTHERS will feel because of their physical symptoms-it has been referred to as the "altruistic phobia"; People are often most fearful around acquaintances RATHER than around strangers. social anxiety disorder represents a universal condition that is recognized everywhere. In East Asian contexts, however, many of the symptoms are more common than they are in the West-common enough, perhaps, that social anxiety could be thought of there as a normal rather than an abnormal state. The manifestation of clinically problematic concerns about one's social functioning does appear to vary across cultures, with Western social anxiety disorder having a very different set of symptoms than Japanese TKS.

Residential mobility

Relational mobility has also been studied by examining the number of times people have moved: residential mobility For Americans who have never moved their identity is wrapped up in both personality traits and groups they belonged For Americans who move frequently, their personality is known by people in the new community but some of their group memberships might not be Americans are more likely than Canadians to move outside of their home for university Americans typically score higher on residential mobility than the rest of the world

What accounts for a cultural difference in the similarity-attraction effect?

Relational mobility: in a higher relational mobility context people show a stronger similarity-attraction effect; everything that makes someone more attractive becomes more valued and similarity to someone contributes to making someone more attractive, it becomes valued because you are competing with others to form new relationships Self-esteem: the higher one's self-esteem, the more one likes people who are similar

Support James-Lange Theory of Emotion

Researchers have identified distinct physiological patterns of emotions that are similar across people from diverse cultural backgrounds other theories that focus on the centrality of physiology in emotions make the case for universality in emotional experiences.

Romantic Love:

Romantic love is an evolutionary adaptation to ensure that children have adequate resources and protection (much like the reason behind parental love). Children with two supporting parents are less vulnerable to outside threats Like most evolutionary adaptations it is not a product of conscious thought typically, but a natural response Appears to be universal: Romantic love exists everywhere-89% of subsistence societies have shown clear support of it, and it's likely that it exists in the remaining 11% (researchers believes these findings are due to ethnographic oversight rather than a genuine absence of love). Despite being universal, cultures differ in the experience of romantic love.

Authority ranking

Second relational model; people are ordered along a hierarchical social dimension and those with higher ranking have prestige and privileges that those with lower ranking do not Example: the military, where rank determine one's power, duties, and privileges

Wasta

Similar to Guanxi, but social influence in the Arab world Means "connections"; refers to a means of creating trust between people, facilitated by a reliable third party, traditionally through family or kinship connections. People with wealth/positions of power rely extensively on wasta to accomplish things. often spoken of in negative terms, because although it plays a constructive role in mediations, it carries with it the possibility of corruption.

Market Pricing

Similar to equality matching, but it is concerned with matching equal value through proportions and ratios, such as in a market economy Example: you purchase a coffee at Starbucks for $2.40

Paternalistic leadership

Similar to how parents guide their children; nurturing and caring but also authoritative and demanding. In return, subordinates display loyalty and deference. Less appreciated in individualistic contexts (may violate privacy) but is is considered very effective in Asian, Latin American, and Middle Eastern organizations.

Sleep

Sleep is a basic physiological process, common throughout the animal kingdom That it is universal suggests that there are key physiological functions however the physiological functions of sleep remain poorly understood and contested (we know it helps consolidate memories, restoration/repair, and to clear free radicals from the brain-we definitely know it is important)

What kinds of relationships exist across cultures?

Social foundation is universal, as there are no cultures in which people live strictly as lone individuals. However, the ways people go about relating to others vary in some predictable and important ways. Although there is tremendous variation across cultures with respect to relationships, Fiske claims that all forms of relationships are based on one or more of four fundamental models of social interaction: communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching, and market pricing.

Why has hikikomori risen to the point where it is considered a social problem?

Sociocultural changes in Japan: valuing work less because of relative economic comfort, more lenient and overprotective parenting norms, decreased interdependent self-views, and a restructured labor market that has eroded career opportunities. The problem is most common with the eldest sons, who have the strongest pressure to carry on the family name.

How universal is the pursuit of happiness? That people live their life in order to be happy..

Some argue that it emerges from enlightenment (fairly recent) Declaration of Independence: "unalienable right" There are substantial cultural differences in terms of the average levels of happiness that people report On average, the countries that score higher in happiness/subjective well-being (satisfaction with life) are those that are Northern European or Latin American, generally wealthier countries, respect human rights, more income equality, and less corruption (Latin America stands out: very happy but not that much income equality/wealth) & East Asians score lower than one would expect based on income equality/wealth These more surprising findings suggest that there must be other influences on well-being that have yet to be reliably identified There is on average a curvilinear relationship between wealth and happiness; on poor end of spectrum it matters the most BUT it tends to flatten out on the high end of the GDP spectrum, so that countries that are really wealthy vs. pretty wealthy there is not a huge difference in happiness levels

How does culture relate to creative thinking?

Some have noted that Westerners appear more creative than East Asians (i.e. more Nobel prizes per capita, and more original artwork) But, creativity has been operationalized as the generation of ideas that are both a) novel and b) useful and appropriate, and these need to be considered separately

How much does the way we describe emotions matter?

Some researchers argue that emotion terms are meaningless because language doesn't really affect our underlying psychological experience but other researchers argue diversity in emotion terms to be highly indicative of cultural diversity in emotional experience, as terms may influence perceptions. We may currently state that there is a wide variety in emotional experience in terms of verbal descriptions, but whether this diversity is captured in people's own thoughts and internal states remains a matter of debate.

Ethic of community in India

Sometimes Indians even take interpersonal obligations more seriously than justice obligations. Thus, the ethic of community renders one's social obligations as fully moral obligations. Americans prefer seeing their helping behavior as a matter of personal choice. In contrast, for Indians, having an interpersonal obligation is associated with more positive feelings toward helping than when there is no such obligation. They are more internalized for Indians, and they obtain more pleasure from fulfilling them. Cultural differences in how positively people view obligations increase with age, as people become enculturated.

What is one of the most accepted views of love?

Sternberg's triangular theory of love that it is made up of three elements: intimacy (feelings of closeness/connection), passion (physical attraction/sexual desire), commitment (decision to maintain the loving relationship). All of these components contribute to the experience of love, but the strength of each one varies according to the individual, the type of relationship (i.e friendships usually have intimacy but not passion), and the stage of the relationship (i.e. passion is typically stronger in the beginning and commitment later on).

Pride

Strong evidence for the universality of expressing pride exists. However, unlike the six basic emotions, the pride expression involves the whole body, including an erect posture, head held high, a slight smile on the face, and arms extending away from the body or held akimbo. i.e. even seen in congenitally blind wrestling players after a victory (though never having seen others do this expression themselves).

Equality matching

Structure that is based on the notion of balance and reciprocity; people take turns in giving/receiving benefits that are kept equal in value Example: taking turns driving in a car pool

Study: Does dwelling on negative feelings produce negative outcomes?

Study displays that the more North Americans say they are experiencing positive feelings they experience the less depression and health problems they report For East Asians, these are uncorrelated Maybe because they are worried about what's coming next if things are good now Russians are famous for wanting to wallow in their despair Does this make them at risk for depression/other negative outcomes? Study displayed that Russians do report brooding more than Americans but there was no difference in depression levels between ruminating and non-ruminating Russians like there are for Americans.

suicide

Suicide rates vary dramatically around the world. Eastern European nations tend to have the highest rates (i.e. Hungary, Lithuania), whereas Muslim nations have the lowest (i.e. Egypt, Saudi Arabia). Canada, some of the highest suicide rates are found among Aboriginal youth (see Chandler & Lalonde, 1998). However, there is much variability across Native bands from different tribal councils. The suicide rates for one five year period ranged from a low of 0/100,000 people to a high of 633/100,000 people. What predicts which bands will have high rates? People at risk for suicide don't often have a clear narrative about how their life fits together: they lack self-continuity. A sense of cultural continuity can be related to a sense of self-continuity. Many First Nations bands do not have a strong sense of cultural continuity as a result of Western colonization. Chandler and Lalonde (1998): assessed various markers of cultural continuity among 196 Native bands in BC, and compared these with the suicide rates for those bands. The markers of cultural continuity that they identified were: whether the band was negotiating a land claim with the government, whether they had self-government, whether the bands had control over educational services, controlled their police and fire services, whether the bands managed their own health services, and whether they had their own cultural facilities. Results: They compared these to suicide rates and found that bands with less of these cultural markers of continuity had higher suicide rates; in fact with each additional marker the suicide rate dropped accordingly (evidence that these markers of cultural continuity seems to be protective against suicide rates of Native bands).

Study: independent versus interdependent self-concept and the kinds of emotions experienced

Surinamese and Turkish immigrants in Holland, were compared to Dutch citizens of Holland The Surinamese and Turks expressed more relational concerns and cared about how situations affected others compared with the Dutch Similar findings have emerged from studies contrasting Mexicans and Americans: Mexicans are more likely to experience interpersonally engaging emotions than Americans. Research has also compared the kinds of daily emotional experiences Japanese and Americans have: Participants responded to questions about the frequency of having certain emotions, based on two dimensions: positive or negative and interpersonally engaged or disengaged. The researchers were interested in assessing how good these various emotions felt. They correlated the frequency that people felt positive interpersonally engaged and disengaged emotions with the frequency that they were felt generally positive. Results: those Japanese that reported feeling a great deal of positive interpersonally engaged emotions also had more positive feelings in general. But Americans who felt a lot of positive interpersonally disengaged emotions had much more positive feelings overall. In contrast, the positive disengaged emotions for Japanese and the positive engaged emotions for Americans were not closely tied to general positive feelings. In other words, Japanese feel especially good when they're focusing on how their emotional experiences enable them to connect with others, whereas Americans feel good when dwelling on emotional experiences that distinguish them from others. The causes of feeling positive appear to vary in important ways across cultures.

Antisocial punishment

Tendency to incur a cost to punish someone even if they are cooperating with the group Anti-social punishment appeared to be driven by revenge and a desire to not let others get too much money (i.e. because they feel it is unfair they are doing so well). And this is especially striking because it is real money these people are sacrificing for these reasons. This suggests that it is not the case that we all evolve this tendency to want to punish people who are not cooperating as a way of increasing cooperation in societies. The opportunity for punishment only seems to promote cooperation in societies where there are norms for civic cooperation and trust (i.e. Canada). It is very difficult to create these norms in societies that don't already have them. Other research suggests that this Anti-social punishment may be adaptive where the rule of law is insufficient. Perhaps because people feel like they need to take matters into their own hands. Civic virtue is correlated with happiness where civic cooperation is high; it's not correlated with happiness where civic cooperation is low. Ex: Russian audiences in "who wants to be a Millionaire" often provide the contestants with the wrong answers. This appears to be the result of suspicion to those trying to profit from the hard work of others after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

What did researchers guess after seeing results of the dictator game on Western university students?

That humans must have an internalized motivation for fairness that guides their decisions and it operates even under the unusual game situations in which the players are anonymous.

What did psychologist Taka Masuda notice about art in Europe and East Asia?

That the horizons in landscape scenes were painted at a much higher level (about 15% higher on average) in East Asian pictures than Western ones. He also noticed that subjects in portraits were up to three times larger than Western pictures than in East Asian ones. Apparent across a wide variety of themes and styles.

What do cultural differences in mental conditions demonstrate?

That we cannot simply conceive of them as automatically and uniformly arising from innate causes. Human biology is highly similar everywhere, yet psychological disorders present themselves in strikingly different ways around the world. This indicates that, in some ways, culture is involved in the expression and experience of psychopathology.

Study that looked at individuals across a dozen different societies playing the public goods game:

The amount of altruistic punishment (how much participants were willing to pay to punish those who are not cooperating) was not super variable-meaning, for the most part, all societies were willing to pay the fee to punish those not cooperating. This is consistent with the idea that we have evolved to have this desire to punish those who are not cooperating. However, research also looked at anti-social punishment and found that although altruistic punishment was universal, anti-social punishment was strong in many societies. In some societies, cooperation was not enhanced by allowing punishment. People were going home with no money because they were all punishing each other.

Nemawashi

The broad-based consensus-building procedure that occurs within the Japanese ringi system of decision making. Ideas are informally discussed

How can people from different cultural and religious backgrounds view what is right and wrong in such opposite ways?

The consequences of cultural variability in perceptions of morality underlie many of the past-and, surely, future-conflicts around the world.

Display rules

The culturally specific rules that govern which facial expressions are appropriate in a given situation and how intensely they should be exhibited Ekman and Friesen believed the capacity to produce and recognize particular facial expressions is identical across cultures but what varies are the display rules

Communal sharing

The emphasis, by members of a group, is on their common identity rather than their idiosyncrasies. Every person is treated equally, with the same rights and privileges. Ex: typical everywhere within the family as people in a family don't usually keep close track of what is taken and contributed by each member.

What do arranged marriages show?

The existence of arranged marriages show that romantic love does not always precede a relationship Arranged marriages are seen as the intersection of two families, and from this perspective it appears that their families would better judge the success of a marriage than the two individuals themselves. Arranged marriages may be puzzling to Westerners, but they are often quite successful (may be puzzling because as individualistic culture they view it as an individual choice-being a unique person, I could only come to love someone that I could connect with in a unique and special way) Most arranged marriages end up becoming loving relationships, even if they start out without love Studies find that arranged marriages are at least as happy as love marriages (i.e. Turkish, Israeli, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese; but not by women in China and Japan) In societies that have arranged marriages, the percent of people getting them is becoming less frequent over time, suggesting the desirability for them is dropping although the evidence of their success rate is quite good. Perhaps this reflects changing norms in what people expect from their closest relationships.

Study: appeal of those from unfamiliar cultures

The faces of several European Australians and Japanese were averaged together, both within and across cultures, using computer software. In addition, faces of Eurasians-people with both Eruopean and Asian ancestry-were averaged. Participants from both cultures considered the average faces to be most attractive, regardless of culture of origin. The researchers also averaged the Australian and Japanese faces together. They found that the averaged Eurasian face and the averaged biracial face were judged to be the most attractive of all, particularly by members of the opposite sex. Similar findings have emerged from research involving biracial faces of Europeans and Africans. Why are multiracial faces appealing? One explanation is that people should be attracted to genetic diversity as a marker of healthy genes. Another possibility is that multiracial faces represent the best average of all the faces that the study participants have encountered in their lives. Expanding on this idea, we would expect that a face that was the average of faces from many different cultures would be considered the most attractive of all. This would be especially true for multicultural societies.

Subjective well-being

The feeling of being satisfied with one's life Studies consistently reveal clear cultural variability: in general the nations that score highest on this measure are Scandinavian and Nordic countries, much of Latin America, various English-speaking countries, and Western Europe and on the low end are the former Soviet Republics and some impoverished countries in Africa and South Asia

What was discovered near Laetoli, Tanzania?

The first evidence of bipedilism dated to about 3.6 million years ago The Laetoli footprints indicate a wider foot with a larger gap between the first two toes and a higher arch than most modern humans (due to the fact that they didn't wear shoes)

Taste bud analogy

The five values can be thought of as analogous to our taste buds: people have different tastes Even though we have all evolved to have certain values and ways of thinking, however, certain people are affected more by some values than others

Just world belief

The general worldview that life is fair and people tend to get what they deserve. Americans are more inclined than French people to have this view. For example, when students were assigned to complete a lab task with a monetary reward, American students were more likely than French students to prefer distributing most of the money based on performance on the task and French students were more likely to distribute the payments more equally, regardless of performance.

What is creativity?

The generation of ideas that are new as well as useful and appropriate.

How are negotiations parallel to the marble game?

The goal in negotiation is for both parties to be satisfied with the outcomes, but cultures vary in their strategies. People from collectivistic cultures are more likely to seek compromise and aspire to maintain harmonious relations. (i.e. generally a desire to pursue negotiations with people they already have relationships with; East Asians are more likely to view direct anger displays as inappropriate and counterproductive) they are more likely to use a third party to serve as a mediator as well. People from individualistic cultures are more likely to use adversarial strategies, and may use anger and threats. Generally, both teams receive better outcomes when they're negotiating with someone from their own culture.

Research shows that primates lower in the hierarchy show greater stress hormone levels why they belong to a social system where:

The hierarchy is stable The hierarchy is maintained through intimidation rather than physical attacks The subordinates cannot avoid dominant individuals They have low availability for social support There are many similarities to the conditions experienced by low SES people in modern industrialized societies (Sapolsky, 2005) One study showed that lower-SES people who felt they had control in their lives had levels of health and well-being that were comparable to those with higher income. Another study found that providing low-SES adolescents with some sense of control in a stressful situation led them to show less physiological reactivity than those who were not provided with feelings of control. In contrast, high-SES adolescents were unaffected by the manipulation that gave them feelings of control, suggesting that they already experienced sufficient control in their lives. Perhaps the best explanation for why low-SES people tend to have worse health outcomes is that they feel less control in more aspects of their life.

Ideal affect

The kinds of feelings people desire, or emotions they want to have, so they structure their lives in order to maximize the opportunities for experiencing them. For example, in the online world people are more willing to lend money on Kiva, the crowdsourced microlending site, if the target person's photo matches their own preferred ideal affect.

Comparisons of Paintings in Museums:

The location of the horizon in East Asian paintings is on average higher and the ratio of the face to the frame is significantly lower on average

Mere Exposure Effect

The more we are exposed to someone or something, the more we like it, because it becomes familiar. The attraction to frequently encountered stimuli comes from the pleasant associations developed through classical conditioning, when one learns a person or object is not threatening and easily accessible. This is apparently a cultural universal (Heine studied that showed Japanese and Americans were equally likely to come to like those people with whom they interacted most often with) Even chickens are more attracted to other chickens if they have been exposed to more.

Treating mental illness

The most common way that Westerners deal with stressful experiences is to seek social support from close others. Social support is key for coping with stress and is a buffer for physical health. However, not all cultures actively seek it Westerners are more likely to seek explicit social support than East Asians (This may be considered ironic because East Asians are considered more interdependent) East Asians avoid explicitly asking for social support for concerns about stigma and because it is seen to potentially disrupt a relationship. In contrast, East Asians depend on implicit social support, and cope better when they reflect upon their close relationships. Euro-Americans show more health benefits when they have much social support. Asian-Americans don't show health benefits of social support. East Asians and Russians offer more problem-focused support than emotion-focused support, however, North Americans typically offer more emotion-focused support (i.e. just letting the person know they are not alone).

The global leader

The most effective leader for a workforce with a variety of cultural experiences and expectations for leadership Requires a set of skills for effectively managing a diverse workforce, including being nonjudgmental, tolerant of ambiguity, flexible, interested in the social environments of employees, self-aware, self-confident, and optimistic. They must maintain a global mindset with a cosmopolitan outlook, and they need to have knowledge of local culture. globalization is increasing so will the need for these leaders

depression

The most familiar psychopathology-it is found everywhere-Everyone has some experience with these feelings, even if they are not diagnosed with depressive disorder Major depressive disorder involves at least five of the following nine symptoms and at least one of the first two, for two weeks or more: Depressed mood, an inability to feel pleasure Change in weight or appetite, sleep problems, psychomotor change, fatigue/loss of energy, feelings of worthlessness/guilt, poor concentration/indecisiveness, or suicidality Found everywhere, but the rates vary considerably across cultures: Rates in China are only about ⅕ that observed in the West

Principle of need

The principle that resources should be directed toward those who need them the most

Study #2: students thought/talking and analytic/holistic thought processes

The relation between thinking/talking has been explored by Heejung Kim, who noticed, as a Korean grad student in the US, that there was an unfamiliar emphasis on discussing your ideas She wanted to investigate whether the quality of people's thinking is affected by saying one's thoughts out loud She had participants attempt some items from Raven's matrix test, either speaking out loud when solving or remaining quiet Results should display that East Asians should be doing better when they are silent while Westerners should do better when they are talking

Income Inequality

The relationship between income and health, above the $30,000 cutoff, is largely a relationship between health and one's income relative to others Cross-national comparisons reveal clear evidence for the health problems associated with relative deprivation. For example, Indians living in the poor province of Kerala have far lower absolute incomes than poor African Americans in the U.S.. However, people in Kerala outlive African Americans by a substantial degree. The Keralians are poor in absolute terms, but they probably feel less poor because nearly everyone around them is poor. In contrast, poor Americans often earn an income that is not that poor by international standards; however, they are poor compared to their fellow Americans, and their health suffers accordingly. Countries with less income inequality, life expectancy tends to be longer. Ex: Japan has longest average life expectancy and also has one of the most egalitarian income distributions of any major industrialized nation.

Distributive justice

The socially just and equitable allocation of goods and services.

Fundamental Attribution error

The tendency to look at the person and neglect the situation they are in to explain their behavior

Salmon bias theory

Theory to explain the epidemiological paradox: Proposes that many Latino immigrants return to their home countries when they are old or ill, so their deaths are not included in the U.S. data not supported by evidence and largely discounted furthermore, not all groups of Latinos equally apply the epidemiological paradox (i.e. Peurto Ricans do not show the same unexplained health benefits as Mexicans)

To what extent is the psychological process emotion universal and to what extent is it a cross-cultural variable?

There are strong arguments on both sides; it is a very controversial debate This debate is good because it forces a focus on researcher arguments as well as clever studies in order to yield evidence for their point

Costs of having a more culturally diverse team:

There can be less group cohesion (less of a sense that we are all together) less trust (often people tend to trust those who are more similar to them better) Teams may segregate by culture (similar cultural backgrounds may team up into cohorts-people do tend to segregate to those who are similar/familiar to them); Even in a food court at UBC (a pretty diverse place) people tend to segregate by familiar looks/backgrounds There can be communication problems (Especially if not everyone is a native speaker of the same language that can create some cohesion problems as well)

Study: Fundamental Attribution Error

There is lots of evidence that display Westerners have a tendency to focus almost exclusively on dispositional attributes to a person's behavior (fundamental attribution error) Explored people's attributions in India and the US Participants ranged from 8-adults Read a number of scenarios where a target person did something and then offered explanations for the behavior I.e. a person riding a motorcycle and got in accident and brought his friend to er then leaves his friend to go to work and his friend passes away before a doctor sees him Then asked why he left his friend (either dispositional or situational reasons) Out of these various scenarios, on average, American and Indian 8 year olds gave similar attributions. As Americans got older, they made more dispositional attributions, but not situational ones. American adults therefore display the fundamental attribution error. Older Indians made more situational attributions not dispositional ones...Indian adults show a reverse fundamental attribution error.

Why are individualistic societies often associated with the generation of novel ideas?

There is possibly greater motivation for uniqueness Research shows Westerners prefer novel objects more than East Asians and their creations are judged to be more original. They also initiate a larger number of ideas when they are primed with individualistic thoughts than collectivistic ones. Possibly a continued push toward novelty, rather than usefulness, is also associated with psychological problems (i.e. mental illness being associated with art in the West)

Study: Protestant guilt and sublimation

There is very little evidence in support of Freudian sublimation, but one research team explored it across American religious groups (Kim, Zeppenfield, & Cohen, 2013). They reasoned that because Protestants can't rid themselves of their guilty feelings, in comparison with Jews and Catholics, so they will sublimate these towards productive pursuits All participants were male American students with a sister (Protestant vs. non-Protestant) Half were assigned to a sister condition and half to a girlfriend condition They were directed through a task in which it was likely that they would consider sexual thoughts towards their sister or girlfriend Following this exercise, they were given some clay to make some sculptures and these were judged by a panel of artists Results: researchers claimed that the best sculptures were judged to have been made by Protestants considering inappropriate sexual thoughts; This, with some other studies, suggest that Protestants are motivated to dispel guilty thoughts by creative productivity

Four relationship types cross-culturally?

These four features are said to be present in all types of relationships, but can vary between how frequently cultures use these elements I.e. many tribal societies share property in a communal sharing way, where each person has similar rights and responsibilities. Communal sharing relationships are relatively rare in the West outside of the family. And because market pricing doesn't involve close relationships between two individuals, it is especially common in more individualistic societies. Equality matching is emphasized more in many traditional subsistence societies around the world, where elaborate rituals are often part of the reciprocal exchange of equally valued goods. East Asians are less likely than North Americans to accept gifts because of the obligation they feel to reciprocate. Authority ranking characterizes a greater portion of behaviors in hierarchical class-based societies than in more egalitarian ones. Within Western societies, communal sharing appears to characterize a broader array of behaviors in relationships among people lower in socioeconomic status.e

Comparing the two theories of emotion

These two theories suggest very different origins for emotions and make very different predictions about whether emotional experience is universal or culturally variable. If James-Lange theory extensions are correct, this suggests an evolutionary origin for emotions because they are biological signals that alert people to circumstances within their environment, allowing a survival mechanisms driven by evolution. This suggests emotions are universal (because we all share the same genetic code and had the same ancestors up until very recently we therefore likely inherited these adaptive physiological signals) If Two-factor theory is correct this suggests that in addition to a physiological basis, emotions are constructed from the belief systems that shape people's interpretations and because these belief systems vary based on culture it suggests that cross-culturally there is variability in emotional experiences

How are humans the produce of gene-culture coevolution?

They have evolved biological mechanisms to depend on cultural information and that information enhances their fitness. As culture continues to evolve, it places new selection pressures on the genome, which in turn, evolves accordingly.

How do researchers avoid the problem of different meanings for "moral" and "immoral"? (Ethic of community)

They typically operationalize "moral obligations" to mean something specific, something other than people's typical understanding of the phrase. Moral obligations are different to other responsibilities in a couple important ways... They are viewed as objective obligations: people believe they have the obligation to act in a certain way, even if there is no official rule or law that requires them to do so. If the obligation exists only when a law is present, then the obligation is perceived as a matter of convention and is not an objective obligation. Moral obligations are also perceived as legitimately regulated: people should be prevented from engaging in a moral violation, or they should be punished if they act in such a way. If people feel someone should not be prevented from engaging in an act, they are viewing the act as a matter of personal choice and not a moral obligation. Most Westerners, for example, would view pickpocketing as a violation of a moral obligation because stealing from another is perceived as wrong, regardless of what rules or laws exist, and would believe pickpockets should be prevented from stealing. In contrast, most Westerners would view failing to attend a friend's graduation ceremony as a matter of personal choice rather than a violation of a moral obligation. Violations are considered to be moral ones only if they are objective obligations that can be legitimately regulated.

Which cultures provide the highest quality of life?

This is a very difficult question because there are various ways for ranking quality of life...we could operationalize it as meaning people's average level of positive emotional experiences, which would indicate their degree of satisfaction with how their lives are going (Peurto Rico and Mexico), we could consider longevity as a way of operationalizing quality of life (Singapore and Japan), per-capita income (U.S.), hhow well countries minimize inequality within their country (Denmark and Japan), lowest suicide rates (Barbados, Antigua, and Barbuda). Evolutionary biologists discuss success in terms of an animal's reproductive fitness, indicating the number of surviving offspring (Palestinian territories and the Democratic Republic of Congo). Spiritual satisfaction education lowest crime rates cleanliness of environment stability of family relationships number of Nobel Prizes and for each one we would get a different ranking of the world's cultures... In general, cultures tend to value more those characteristics for which their own culture is particularly accomplished. "who comes out on top in any ranking system, is really about who is doing the ranking"

Individualism facilitates novelty:

This is how people often associate creativity We can understand this association because individualism is commonly associated with a greater motivation for uniqueness When individualism is primed, people from multiple cultures generate more novel ideas Western artists are more likely than the average person to suffer from mental illness-this is not true of Chinese artists, for instance (i.e. Vincent Van Gogh) (i.e. There is not this great idea that the best artist is struggling with their mental illness in China)

koro

This occurs largely in South and East Asia, especially Southern China and Malaysia. Men develop morbid anxiety that their penis is shrinking into their body. There can be epidemics of koro, where hundreds of people develop symptoms. The idea of it seems to lead to other people being more vulnerable to it (i.e. rumours that bad meat led to penis shrinking which caused a mass hysteria of people to have koro) (i.e. Singapore, for example, there was an epidemic of swine flue, which led to widepread inoculation of pigs and later rumors spread that one would develop koro after eating it and soon mass hysteria had spread) Some koro-like symptoms have been reported by Americans having negative marijuana-induced experiences. (Only about 3 cases of this)

Market Integration graph:

This study operationalized market integration with the % of calories purchased in the market (how much food was purchased) The y axis represents the dictator game offers Results: those who had more experiences with markets were responding in more fairways This suggests that because of people's cultural experiences in the marketplace they learn how to act fairly (i won't try to cheat you and you won't try to cheat me, etc.) and this disagrees with the evolutionary theory that we come into the world like this..it is about our relationship with experience to market and learning about fairness through these experiences.

Moral Intuitions

To further explore how differences in moral reasoning are relevant for people's psychology, researchers have expanded Shweder's three ethics to include five moral intuitions that guide one's sense of right and wrong. Five moral intuitions are perceived to be universal, but certain cultures, differ in terms of which ones they emphasize.

Interpretation of pronounced cultural differences with Kohblerg's model of morality:

Two competing interpretations: 1.traditional societies do not provide the educational experience necessary for their members to reason about justice and individual rights in postcoventional terms. It is possible Westerns do show more sophisticated stages of moral reasoning than most of the rest of the world, there is the risk of an ethnocentric bias in defining the developmental standard on the basis of the kind of reasoning observed in Western cultures. 2. Urban Western environments are one kind of environment and tribal environments are another kind, therefore people develop a moral framework that best fits their environment. This second interpretation would attribute the lack of reasoning about justice and individual rights among tribal and folk populations to possible other categories of moral reasoning that are missing from Kohlberg's model.

Why is it important to consider cultural differences in the workplace?

Understanding cultural differences is crucial for business success. Example: China and Ebay vs. TaoBao (One considered the cultural idea of guanxi, which assumes that individuals involved will work toward deepening their relationships with one another and will feel clear mutual obligations)

Universal conditions

Universal conditions highlight the biological foundation of mental illness. However, even though the following are universally observed, their manifestations can vary quite dramatically across cultures.

Places of high relational mobility:

Urban areas North America, Latin America, Western Europe Herding communities

Effectively managing diverse teams:

Use explicit strategies to avoid communication difficulties Highlight how BOTH diversity and merit are valued (This could lead to people thinking they are not being treated fairly if it's not done, and could lead to bad morale) Recognize how both majority and minority members can make important contributions try to consider everyone's perspective recognize and appreciate the differences among members, and effectively interpret the various kinds of knowledge they have

Ritualized display of emotions

Voluntary not reflexive differ from the ostensibly universal facial expressions and are idiosyncratic i.e. biting down on your tongue is an expression for embarrassment in India

Two-Factor theory of emotions

Walter Cannon crticisized James-Lange because the autonomic nervous system seems to be too clumsy and slow to be differntiated into all of the emotional states people experience. Maintained that emotions are based on two factors: physiological response AND the interpretation of those responses. Strongest proponents of this theory: Stanley Schacter and Jerome Singer who believed emotion researchers had neglected to study people's interpretations of their physiological sensations because the earlier studies had not separated the two factors. They believed the separate roles of sensation and interpretation could be identified only if they were disentangled.

Triplett's first social psychological study

Was interested in seeing what happens when others are around Experiment had children reel in fishing lines and they did better when there were other kids they were competing against Just being surrounded by others can affect your performance (not just competition; but not always to do better)

Is there any evidence that people experience different kinds of emotions across cultures?

We can look at independent vs. interdependent views of self to assess this question: People with an interdependent view of self are concerned with maintaining a sense of interpersonal harmony, and thus should be aware of how events in the world affect others close to them as well as themselves. Those with an independent self, in contrast, focus on how events affect them, or how events might serve to differentiate them as individuals from others. This suggests, that people with independent and interdependent self-concepts will interpret situations differently, as either providing opportunities to distinguish themselves or influencing their relationships with others.

Coping with guilt:

Weber maintained that Protestants work hard because they are anxious about their salvation while struggling with their guilty feelings Various religions have adopted different ways of dealing with guilty feelings Catholicism: practice of confession Judaism: practice of atonement (Yom Kippur) Protestantism doesn't really have a formalized mechanism What happens when they feel guilty? Freud's perspective: offered a theory of sublimation that people coped with unacceptable sexual urges by defensively sublimating these feelings into productive and creative pursuits

Interpreting Emotional Experience:

Westerner's attention primarily on the focal person's face, whereas East Asian's attention scanned all of the people's faces In the first second, people from both cultures largely look at the target. After that, East Asians look more to the background than do Westerners, who continue to fixate on the focal target. These findings suggest that when people are looking at the world based on their culturalization, they are literally taking in information differently because their focus is different This cultural pattern also occurs for nonsocial scenes; East Asians appear to more habitually look for relations in their environments.

Talking and thinking: analytic vs. holistic:

What is the relation between talking/our private thoughts? Is talking in your head the same as out loud? Talking is an analytic process: we can only specify one idea at a time that is arranged in a sequence; it is difficult to discuss holistic ideas in which there are multiple connections that are simultaneously relevant Holistic thinking should be impaired more by saying one's thoughts out loud than would analytic thinking Westerners appear to value the spoken word more than East Asians -In Judeo-Christian beliefs the "word" is sacred (i.e. the bible) -The Ancient Greeks viewed knowledge to emerge through the spoken word -The First Amendment protects one's freedom of speech -Lao Tzu said that "He who knows does not speak. He who speaks does not know" -Various Eastern religions emphasize silent meditation rather than prayer -A Korean proverb states "An empty cart makes more noise"

Which part of SES affects health?

When comparing increased health risks among the poorer classes: A growing body of evidence has identified psychological factors involved in the relationship between SES and health. For example, research has revealed that personality characteristics such as hostility and pessimism are associated with an increased risk for illnesses. School achievement is poorer, people are more likely to witness delinquent and criminally dangerous behaviors. These experiences would surely lead people to have a greater overall sense of mistrust and cynicism leading to more hostility and less optimism than higher SES individuals. Objective levels of wealth are less relevant than subjective experiences of SES for health outcomes, however, BOTH matter. This is especially true in the U.S. In other words, feeling poor can matter as much as actually being poor. (i.e. knowing that others are doing better than you can lead to stress) The relation between a country's GDP and longevity is strong among poor countries, but weak among wealthy countries (important to look at poverty in relation to the individuals own country); how equally the resources are distributed also seems to matter Poverty can impair thinking: The experience of poverty doesn't just lead to stress; it can also lead to poorer thinking; Poverty makes people focus on the present-limiting future opportunities for improvement: Poverty poses cognitive demands, as each economic decision imposes trade-offs. This weakens self-control and performance on other demanding tasks. In a sense, poverty "makes people dumber", at least for certain tasks.

Research on emotional experiences of Japanese vs. American Olympic atheletes

When describing their reactions to winning research finds that Japanese athletes are more likely to discuss their relationships when describing their emotions. Additionally, research participants who read athlete's self-descriptions were asked to infer the kinds of emotions an athlete was feeling-Japanese participants inferred more emotions when the athlete mentioned relationships, whereas American participants inferred more emotions when the athlete focused only on herself. In other words, for Japanese, emotions are experienced interpersonal states that connect people to each other, whereas for Americans, emotions are experienced more as personal states within individuals.

When looking at information in government Web Pages:

When examining the number of links and words on a web page, East Asian pages are much busier. When you have a tendency to focus on the foreground then the busier scene is much more difficult to navigate than if you focus on the background. Moreover, when given the challenge to find a particular image, East Asians perform better than North Americans in busier scenes. A similar cultural difference in density of information was seen in a comparison of scientific conference posters.

Innovation: Collectivistic vs. individualistic cultures

When looking at the kind of innovations different countries make: East Asian cultures have more incremental innovations (adding an improvement to something that already exists to make it work better), whereas Western countries produce more breakthroughs (big, game changing ideas) i.e. Japan is the world leader in the number of patents granted each year. most of them represent incremental improvements, particularly in the fields of technology.

Stress and lack of control

When people have severe and chronic amounts of stress in their live, the risk of illness increases because: 1. chronically stressed people typically engage in unhealthy behaviors (such as smoking and drinking) in order to cope with difficulties in their lives 2.chronic severe stress weakens the immune system's ability to fight off infections and respond to other health threats. In general, the less stress a person experiences, the better his/her health will be Some cultural environments produce more stress: i.e. for example, being in New York City makes people feel more stress People also feel stress when they feel a lack of control over their lives (which can be result of being lower in a hierarchy): i.e. having little control over your job etc. lower-SES people feel less in control of their lives and show less vulnerability to illness when they are provided with control suggesting that this could be an important relationship.

Personal theories on a satisfying life: study

When people reflect on their day, they recall the events that happened and rate their satisfaction accordingly. However, when they consider a longer period, their estimates of their feelings are more likely to reflect the theories they hold about what life should be like...European Americans appear to be operating under an implicit theory that they should be happy whereas Asian Americans seem to operate under the theory that emotional experience, like other aspects of life, should be balanced, not necessarily upbeat all the time. Because of this cultural difference, Westerners are more likely than East Asians to say their ideal life would be dominated by happiness. In contrast, the dialectical view of East Asians means they can simultaneously experience both positive and negative emotions. In addition, East Asians are less likely than Westerners to emphasize positive emotions. More generally, people from a variety of interdependent cultures (i.e. India, Russia, and Malaysia) tend to experience mixed emotions more readily than people from independent cultures. These findings demonstrate that when people from different cultures think back over their lives, they interpret their feelings with respect to culturally divergent theories, but when they consider their feelings at a specific time, those theories do not come into play as much. It's possible that many of the observed cultural differences in subjective well-being are based on the different personal theories people have about how they should be feeling about their lives.

How do we explain the same behavior as being perceived as morally acceptable by one group and not the other?

When we consider ethical principles that can guide moral reasoning, it appears that the ethic of autonomy is not the only game in town. And the tendency of the low-status participants to base their moral decisions on their level of discomfort suggests that the task of reaching moral judgements might not always occur in cold, cognitive terms, in the way Kohlberg described. Instead, people often come up with moral justifications for the strong emotions they have witnessing undesirable behaviors.

Kohlberg's Preconventional Level

When your judging something to be right or wrong it is in the context of regarding physical/hedonistic consequences of the action The level that everyone gets to I.e. the level dogs operate on? "Good dog"

What do we know/not know about sleep?

While the reasons why people sleep are still not that well understood, much research has focused on the costs of insufficient sleep. Short sleep duration has been associated with heightened obesity rates, diabetes rates, heart disease, and an overall shorter life. Moreover, shorter sleep durations have been associated with reduced cognitive functioning and poor school performance. What remains a big unknown is the consequences of cultural variation in sleep duration

Are the kinds of emotions relevant to cultures associated with common cultural concerns?

Yes Turks (defending honor): feelings of anger and shame Japan (saving face): shame America: anger but not shame The kinds of anger and shame most commonly experienced tend to vary cross-culturally as well

Participative leadership

a leadership style in which the leader consults employees for their suggestions and input before making decisions highest: Northern Europe LowestL Middle East and North Africa

Meritocracy

a system in which promotion is based on individual ability or achievement (equity principle) More common in individualistic societies

Moral intuitions: ethic of divinity

achieving purity

What is an aspect of physical beauty that varies cross-culturally?

bodies: i.e. weight-in Western societies today it is made clear through pop culture and media exposure that a slender female body is considered most attractive (and articles focused on weight loss, dieting, exercise regimes, as well as the prevalence of eating disorders display evidence of this) this was not always the case in Western societies, as displayed in paintings of female bodies in the days of Rubens and Renoir, for instance. In West Africa, the word "fat" is often considered a compliment, as it indicates strength and beauty. Within the U.S. African Americans have a heavier ideal body weight than European Americans and feel less social pressure to be slender. To a certain degree, beauty standards in the West are considered high markers of socioeconomic status and are spreading to some other parts of the world.

Analytic thinking

characterized by a focus on objects and their attributes; objects are perceived as existing independently from their contexts and they are understood in terms of their component parts. The features that make up objects are used as a basis for categorizing them, with fixed abstract concepts to predict and explain them. As we'll see

Holistic thinking

characterized by a focus on the context as a whole. It is an associative way of thinking or paying attention to the relationships among objects, as well as between the objects and their surroundings. Objects are understood in terms of how they relate to the rest of the contex. Holistic thinking also emphsizes knowledge gained through experience rather than the application of fixed abstract concepts. Holistic thinking is more common in non-Western cultures.

The GLOBE project

collected data from over 17,000 managers in several different industries in 62 countries over a period of 10 years. From this extensive database the researchers were able to identify some key dimensions of leadership and compared them in terms of desirability.

How to know which ethics you value?

consider how much money you would need ot be paid to violate any of them.

What emotions are sometimes proposed to be included in the universal emotions>

contempt, shame, embarrassment, pride, and interest

Dhat syndrome

culture-bound syndrome found in India in which men develop intense fears about losing semen frequently observed in South Asian cultures Semen is considered a source of vitality so this causes them to be morbidly anxious often associated with guilt about indulging in disapproved sexual acts (such as masturbation) Because Americans do not consider semen a precious resource or source of vitality they do not typically feel anxious about losing it..the entire category of dhat syndrome would be meaningless to most North Americans.

malgri

culture-bound syndrome of territorial anxiety observed in various Australian Aboriginal groups. When afflicted individuals enter the seas or a new territory without engaging in the appropriate ceremonial procedures, they believe they are invaded by a totemic spirit that makes them physically sick and drowsy.

Humane-oriented leadership

emphasizes being supportive, considerate, compassionate, and generous highest: Southern Asia (Iran, the Philippines, and Indonesia) Lowest: Western Europe

Team-oriented leadership

emphasizes team building and instilling a common goal among team members Highest: Latin American countries Lowest: Middle Eastern and North African

Passion

feeling a strong desire for your partner If this is all you have it is called "infatuation" Westerners report having higher degrees of passion for their romantic partners than people from East Asian cultures and relationship satisfaction is based more on feelings of passion among Westerners than East Asians. Researchers have again looked at the concept of relational mobility to make sense of this. In an open market you may be more tempted to leave your current partner for a new one, however, if you have strong feelings of passionate love for your partner, than this should be a less likely consideration. (i.e. study comparing American and Japanese students and their levels of relational mobility)

Secularization Theory

holds that religion is on the decline and that people around the world are discovering new secular and rational ways to make sense of their lives

What other social problems are the result of greater income inequality?

homicide rates mental disorders illegal drug use obesity high school dropouts teenage birth rates lower status for women

latah

identified primarily in people of various Southeast Asian cultures, and also in Siberia and among the Ainu in Japan. Following some kind of startling event, the person falls into a transient dissociated state and exhibits unusual behaviors, such as barking like a dog, shouting sexually charged statements, or acting in culturally inappropriate ways. The person will typically have no memory of the outburst

Social Striving

increased individual effort in group settings - more common in collectivist cultures (and not found when examining American samples)

The most desired kinds of emotional states among East Asians, in contrast to Westerners, are?

low arousal positive states

Moral intuitions: ethic of community

loyalty to ingroups respecting authority

Psychotherapy

originated with Freud and psychoanalysis in 19th century Europe. Centered on the notion that people benefit from discussing difficulties with a therapist who helped them to interpret it. Numerous other therapies have centered on this notion of people talking through their difficulties and gaining personal insights by doing so. This approach is more culturally foreign in places where people don't typically seek explicit social support, and can be stigmatized.

Autonomous leadership

refers to independent and individualistic leadership, which includes being autonomous and unique Highest: Eastern Europe Lowest: Latin America

Self-Protective leadership

reflects behaviors that ensure the safety and security of the leaders themselves (usually seen as less effective leaders) highest: Southern Asia lowest: Northern Europe

Charismatic/Value Based leadership

reflects the ability to inspire, to motivate, and to expect high performance from others based on strongly held core values English speaking countries valued this the most Middle Eastern and North African countries the least

Social Anxiety Disorder

the fear that one is in danger of acting in an inept and unacceptable manner and that such behavior will result in disastrous social consequences. Also found universally; diagnostic criteria.. A marked fear of social situations in which person is exposed to unfamiliar people Exposure to feared social situation invariably provokes anxiety Person recognizes fear is excessive Feared social situation is avoided and interferes with their normal routine Studied in two ways cross-culturally: Endorsing symptoms on self-report surveys Interdependence strongly correlates with self-reports of social anxiety, and East Asians report more symptoms than Westerners. Clinical diagnosis through interviews But clinical diagnoses of social anxiety disorders are far lower among East Asians (about 0.5% lifetime prevalence) than among North Americans (about 7%). One possibility for this discrepancy is that in interdependent contexts social approval is valued more, so it is viewed as natural that one experiences distress in social situations. The reason it is likely to be less diagnosed clinically in interdependent contexts they may be less likely to seek treatment because it is more normative. My thoughts: Possibly also because it is more normative, clinicians in interdependent cultures are less likely to think people are embarrassed and therefore more used to people coming in and less likely to diagnose? Whereas its the opposite in western cultures?

Altruistic punishment

the finding that people will sometimes sacrifice their own gain for the betterment of all, by punishing people who cheat the system Ex: Research typically finds that people will punish those who don't contribute their share in the public goods game

Principle of Equity

the principle that resources should be distributed based on an individual's contributions ex: principle form of distributing salary in the West

Principle of equality

the principle that resources should be shared equally among the members of a group, regardless of performance

James-Lange Theory

the theory that our experience of emotion is our awareness of our physiological responses (products to the autonomic nervous system) to emotion-arousing stimuli Maintains that our body responds to environmental stimuli by preparing us to react in order for survival; every emotion has an equal physical response (i.e. embarrassment is the sensation of blood rushing to the face, love is the feeling of one's stomach churning, etc.). Emotions are no longer seen as just physiological responses, but have been expanded to include appraisals, nonverbal expressions, neural patterns, and subjective feelings. But the theory's focus on the physiological components have been central to other key theories.

What qualities did the GLOBE recognize as being universally impediment to effective leadership?

uncooperative, egocentric, irritable, ruthless, dictatorial, and a loner

Pathogens and Collectivist culture

when there is a big health risk (such as an infectious disease) it is important that people work together; in this way pathogens are linked to collectivism