Cultural Psychology Exam 2

Dhat Syndrome

Belief that young men are leaking semen, which causes them to be very anxious because semen is seen as a source of vitality. Associated with guilt and anxiety.

James Lange Theory of Emotion

Bodily changes lead to emotions (evolutionary response: our bodies respond to stimuli with emotions that tell us how we should act). Suggests universality of emotions, evolutionary origin

Concept of "yuan"

Chinese "Yuan": belief that interpersonal relationships are predestined. Creates the idea that if a relationship is not working, one must accept fate and suffering that comes with it. Therefore, relationships may be associated more with negative outcomes and greater suffering in china than US.

Anger inhibition and heart disease

Chinese and European Canadians were compared in their anger responses. H that Chinese would face more heart disease since they may be trying to bottle up their anger more often (since it is considered a more problematic expression in Chinese culture) Results: Chinese Canadians found the scenarios to be less anger provoking, and their most common reaction to the situation was to reappraise it in a less angry way or to distract themselves from anger provoking event. Additionally, blood pressure of Chinese-Canadians recovered more quickly than Europeans in anger provoking situations. Suggests that Chinese Canadians experienced their anger less intensely than european canadians and that supressing negative emotions is associated with less negative health outcomes/less of a neuronal response, indicating that it was less effortful for Chinese canadians to supress negative emotions. Meaning that cultural display rules alter the ways that people express their emotions and can potentially alter their emotional experiences.

Attribution judgements

Chinese newspapers tended to make more situational judgements and less attributional judgements

lactase persistence

Relatively recent genetic change that has caused some populations (like Northern Europe) to continue producing lactase into adulthood. Strong relationship between lactase persistence and history of dairy farming. GENE CULTURE CO-EVOLUTION

Tsai & Colleagues

STUDY 1: European american ideal affect is high arousal positive. Asian american ideal affect is low arousal positive. STUDY 2: European American kids preferred more excited smile than taiwanese kids in story books. Asian Americans fell in the middle. American storybooks included more excited faces, while taiwanese story books included more calm faces. Cultural differences in ideal affect emerge early on

Naikan Therapy

Seeks to provide clients with insight into their past and encourages people to appreciate how indebted they are to the kindess of others.

Consequences of experiencing negative emotions

Self reflective Americans were more depressed than self reflective Russians. Different consequences for brooding across cultures.

Social Anxiety in East Asia

So common that it may not be viewed as impairing as much as the same level would in US.

Reasons behind somatization

Social stigma of psychological symptoms Externally oriented thinking

Suicide

Suicide rate can be related to a community's connection to its cultural past. Different motivations: Japan: idea of committing suicide to accept responsibility and observe one's honor.

Color chip study

Support for weak whorf H. People do judge color similarity based on the color boundaries set out in their langauage

Hikokomori

acute social withdrawal syndrome. Andolescent/young adults spend 6 months to several decades seeking extreme degrees of isolation.

Likelihood that a culture favors arranged or love marriages

dominant kind of family structure in the culture: Nuclear vs extended. Extended: have to consider more family member's wishes, and provides social pressure to keep an arranged couple together.

Neurasthenia

poor appetite, headaches, insomnia, weakness in the back, hysteria, inability to concentrate. Depression much less commonly diagnosed in china, but study found that many neurasthenia pateints (87%) could be described as clinically depressed.

Universal Syndrome

universally observed possibly because of biological foundations of certain mental illnesses. (but manifestation of symptoms can vary greatly across different contexts)

Alan Fiske 4 elementary forms of social relationships

-Communal Sharing (within a family usually pools resources) -Authority Ranking (mother has more say than child) -Equality Matching (least familiar to westerners) (focus on balance/reciprocity. People keep track of what is exchanged and are motivated to pay back in equivalent terms) (ex: christmas cards, taking turns hosting dinners) -Market Pricing: members of a party calculate the ratios of goods that are exchanged so that the transaction will be equivalent in value for both parties. Relative status of individuals in interaction is irrelevant. Fiske claims that all human relationships are constructed out of one or more of these basic elements. Operational in cultures, but some cultures rely on one structure more than others. Market pricing common in individualistic societies bc it can be operated without any close relations between two individuals.

Amok

Accute outbursts of unrestrained violence associated with homicidal attacks, preceded by a period of brooding and followed by exhaustion and amnesia. Thought to be caused by stress, a lack of sleep, and alcohol consuption.

Miyamoto & Ma (cultural scripts of emotion)

After receiving good grades, European Americans and East Asians both felt positive emotions, but one day later east asian positive emotions declined sharply (dampening) compared to euro am (savoring)

Schizophrenia

Although it is very genetic, there are still cultural variations. Ex: 75% of ppl w schizophrenia in the UK had paranoid schizophrenia, while only 15% did in India. Catotonic schizophrenia is rarely observed in the west, but made up for 20% of cases in India. Symptoms like hallucinations varied too. course of illness was better for patients in less developed societies than the more industrially advanced ones. (many of the symptoms may be more common in the gen pop of less developed societies and therefore less problematic, also strong sense of community means people with schizophrenia may have more social support)

Perception of enemies across cultures

Americans: Majority ppl responded that they do not have enemies. -Believe that you can choose if you have enemies or not -enemyship thought of as an outgroup problem, rather than in group. -Saw friends as there for emotional support Ghanians: rural ghana almost everyone said they have enemies, urban ghana still ~60% -Believe that everyone will have enemies and they cannot control that. -saw friends as there for advice and practical support, involves more obligations.

Reasoning Styles

Analytic thinkers tend to use rule based reasoning. Hollisitc thinkers tend to be associative reasoners: considering the relationship between objects or events.

Analytic vs hollistic thinkers

Analytic: see the world as consisting of discrete parts. Hollistic: see the world as an interrelated whole. Rod and frame task: Analytic thinkers tended to show field independence, they could seperate objects from their background fields. Hollistic thinkers tended to view objects as a part of their background. Found a relation to social orientation. Those more outgoing are more field dependent than those more introverted. Also- farmers who have to coordinate their actions with others are more field dependent.

Halo Effect

Assuming that attractive people have other positive features Research with Westerners show that attractive people have more positive outcomes Halo Effect seems to be tied to relationally mobile cultures. More attractive people with more relational mobility seem to have more positive outcomes (ex-attractive woman in an urban setting, same relationship not found for urban women who have less relational mobility)

Cultural metaphors for the body

Chinese: yin/yang France: body as the terrain (consitution or resistance): emphasizes how a sense of balance is key to health. Emphasis on rejuvination (spa, long hospital stays) American: body as machine that needs to be tended to regularly to ensure that it is running smoothly. **doctors tend to agree more with laypeople from their own culture than other doctors from other countries on attitudes towards what makes up a healthy lifestyle

Morita Therapy

Clients accept the circumstances in their lives as they are. Primarily targeted at those dealing with various kinds of anxieties and depressive symptoms. Goal is to chagne the chilent's perspective on symptoms and come tos ee them as anatural part of who they are. People are cured when they live productively depsite symptoms.

Cultural differences in subjective wellbeing

Collectivist cultures: feeling of living up to other's standards for being a good person is the basis of happiness. (being respected by others, living up to cultural norms) Individualistic cultures: how many positive emotions they are experiencing.

Mere Exposure Effect

Cultural Universal where as similarity attraction effect is not.

Hysteria

Culture bound disorders can change depending on historical periods.

Relational mobility Hs

Cultures with low relational mobility (Japan): people's relationship networks are stable. In cultures with high relational mobility (US) people are free to choose their relationships, and therefore show the similarity attraction effect. Study found that americans do feel more relational mobility, and have higher similarity attraction effect scores. Relational mobility plays a mediating role in why some cultures do not show similarity attraction effect. East asians who are high in relational mobility have attitudes towards friends that are similar to those of americans

Memory task with focal or nonfocal colors

Dani from pawpauw new guinea were still influenced by focal/nonfocal colors despite their lack of color terms Evidence against whorf H

Sai Weng and Horse Anecdote

Dialectal beliefs about happiness in East Asia. Happiness and Sadness along a continuum. In Western culture we focus on the active persuit of happiness as good and minimization of sadness since it is bad.

Japanese idea of happiness

Doesn't last long, is difficult to identify, you fail to pay enough attention to the surrounding when you are too happy (ambivelant features)

Predicting happy feelings when making decisions

Doing things for the sake of positive feelings was much more prevalent for euro canadians than asian canadians

Yuki's entity/network of ingroup identity

Entity Model: (Western cultures) -when people are in a group context, identity with whole self gets diffused. All identify as a group, which depersonalizes members. Network Model: (Asian cultures) -representation of group as a stable/structured net work of relationships among group members. View self as a node embedded within a network of shared relationship connections. -view ingroup member as someone who has common connections within the interpersonal networks.

Grouping task

European Americans made more categorical judgements, while Japanese made more relational judgements

United States idea of happiness

Exclusively positive and pleasant

Uhida & Kitayama cultural variation in ideas of happiness

Found that Americans tend to view happiness in positive hedonic experiences (joy, laughing), social harmony. While Japanese tend to view happiness in terms of transcendental reappraisal (exclusive, does not last long) and social disruption (causes you to fail to pay attention to surroundings). Both americans and japanese saw happiness in terms of personal achievement.

Emotional reactivity in different cultures

Found that depression reduces one's concern with following cultural norms. So, depressed people in the US showed less emotional reactivity and reported less sadness. While depressed asian ppl showed more emotional reactivity and more sadness.

Zajonc familiarity study

Found that there must be an evolutionary advantage to liking something similar. Ps liked characters they were exposed to more.

Ekman & Colleagues: Facial Expressions

Found that when exposed to facial expressions of Am actors, high recognition rates across cultures for happiness, disgust, surprise, anger, fear.

The Propiquinty Effect

Friendships of students living in housing at MIT. close friends: 41% next door, 22% 2 doors down, 10% opposite ends. Mere exposure effect! more exposure we have to a stimulus, the more we like it.

Niave Dialectism

Greater tolerance for contraditction by Asian cultures

Why are there cultural differences in expressivity?

Historical heterogenity: the number of of source countries that have contributed to a given country's present day population. Has had consequences on cultural norms because heterogeneous cultures may have had to use emotion expressivity as a way to communicate with people they did not share language with. Historical heterogenity may be associated with cultural display rules that favor emotional expressivity.

Ritualized Displays

Idiosyncratic facial expressions displayed as the result of cultural display rules. These are voluntarily produced (tongue bite for embarassment) as opposed to reflexively generated (look away, smile with pressed lips). The experience of the basic emotions is consistent across cultures, but cultures vary in how they choose to display facial emotions.

Evidence for cultural variability in facial expressions

In group advantage across emotion recognition studies. People also show a stronger fear response when looking at fear faces from their own cultures.

Simpatico

In latin American cultures, people place an emphasis on maintaining harmonious relationships and making expressive displays of graciousness, hospitality, and personal harmony. Latin Americans show a preference for groups with warm and hospital atmosphere, where as european americans prefer to work in environments that are focused at the task at hand.

Glenn Adams implicit models of relationships

Independent: -default state: null relationship -motives: mutual benefit Interdependent: -default state: relationship -motives: mutual obligation

Factors that predict well being differently across cultures

Interpersonally disengaged vs engaged emotions positive emotions vs cultural norms

Complexity of perceptual environments

Japanese cities had more objects and tended to be more complex. Those exposed to Japanese scenery detected larger number of changes in contextual information than those exposed to american scenery.

Symptom Pool

Leads people from each culture to recognize and discuss certain symptoms that are familiar to them. Providing people with different conceptions of mental illness may lead them toe express their own psychological difficulties in symptoms that are consistent with conceptions.

Arranged Marriages (Gupta & Singh study)

Love seems to grow over time. People can develop an attachment to this partner.

French Paradox

Low rates of heart disease, but eat a diet rich in fat. They also eat a diet of less fat reduced foods. French are leaner bc they eat smaller portions and have different attitudes about food (savor and enjoy food-spend more time eating) Americans were shown to be the most food-health oriented, while french were the most food-pleasure oriented.

TKS (taijin Kyoufushou)

Marked fear of embarassing or offending others. This specific form of social anxiety is seen as culture bound bc it exists mainly in east asian context. phobia of confronting others. Alturistic phobia.

Koro

Morbid fear that one's penis is shrinking into one's body. Believed to be harmful and have harmful consequences like death. Less common in women. May be universally accessible (Some men have reported with marijuana use) but only manifests as clinical disorder in east asian culture.

Oishii: actual vs retrospective well being

No cultural differences found in actual level of well being. However, European Americans rated their weeks as more positive retrospectively compared to asian Americans. Cultural beliefs about how happy you should be were reflected in the retrospective reports, while the actual reports show that cultures with different ideas of happiness do not differ in their levels of happiness.

Intragroup relations study: Economy game with ingroup/outgroup members

Options are to exit game and receive $3 for sure, or trust allocator and take whatever $ they give you. DV: number of people who trust partner IV: allocators university (either your own university, a university that you have an acquaintence at, or university that you do not know someone at). Results: Both american and japanese undergrads trust the in group member. More Japanese trust the outgroup member who has a connection (network model) than Americans (entity model). Both americans and japanese did not trust teh completely out group member.

Coding of love songs across cultures

Passionate love lyrics in the US Negative outcome lyrics in China

Cultural explanation for health differences between SES levels

People of lower SES are more likely to engage in unhealhty habits like smoking, eating fast food, and living a sedentary life style. Also psychological variables: saying that people who grow up in lower SES neighborhoods have increased risk for pessimism which is associated with risk for illness. Poverty aslo appears to undermine cognitive resources available to make good decisions. Poverty leads people to become more risk adverse and focus on the near future. Element of control. People of higher SES may feel more control over their lives, which is associated with better outcomes. **subjective SES is also predictive of health outcomes. Feeling poor is just as important as actually being poor. (relative deprivation)

Similarity attraction effect

People tend to be attracted to those who are most like themselves. Depends on a culture's relational mobility

Cultural Discrepency H

People who grew up learning east asian social norms but later find themselves in a western social context might feel mroe anxious because there is a discrepency between the east asian social norms that they were raised with and the western norms they currently live in.

Residential Mobility

People who reported moving multiple times show more conditional loyalty to their college, have more facebook friends on campus and continue to acquire more new FB friends over time, and view their personality traits to be a more central part of their identity than their group memberships. They also prefer large national chain stores. Living in a context where one moves frequently changes the kinds of relationships that people have and affects a variety of other attitudes and life styles.

Piraha

Piraha's lack of counting system limits their abilities to reprsent exact quantities when teh set size exceeds 2-3 items. This supports the strong whorf H. They may have rough quantity estimation skills, but counting has to be exact.

Facial Feedback Hypothesis

Proposes that one source of information we use when inferring our feelings is our facial expressions. Experiment manipulated people's facial expressions without them knowing, then asked how amused their were by cartoons. Smiling group (pen in teeth) found cartoons to be more amusing.

Schacter and Singer Study

Ps: American male undergrads Manipulated: -placebo condition- epi informed/uninformed/misinformed -Interpretation: Euphoria (stooge happy and playing) vs Anger (stooge angry about form) Strongest emotions felt by those in epi uninformed condition (did not have anywhere else to attribute emotion) RESULTS: -strongest emotions experienced by those in epi uninformed condition. -When people did not have a reason for their physiological responses they looked at the situation (environmental cues) to infer what emotion they were feeling. -Supports two factor theory of emotion

Sources of Cognitive Difference

Social structure of ancient socities Greek: sense of personal agency, tradition of debate, sense of curiousity and development of science. (focus on underlying rules) =law of non contradiction Ancient chinese: sense of recipricol social obligation, value harmony, advancement of practical technology- not on discovery of undelrying rules/mechanisms (confucianism) =principle of change/dialectal contradiciton

Voluntary Settlement History

Spirit of independence due to recent settlement. Hokkaido look almost identical to Americans as far as making more dispositional attributions than situational

Whorf H

Strong version: language determines how we think Weak version: langauge influences how we think

Diener's well being research

Stronger correlations between wealth and happiness in poorer countries where basic needs are not met. Money does not boost happiness after basic needs are met.

Emotional experiences in interdependent vs independent selves

Suggests that emotional experiences of those in interdependent cultures are more interpersonally engaged than the emotional experiences of those in independent cultures. For Japanese emotions are experienced as interpersonal states that connect people to each other, where as for Americans emotions are experienced as personal states that lie within individuals.

Epidemiological Paradox

Surprisingly healthy outcomes of latinos across a variety of conditions. Tend to engage in more healthful behaviors and have a high degree of social support.

The two dimensions of emotion

Valence (pleasantness), arousal (activation) Ideal: Am culture high arousal, Asian culture low arousal

Two Factor Theory of Emotion (Schacter-Singer)

We look at our environment and decide how to interpret physiological signals. Suggests cultural variability in emotions, origin in cultural beliefs

Fuhman & Boroditsky- perceptions of time

Writing system (L to R or R to L) determined how people ordered chronological pictures

Anorexia

existential universal: does not meet standards for a functional universal because in some contexts a similar motivation (self starvation) is associated with different ends (becoming overweight vs being spiritually ascetic)

Culture Bound Syndromes

greatly influenced by cultural factors. Occur far less frequently or are manifested in different ways in other cultures.

Factors that predict well being similarly across cultures

human rights, equality, money (for poor nations)

Dopamine D4 Receptor (DRD4)

the 2R and 7R alleles of the gene are associated with higher dopamine signalling, and therefore, increased sensitivity to environmental influences. Study looking at European americans and Asian asians with the 2R and 7R alleles found that if you have one of those alleles, you are more likley to form to the cultural environment (independent or interdependent)