PSY301 Chapter 14: People Are Different
If American research participants were asked to identify the emotion in a facial photograph and rate its intensity, the results might be hard to interpret because
Americans of different cultural backgrounds show similar responses to some emotions but different responses to others.
The virtually universal taboo against cannibalism would be regarded by researchers as
an etic.
The customs, values, and attitudes that can be used to characterize and identify a population refer to
culture.
The concept of race is controversial scientifically because
depending on the categorization process used, an individual could be placed in different racial categories.
The notion that a person identifies with a particular group of people based on ancestry, religion, or country of origin involves the concept of
ethnicity.
In the discussions of female-male differences in math ability, researchers
have reported that the differences between sexes is, on average, small and is getting smaller.
When researchers try to study potential differences across racial and ethnic groups, the categories they use
often rely on governmental rather than scientific criteria.
When a test is successfully back translated, it
retains the same meaning in the initial language and the language into which it is translated.
Iwamasa et al. (2000) studied differences in stereotypical female and male behaviors and found that
stereotypically female behaviors were associated with certain disorders and stereotypically male behaviors were associated with other disorders.
Matsumoto and Assar (1992) tested participants who spoke English and Hindi on their abilities to recognize emotions of people in photographs. They concluded that
the participants' thought processes were more conductive to thinking about emotions when they spoke English.
When researchers study differences between Hispanic and Anglo residents of the United States,
the research often ignores the differences among people within each group itself.
According to the Council of National Psychological Associations, investigators conducting cultural research should note that
understanding the degree of acculturation of participants is critical to interpreting results.
The concept that internal, psychological processes may be universal but that they are expressed differently across cultures is associated with
universalism.