Cultural Psychology Quiz and R and D Questions

Which of the following depicts an evoked culture?

A culture uses the possession of meat as a status symbol due to the abundance of vegetation.

Participants are sitting in their own separate testing rooms and have been asked to write statements about what they think about themselves. After a while, a mirror magically appears on a wall in each room. Comparing their self-descriptions before and after the mirror appeared, how much do they differ?

American participants viewed themselves more negatively after the mirror appeared, and Japanese participants did not change their views after the mirror appeared.

Cross-cultural research on math achievement at school reveals that

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

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

Authoritative parenting uses more democratic reasoning than does authoritarian parenting.

Which of the following is NOT a plausible response to the argument that cultural evolution is somehow different from biological evolution?

Biological evolution does not choose what has a selective advantage to pass on.

In what ways is biological evolution similar to and different from cultural evolution (p. 82-83)?

Biological evolution is the process in which certain genes become more common in populations than they were in the past, this happens through natural selection. Biological and cultural evolution are similar in the sense that some ideas are more likely to become popular in future generations than other ideas. Biological and cultural evolution are different because biological evolution are genes being passed down from generation to generation while cultural evolution can be easily altered and modified through generations.

Differentiate between blending and frame switching (p.278-286).

Blending is the notion that bicultural people to "blend" their two cultures together, meaning that they have psychological tendencies between both cultures. Frame-switching is the tendency of bicultural people to switch between their different cultural selves.

Explain how Quakers and Puritans impact Boston and Philadelphia in different ways (p107-108).

Boston was settled by Puritans and Philadelphia was settled by Quakers. The Puritans impacted Boston because they believed that a perfect society could only exist if they were an educated population. The Quakers impacted Philadelphia in the sense that they emphasized equality and tolerance. The two cities still exemplify these values through the culture and schools in the area.

Explain how acculturation can be affected by cultural distance and cultural fit (p. 263-267)

Cultural distance is the difference between two cultures in their overall way of life. This affects acculturation because the more distance someone needs to travel or move to, the more difficult it will be for the person to acculturate. Cultural fit is the degree in which an individual's personality lines up with the dominant cultural values of the host culture. This affects acculturation because the more an individual's personality lines up with the culture, the more likely the individual will be able to acculturate. Those who are more extraverted are more likely to be able to adapt to a new host culture.

How does cultural distance differ from cultural fit?

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

Define Culture. What makes it acceptable for people to use culture to talk about groups such as urban culture, high SES culture, millennial culture, Mac-user culture? What are the examples showing that culture is dynamic?

Culture is any idea belief, habit, or technology that is gathered from social learning or a group of individuals that exist amongst one another and share the same cultural ideas. These groups can be considered cultures because the individuals within the culture have norms and expectations that separate them from other groups, they have similar ideas and practices, and communicate with one another. Culture proves to be dynamic because there are cultures based upon nationality, religion, age group, and even the products we use, such as Mac-user culture.

What is ethnocentrism? Why would it exist? Please provide two examples for ethnocentrism (p. 28-29).

Ethnocentrism is judging people from other cultures by the standards of your own culture. This exists because we are conditioned to accept our own cultural values and behaviors. For example, those who are Christian may find it unnecessary to wear a hijab in their religion, but the Muslim religion values this tradition. Another example of ethnocentrism would be thinking someone from another area of the country or world speaks with a strong accent while this is very normal for them and thinking the way you speak is "normal".

Explain the differences between evoked culture and transmitted culture using examples (p. 76-77).

Evoked culture is the idea that individuals have biological encoded behavior that enables them to act in a certain way in a particular circumstance. For example, all individuals can act intimidating or intense when a loved one is threatened. Transmitted culture is adapting to cultural practices through modeling others who live in a close vicinity. An example of this would be witnessing your neighbor grow beautiful flowers, and you seeing her enjoy them and then wanting to grow flowers yourself.

Foot-in-the-door is a persuasion technique whereby the requester makes a relatively small request of a target. Once the target says yes, the requester will make more, and incrementally more costly, requests. This works because people are motivated to be self-consistent. Your friend is a big fan of this technique, and thinks that this sales tactic is equally effective everywhere, no matter where he goes. Based on research by Cialdini and colleagues, is this true or false?

False—the foot-in-the-door technique would work better in the United States than in Poland

Compare and contrast how identity denial and stereotype threat have consequences in multicultural contexts (p. 272-278).

Identity denial or the act of calling someone into question because they do not seem to match the prototype of the culture. This has consequences because it makes me people feel as though they are outcasts and creates very bad feelings regarding feeling as though they don't belong. Stereotype threat is the fear that one will do something that will confirm a negative stereotype about their group

Understand how different cultures prioritize different values in creating sleeping arrangements (p. 172-179)

In European and North American households, parents are far more likely to set aside a nursery for the baby to sleep in or have their baby sleep in the same room as the parents but in a separate bed. In a variety of other cultures babies will sleep in their parent's bed until they are into their primary school age. This could have something to do with the overpopulation of many countries but also, the values of different cultures align closely with co-sleeping.

Explain why cultural differences exist regarding the emergence of the terrible twos (p. 186-188).

In countries such as the United States, the "terrible twos" is a period in a child's life where he or she is going through a phase of maturation in which they are able to become social, verbally assertive individuals. While in cultures such as nomadic hunting societies, the children are held for most of the day, so they are less likely to act out. In Japanese culture, the misbehavior of a child is seen as disobedience and immaturity rather than a growth opportunity for the toddler. The "terrible twos" are seen as very different ideas throughout different cultures.

Why do motivations for self-consistency appear weaker among East Asians than among Westerners?

In the West, self-consistency correlates more strongly with subjective well-being and with being liked by others than it does in East Asia.

Given the current research on personality and acculturation, you can predict that

Jaedong, who is introverted, will acculturate more successfully in an introverted country than Sehoon, who is extraverted.

Explain John Berry's model of four different acculturation strategies (p. 267-270).

John Berry's model of four different acculturation strategies includes integration, separation, assimilation, and marginalization. The integration strategy is involves attempting to fit in and fully participate in host culture while also making effort to maintain their traditional hometown culture. The marginalization strategy involves not being motivated to participate in host culture, these people have negative attitudes towards both their own culture and their host culture. The assimilation strategy involves an attempt to fully participate in host culture while not maintain traditions of heritage culture. The separation strategy involves attempting to maintain the traditions of the heritage culture and not adapting to the host culture.

Explain how multicultural experiences affect creativity (p. 290-295).

Multicultural experiences affect creativity because they are free of the expectations that cultural "insiders" experience. Multicultural experiences also affect creativity because those who have had these experiences are able to take on a different perspective, that is not as heavily influenced by a cultural norm, this is because they are not as immersed in a single culture.

Describe how age of immigration and years in the host culture can affect one's identification with the host culture (p.168-170)

One's age does affect the culture they adapt to when immigrating. For example, those who move to a different country before the age of 15 are more likely to strongly identify with the culture they have immigrated into while those who migrated to a different culture at ages 16-30 or 31 years or older tend not to identify with their new environment/culture.

Army recruits are assigned randomly into specific sleeping quarters, where they do a lot of socializing during break time and at night. The political and religious attitudes of the recruits were surveyed before they were assigned sleeping quarters, and then again after several weeks of training. The generals found that the recruits' political and religious ideas tended to form clusters based on sleeping quarters. Which of the following can best explain this situation?

People in close quarters and contact tend to influence each other.

Discuss how pluralistic ignorance is related to cultural persistence (p. 109-111).

Pluralistic ignorance is the tendency for individuals to misinterpret the thoughts that motivate other people's behaviors. This is related to cultural persistence because people are influenced by what they believe people feel opposed to what they actually feel. For example, people may feel like an outcast by thinking something because their surrounding behave in a way that would not agree.

Discuss the impact of proximal causes and distal causes (p. 72-76).

Proximal causes are causes that have direct and immediate relation to the effects. Distal causes are causes that lead to effects over an extended period of time, indirectly. Both proximal and distal causes are important in recognizing the cause and effect of major events.

Which of the following people is the best example of blending?

Sarah gained a much more interdependent self-construal after spending the last ten years in China, albeit less than that shown by the Chinese.

Differentiate between subjective and objective self-awareness (p. 236-242).

Subjective self-awareness is our concerns outside of ourselves 'and we not overly aware of ourselves. Objective self-awareness is when we are concerned with ourselves. In this state we are aware of how we are being seen and judged by others.

What is a proximal cause for why a small group of Spaniards was able to conquer the Incan Empire

The Spaniards had better weapons than the Incans

According to Jared Diamond, why were the germs brought by the Spaniards so much deadlier to the Incans than the Incan germs were to the Spaniards?

The Spaniards had lived in close proximity to domesticated animals for much longer than the Incans.

American and Chinese children were recruited for a study. All children were either thirteen years old or five years old. They were first told that a child was happy every day the past week; then they were asked to predict the likelihood that the child would be happy tomorrow. To analyze the data, researchers matched 13-year-old American children's responses to those of the 13-year-old Chinese children. The same was done with the 5-year-old children's responses. Which of the following would be most likely to occur with this analysis?

The difference in predicted likelihood between Chinese and American children is much greater for the 13-year-olds than for the 5-year-olds.

Why is independence vs. interdependence such a critical dimension for understanding how cultures differ (p.210-215)

The independent view of self are attributes that arise from oneself, not from their interactions with others or their environment. The interdependent view of self has more to do with how we are connected to others and how other behaviors affect us as individuals. This is critical in understanding how cultures differ because we are who we are because of our personal views of ourselves and those who surround us. We are influenced by our culture and environment. It is what makes us who we are.

Why are people with interdependent selves more likely to act differently across different situations (p. 229-236)?

Those with interdependent selves are more likely to act differently across situations because they are more heavily influenced by the individuals they are surrounded by.

Amy's daughter, Sophia, is going to be an architect. In order to increase her creativity, Amy wants Sophia to live temporarily in a few other countries for a year in each place, living among the citizens, before starting her job. Based on research on the relationship between multiculturalism and creativity, will Amy's plan for Sophia work?

Yes, because this plan will lead to greater integrative complexity, which partially leads to higher levels of creativity.

Name each degree of universality based on Norenzayan and Heine's model. For each degree of universality, provide one example for each degree, and justify why your examples are relevant for each level (p. 18-22).

a. Accessibility universal (no variation) i. An example of accessibility universal would be social facilitation or the ability for individuals to do well in learned tasks and not so well in unlearned tasks when in the presence of others. This would be an example of accessibility universal because it exists in every culture to solve the same problem and it is accessible to all cultures. b. Functional universalism (variation in accessibility) i. An example of functional universalism would be punishment across different cultures for acting unfairly. This would be an example of functional universalism because this idea exists in many cultures but, it is more accessible to some cultures more than others. c. Existential universal (variation in function) i. An example of Existential universal would be westerners finding success to be a motivator and failure as a way to diminish motivation, while East Asian cultures find failure to be more of motivator. This is an example of existential universal because this way of viewing motivation exists in many cultures, but is not used to solve the same issue, or is not used in the same manner. d. Nonuniversal (cultural invention) An example of a nonuniversal would be an abacus tool, which is used in the Middle East and Asia. This tool is not used in all cultures, therefore, it is a nonuniversal.

Explain how cultural psychology can help us develop a better appreciation for our own culture (p. 28-29).

a. Cultural psychology helps us to develop a better appreciation for our own culture because it allows us to gain perspective on how our own cultures has influenced us as people as well as allowing us to learn about and appreciate different cultures and traditions.

Your new job in a culturally diverse company requires you to figure out how to deal with this cultural diversity in such a way that yields the most benefits for the company. Your two options are to take the color-blind approach or the multicultural approach. Choose one, and justify your response by comparing the pros and cons of these two approach based on the research presented in the textbook (p. 25-28).

a. I would choose to take the multicultural approach. Although it may seem that those using the color blind approach may have good intentions in not bringing attention to race or culture, this approach does not bring minority groups to be engaged with their work and in their workplace environment. I would choose the multicultural approach because it allows for people to strongly identify with their groups in a way that is celebrated and acknowledged. Minority groups respond better to their groups being attended to and appreciated rather than being ignored or overlooked in the color blind approach.

East Asia is at a similar latitude to a region with many easily domesticated plants and animals. These early conditions benefit East Asian cultures such that they propelled these cultures to prosperity today. What is this scenario an example of?

distal causes

Whereas _____________ describe(s) explanations using factors that occurred a long time ago, _____________ describe(s) explanations using factors that have direct and immediate effects.

distal causes; proximal causes

The finding that the prevalence of parasites in a region correlates positively with the degree that people value physical attractiveness is argued to be evidence for

evoked culture

A key difference between evoked culture and transmitted culture is that

evoked culture is limited to a specific geographical setting, whereas transmitted culture can move across different ecologies.

Takeshi discovers a lot of tips and tricks to give him an easier time playing his favorite computer game, which he proceeds to tell all of his gaming buddies. Which of the following does this best illustrate?

horizontal transmission

Which of the following scenarios would most likely lead to Basdeo using frame-switching more than Mel?

if Basdeo were a bicultural and Mel were a monocultural

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

interdependent view of self

The "terrible twos" is a developmental stage that (see textbook p. 187-188)

is a nonuniversal

Adolescent rebellion

is more pronounced in individualistic cultural contexts.

Varun is a Fijian immigrant to Canada. After observing him over time, his friends felt like he was not really participating in Canadian culture, nor did he seem to have much to do with his Fijian roots. Which of the following best describes Varun?

marginalization strategy

Stereotype threat occurs because

people are at risk for sometimes acting in ways consistent with stereotypes and thereby proving the stereotype and creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Pluralistic ignorance is likely to lead to

persistence of particular cultural practices

It is not at all unusual for the officers at Police Station 54 to observe their colleagues using confrontational interview techniques. Even though they do not personally like the technique, many officers believe that the practice is widely approved of by others and expected of them. This is an example of

pluralistic ignorance

If I told you that Jamie, an African American from New York (i.e., a member of a visible cultural minority within the United States), experienced identity denial yesterday, this means that, of the following situations, he experienced

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

Your friend recently entered a few chess competitions, but lost them all really badly. If he has an entity theory of self, what is he most likely to do?

think he has bad chess genes