Cross-cultural psychology
Encyclopedia
Cross-cultural psychology is the scientific study of human behavior and mental process, including both their variability and invariance, under diverse cultural conditions. Through expanding research methodologies to recognise cultural variance in behaviour, language and meaning, it seeks to extend, develop and transform psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

 Central themes, such as affect, cognition
Cognition
In science, cognition refers to mental processes. These processes include attention, remembering, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions. Cognition is studied in various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science...

, conceptions of the self, and issues such as psychopathology, anxiety, and depression, are all re-examined in cross-cultural psychology in an attempt to examine the universality of these concepts. Critics have pointed to methodological flaws in cross-cultural psychological research and claim that serious shortcomings in the theoretical and methodological basis used impede rather than help this scientific search for universality. Cross-cultural psychology is differentiated from Cultural Psychology. The latter is the branch of psychology that holds that human behavior is significantly influenced by cultural differences, meaning that psychological phenomena can only be compared with each other across cultures to a very limited extent. In contrast, cross-cultural psychology includes a search for possible universals in behavior and mental processes.

Various definitions of the field include: "the scientific study of human behaviour and its transmission, taking into account the ways in which behaviours are shaped and influenced by social and cultural forces"; "the empirical study of members of various cultural groups who have had different experiences that lead to predictable and significant differences in behaviour". Culture may also be defined as "the shared way of life of a group of people". They also outline various aims and goals of cross-cultural psychology, including a challenge to the limited cultural perspective that may result if one only studies cultural variables within one's own society.

Early work in cross-cultural psychology was suggested in Lazarus and Steinthal's journal Zeitschrift fur Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft [Journal of Folk Psychology and Language Science] which began to be published in 1860. More empirically oriented research was subsequently conducted by Williams H. R. Rivers (1864–1922) who attempted to measure the intelligence and sensory acuity of indigenous people residing in the Torres Straits area, located between Australia and New Guinea.

It is quite common for cross-cultural psychologists to take one of two possible approaches: the etic approach, which emphasises similarities of cultures, and the emic approach, which emphasises differences between cultures. Generally speaking, it is received wisdom that traditional agriculture-based societies have more collectivist cultures than modern "information societies".

Cross-cultural clinical psychologists (e.g., Jefferson Fish
Jefferson Fish
Jefferson M. Fish is a professor emeritus of psychology at St. John's University in New York City, where he previously served as Chair of the Department of Psychology and as Director of the PhD Program in Clinical Psychology....

) and counseling psychologists (e.g., Paul Pedersen) have applied principles of cross-cultural psychology to psychotherapy and counseling.

Various factors on which cultures have been compared are discussed by Berry et al., including:
  1. Child-rearing. Here, Berry et al. refer to evidence that a number of different dimensions have been found in cross-cultural comparisons of child-rearing practices, including differences on the dimensions of obedience training, responsibility training, nurturance training (the degree to which a sibling will care for other siblings or for older people), achievement training, self-reliance and autonomy;
  2. Differences in personality
    Personality psychology
    Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that studies personality and individual differences. Its areas of focus include:* Constructing a coherent picture of the individual and his or her major psychological processes...

    , in variables such as locus of control
    Locus of control
    Locus of control is a theory in personality psychology referring to the extent to which individuals believe that they can control events that affect them. Understanding of the concept was developed by Julian B...

    ; cross-cultural studies have also been done of the Big Five personality traits
    Big Five personality traits
    In contemporary psychology, the "Big Five" factors of personality are five broad domains or dimensions of personality which are used to describe human personality....

     model of personality, in a number of different cultures including Spain
    Spain
    Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

    , Germany
    Germany
    Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

     and the Philippines
    Philippines
    The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

    .


Cited extensively in the management literature is the work carried out by Hofstede (2001), who compares different cultures on four dimensions – power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity-femininity and individualism-collectivism. Despite its popularity, Hofstede's work has been seriously questioned by McSweeney (2002). Furthermore, Berry et al. challenge the work of Hofstede, proposing alternative measures to assess individualism and collectivism. Indeed, the individualism-collectivism debate has itself proven to be problematic, with Sinha and Tripathi (1994) arguing that strong individualistic and collectivistic orientations may co-exist in the same culture (they discuss India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 in this connection). (See Sinha and Tripathi.

Williams and Best (1990) have looked at different societies in terms of prevailing gender stereotypes, gender-linked self-perceptions and gender roles. They both find universal similarities as well as differences between and within more than 30 nations.

The rise of cross-cultural psychology reflects a more general process of globalisation in the social sciences that seeks to purify specific areas of research have western biases. In this way, cross-cultural psychology together with international psychology
International psychology
The dream of a unified human community seems now within our reach yet still beyond our grasp. Global communication has transformed us and grown our awareness of human diversity. Local, regional and national identities have expanded to include species-wide co-identification as fellow human beings...

 aims to make psychology less ethnocentric in character than it has hitherto been. Cross-cultural psychology is now taught at numerous universities located around the world, both as a specific content area as well as a methodological approach designed to broaden the field of psychology.

Further reading

  • Robert T. Carter (Editor) (2005) Handbook of Racial-cultural Psychology and Counselling. Vols. 1–2 New Jersey:John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-65625-9 (set).
    • Volume 1: Theory and Research ISBN 0-471-38628-6
    • Volume 2: Training and Practice. ISBN 0-471-38629-4
  • Pandey, J., Sinha, D., & Bhawal, D. P. S. Asian contributions to cross-cultural psychology. London: Sage.
  • Shiraev, E., & Levy, D. (2006). Cross-cultural psychology: Critical thinking and contemporary applications (3rd ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
  • Singh, R. & Dutta, S (2010) "Race" and Culture: Tools, Techniques and Trainings. A Manual for Professionals. London: Karnac Systemic Thinking and Practice Series.

Online publications

The following publications on the subject have been made available online on Google Book Search
Google Book Search
Google Books is a service from Google that searches the full text of books that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical character recognition, and stored in its digital database. The service was formerly known as Google Print when it was introduced at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October...

in their entirety or with substantial preview:
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