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You are on page 1/ 35

An Introduction to

Culture and Psychology

Chapter
1
Chapter Contents 1-3 The Contents of Culture 22
1-1 Psychology with a Cultural Perspective 2 Objective Elements 22
Subjective Elements 22
The Goals of Psychology 2
Comprehension Check 29
Psychology across Cultures 3
Impact on Psychological Knowledge 4 1-4 What Is the Association between Culture
Impact on Our Own Lives 5 and Mental Processes and Behavior? 29
Growth of Cross-Cultural Research and
Psychology 5 The Press of Culture and the Push of
Noncultural Factors 30
Comprehension Check 6
The Cyclical Nature of Culture and Behavior
1-2 What Is Culture? 6 and Cultural Changes 31
Universal and Culture-Specific Psychological
Origins of Culture 6 Processes: Etics and Emics 33
A Definition of Culture 14 Comprehension Check 33
What’s Unique about Human Cultures? 17
The Difference between “Society” and Conclusion 34
“Culture” 18
Identifying Groups with Culture 18 Key Terms 35
Contrasting Culture, Race, Personality, and Exploration and Discovery 35
Popular Culture 20
Why Does This Matter to Me? 35
Comprehension Check 21
Suggestions for Further Exploration 35

Learning Objectives
1.1 Explain how the study of culture can impact psychological 1.5 Describe different elements of human cultures, especially
theories and knowledge, and the ultimate goals of the field the various components associated with subjective
of psychology. elements, and give examples.
1.2 Define culture and explain the origins of human cultures. 1.6 Describe the association between culture and mental
1.3 Contrast culture with race, personality, and popular culture. processes and behavior.

1.4 Explain what differentiates human cultures from nonhuman

cultures.

Copyright 2023 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
2 Chapter 1

Many decades ago, a classic work stated that every person is in certain respects
■ like all other people
■ like some other people, and
■ like no other person (Kluckhohn, Murray, & Schneider, 1953).
Over a century of cross-cultural research in psychology has brought this message
home: that there are some universal aspects to all human beings—we are all alike
in certain ways. But we are also members of important cultural groups, making
us similar to others in our groups. And we are like no one else, each individual unique
and different. In this book, we’ll learn about how this message is represented in the
various domains of psychology.
This message is important in today’s ever-diversifying world, which has created
a wonderful environment for personal challenge and growth, but also increased
potential for misunderstandings, confusion, and conflict, much of which we see every
day. Finding ways to keep us all apart and separate is easy; finding ways to find
common ground is not. Cross-cultural psychology offers a way to do so by uncovering
similarities as well as differences in people’s mental processes and behavior.

1-1 Psychology with a Cultural Perspective

The Goals of Psychology

The field of psychology essentially has two main goals. The first is to build a body of
knowledge about people. Psychologists seek to understand behavior when it happens,
explain why it happens, and predict it before it happens. Psychologists achieve this by
conducting research and creating theories based on findings from that research.
The second goal of psychology involves helping improve peoples’ lives.
Psychologists achieve this in many ways as therapists, counselors, trainers, and
consultants. Psychology also achieves this goal by providing information to students
and professionals in other fields, such as nursing and health care, business, and teaching,
to help them in their professions as well. Psychologists and many others work on the
front lines, dealing directly with people to affect their lives positively (Figure 1.1).
These two goals of psychology—creating a body of knowledge and applying
that knowledge—are closely related. Psychologists and other professionals take what
psychology as a field has collectively learned about human behavior and use that
knowledge as a basis for their applications and interventions. This learning initially
comes in the form of academic training in universities. But it continues well after formal
education has ended through continuing education and individual scholarship—
reviewing the literature, attending conferences, and joining and participating in
professional organizations. Psychologists and professionals in many other fields engage
in lifelong learning processes that help them intervene in people’s lives more effectively,
all influenced by research and knowledge generated in psychology. Researchers often
understand the practical implications of their work, and many are well aware that the
value of psychological theory and research is often judged by its practical usefulness in
society (e.g., refer to Gergen et al., 1996). Theories are tested for their validity not only
in the halls of science but also on the streets, and they should be revised because of
what happens on those streets. Real life is ground truth for psychology.

Build a Body of Allow Others to

Knowledge about Take That Body of
People Knowledge and
• Through Scientific Apply It to Intervene
Research in People’s Lives
• Therapists
• Counselors
• Trainers
• Consultants
• Health-Care Workers

Figure 1.1 The Goals

of Psychology as a Field

Psychology across Cultures

Because knowledge generation is an important part of the field of psychology, having
a good grasp of how that knowledge is generated is important. As a science, empirical
research is the vehicle by which knowledge is generated in psychology. Psychologi- cross-cultural
cal research involves a methodology—a procedure—for collecting data about people’s research A research
methodology that tests the
mental processes and behavior in very specific ways. Effective research methodolo-
cultural parameters of psy-
gies have advantages of allowing fairly unequivocal conclusions to be drawn about chological knowledge. Tradi-
data and findings. But one important aspect to realize about research is that research tionally, it involves research
methodologies also constrain or limit the nature of the data collected. Another way of on human behavior that
compares psychological pro-
saying this is that data and findings are always limited by the parameters of the methods used cesses between two or more
to generate the data. cultures. In this book, we
For example, if a study involves data collection about behavior on a computer in also incorporate knowledge
a laboratory at a university, an open question is whether or not that behavior would contrasting human cultures
versus nonhuman animal
occur outside the laboratory where the person is free to act. If a study involved people cultures. This approach is
reporting how they would behave, then an open question would be if people actually primarily concerned with
do what they say they would do in reality. If a study only included participants of a testing the possible limita-
single gender, are the findings applicable to other genders? If a study only included tions of knowledge gleaned
from one culture by study-
20-year-old university students taking introductory psychology classes (which is true ing people of different
of most studies), are the findings applicable to nonstudents, or people of other ages? If cultures.
a study included only samples from the United States, or mainly with students from cross-cultural
affluent backgrounds in North America or Western Europe (which is true of most psychology A subdisci-
Studying Cultural
studies in psychology; Henrich et al., 2010; Rad, Martingano, & Ginges, 2018), are the pline within psychology that
Psychology allows us to be
examines the cultural foun-
able to findings applicable to people from other parts of the globe?
dations of psychological pro-
Cross-cultural research and psychology asks the last question above: Is what we cesses and human behavior.
know about human behavior true across cultures (Figure 1.2)? Cross-cultural research It includes theoretical and
does so by including people of differing cultural backgrounds in psychological methodological frameworks
that posit an important role
studies. Thus, cross-cultural research involves a specific methodological feature,
for culture and its influence
which allows for comparisons of findings across people from different cultures. on mental processes behav-
Cross-cultural psychology is a domain of psychology that takes findings from ior, and vice versa.

Cross-Cultural
Build a Body of Allow Others to
Psychology’s
Knowledge about Take That Body of
Question: Is What We
People Knowledge and
Know about People
• Through Scientific Apply It to Intervene
from This Research
Research in People’s Lives
Applicable to All?
• Therapists
• Counselors
• Trainers
• Consultants
• Health-Care Workers

Figure 1.2 The Goals of Psychology as a Discipline

cross-cultural research and examines cultural parameters of psychological knowledge

and how knowledge about people and their behavior from one culture may or may
not hold for people from other cultures, and creates or revises psychological theories
accordingly.
Cross-cultural research and psychology can be understood as a matter of scientific
philosophy—the logic underlying the methods used to conduct research and generate
knowledge. Cross-cultural research is relatively easy to understand conceptually
because it involves a change in the nature of participant characteristics (incorporation
of people of different cultural backgrounds). But this simple change allows us to
ask profound questions about the psychological nature of people, especially about
whether information we have learned from monocultural studies is applicable to all
people of all cultures.
Because cross-cultural research is a method, it is not topic specific. Cross-cultural
psychologists are interested in a broad range of phenomena related to human
behavior—from perception to language, child-rearing to psychopathology. What
distinguishes cross-cultural psychology from others is not the topic of study but
the interest in understanding the association between culture and behavior, testing
limitations to knowledge using cross-cultural research methods, and understanding
knowledge and theory on a global scale.

Impact on Psychological Knowledge

Scientific philosophy suggests that we have obligations to question the scientific
process and the nature of knowledge learned about human behavior, especially
because the standards of care used when we evaluate the rigor and quality of
research are also bound by the cultural frameworks within which our science occurs
(Pe-Pua, 1989). Knowledge created in psychology should be descriptive of all people
because the field of psychology has an obligation to all whose lives are touched by its
knowledge. This obligation is even greater in an ever-diversifying world.

Cross-cultural research and psychology play important roles in helping psycholo-

gists produce that knowledge. Cross-cultural research has sometimes confirmed what
has been found in monocultural studies, but sometimes not, resulting in revisions of
theories about behavior. As a result, there is an evolution in psychology, with culture
incorporated as a necessary and important ingredient and the field finding ways to
educate and be educated by knowledge informed by culture. We are in the midst of
this evolution, making this a very exciting time for psychology.
By testing mental processes and behavior across cultures, cross-cultural
psychology examines whether psychological theories and principles are universal universal A
(true for all people of all cultures) or culture specific (true for some people of some psychological process
that is found to be true or
cultures). Psychology professionals should know which psychological processes are
applicable for all people of
universal and which are culture specific. The impact of the growth of cross-cultural all cultures.
psychology and research has been enormous, and we introduce you to the main cross-
culture specific A
cultural findings and theories in the major domains of psychology in this book. psychological process that
is considered to be true for
some people of some cul-
Impact on Our Own Lives tures but not for others.

Psychological theories are only as good as their applicability to people in their lives
(Amir & Sharon, 1988; Gergen et al., 1996), and a contribution of cross-cultural
psychology to application is the process it fosters in asking questions. Practicing
psychology with a cultural perspective is an exercise in critical thinking, and students
of cross-cultural psychology can improve their critical thinking skills, asking ques-
tions such as is what we know true for all people regardless of their cultural back-
grounds? If not, under what conditions do differences occur, and why? What is it
about culture that produces such differences? What factors may contribute to these
differences? Being skeptical yet inquisitive defines the process underlying psychol-
ogy from a cross-cultural perspective. Improving critical thinking skills is even more
important than content because it can be applied to all areas of our lives, especially in
today’s diverse world.
Understanding mental processes and behavior across cultures is also important
for individuals in their personal and professional lives. Health-care workers, first
responders, therapists and counselors, businesspeople—just about everyone—will
live, work, or interact with people from differing cultural backgrounds and in diverse
environments. Gaining a cross-cultural perspective on psychological knowledge
can help inform those interactions, making them more effective and constructive for
mutually beneficial outcomes.

Growth of Cross-Cultural Research and Psychology

Cross-cultural psychology has had a substantial impact on psychological knowledge
in the past half-century and more. Much of it is due to increased awareness of the
importance of culture as an influential factor on behavior and, unfortunately, increased
awareness of the frequency of intercultural conflicts within and between countries
(e.g., refer to Christopher et al., 2014). The flagship journal of the International Asso-
ciation for Cross-Cultural Psychology, the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, has
now passed its 50th year of publishing top-tier cross-cultural research. Other specialty
journals also exist, and the number of research articles incorporating people of differ-
ent cultures has increased tremendously in all other journals of psychological science.
Theoretical models are increasingly incorporating culture, and the number of books
involving culture has also increased.

Heightened interest in cross-cultural psychology is a normal and healthy devel-

opment. Many scientists have come to recognize cultural limitations of knowledge
and theories, and the increasing importance and recognition of cross-cultural psychol-
ogy are reactions to this realization.

Comprehension Check
1. What are the goals of the field of psychology? How does the field
address those goals?
2. How does the study of culture impact the goals of the field of
psychology?

1-2 What Is Culture?

Origins of Culture
Understanding psychology with a cultural perspective starts with a better apprecia-
tion of what culture is and where it comes from. Having a better appreciation of the
origins of human cultures helps us appreciate cultures and cultural differences and
similarities when we engage with them. Thus, we begin our introduction to culture
by discussing its origins, which starts with acknowledging the environment and how
it can influence behavior, because environments have a major impact on how humans
live (Table 1.1).

Environment
Climate. A major component of the environment that influences behavior is climate.
Some areas of the world like New York or Seoul have harsh winters and miserably hot
summers. Others, like South and Southeast Asia, have hot, humid weather all year
long, while other areas like the Middle East or North Africa have hot, dry weather
all year long. Some areas have relatively mild climates, like San Francisco or Seattle.
These ecological differences influence ways of living. Groups that live near the equator,
in hot, humid, tropical areas, will adopt lifestyles that are very different from that
of groups living in temperate or arctic zones. Those groups will have different dress

Table 1.1 Factors That Influence the Creation of Cultures

Group Life Environments The Evolved Human Mind

■ Division of Labor ■ Climate ■ Basic Human Needs and

■ Efficiency ■ Resources Motives
■ Increase Survival ■ Arable Land ■ Universal Psychological
Probability ■ Money Toolkit
■ Population Density
■ Diseases
■ Previous Cultures
■ Contact with Other Cultures

styles, different ways of walking, different architecture, and different rituals and tradi-
tions, because of the climate.
An aspect of climate that is important to human cultures is known as deviation deviation from
from temperate climate (Van de Vliert, 2009). Humans need to regulate their body temperate climate
The degree to which the
temperatures and have an easier time doing so in temperate climates, which is around average temperature of
22°C (about 72°F; Figure 1.3). Much colder or hotter climates make life more difficult a given region will differ
and demanding, and harsher climates require people to do more to adapt. Harsher from what is considered to
climates create greater risks of food shortage and spoilage, stricter diets, and more be the relatively “easiest”
temperature to live in, which
health problems (e.g., infectious and parasitic diseases tend to be more frequent in is 22°C (about 72°F).
hotter climates; more in Chapter 11). Demanding climates require special clothing,
housing, and working arrangements; and special organizations for production,
transportation, trade, storage, and special care and cure facilities for food. Groups
in hotter climates tend to organize their daily activities more around shelter, shade,
and temperature changes that occur throughout the day. For example, part of Spanish
culture is to shut down businesses in the midafternoon, during the hottest time of
the day, and reopen later, pushing back working hours. There it is not uncommon for
people to have dinner on the streets at 11:00 p.m. or midnight. People who live nearer
the poles organize their lives around available sunlight. In psychological terms, more
demanding cold or hot climates arouse a chain of needs shared by all inhabitants of an
area (Van de Vliert, 2009).

Resources. Another major component of the environment is resources, includ-

ing the presence or absence of water or land to farm and grow vegetables or raise
animals. Lands void of natural resources may encourage teamwork and community
spirit among its members and relationships with other groups that have abundant
resources in order to survive. These needs and relationships will foster certain psycho-
logical characteristics and attributes that complement teamwork, community spirit,
and interdependence. In lands with abundant resources, groups would have less need
for such values and attitudes, and these attributes would be less important.

°C °F °L
50 120 Heat
30
Stress
40 100 20

30 10
80
22 0
60
10
10
40
20
0
20 30 Figure 1.3 Thermometer
–10 for Measuring Livability
0 40 Cold
Stress
Source: Van de Vliert, E. (2017).
Climatic imprints on personality.
Nature Human Behaviour, 1(12), 864–865.
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-017-0246-7

arable land The type of A related concept is arable land—the amount of land on which food can grow to
land that can sustain life by sustain people in an area. Huge numbers of people in small spaces and scarce food will
food production of some
sort. create different ways of living compared to small numbers of people in huge spaces
with abundant food. Moreover, the type of food that can be produced can be linked to
interesting psychological and cultural differences. In China, for example, people who
live in regions with a history of farming rice are generally more interdependent on
others around them, while people who live in regions with a history of farming wheat
are generally more independent of others (Talhelm et al., 2014).
Perhaps the major type of resource that influences human cultures today is
money. Money is a human cultural product, not a part of nature. Affluence—the
amount of money available to a person or group—has major impacts on culture (Van
de Vliert, 2009). Abundant money helps buffer the consequences of a lack of resources
and harsh climates because people can buy things to make up for the lack of resources
and harsh climate. This has interesting psychological consequences; people and
groups with more money can afford to be less in sync with others because cooperation
is not as essential for survival. People and groups with less money, however, need to
cooperate in order to survive. This is perhaps why, even within countries, differences
in affluence are associated with cultural differences.

Other Environmental Factors. There are many other environmentally related fac-
population density tors that influence culture, such as population density, which is the ratio of the num-
The number of people ber of people that live in an area relative to the size of that area. Some geographic
living within a given unit of
areas, especially large urban centers, have lots of people living in a very small space,
space. In a place like a city
in which a large number of like New York City, Tokyo, Hong Kong, or Mexico City. Other areas have only few
people live in a relatively people in a very large area, like Alaska or the northern island of Hokkaido in Japan.
small space, the population Crowded places will influence how people live and behave, which will be different
density is higher than in
than living in an area with very few people.
a rural area where fewer
people live in each similar The incidence and prevalence of infectious diseases in different regions of the
amount of space. world also affect culture (Murray & Schaller, 2010), as do groups’ previous cultures.
This is especially true for immigrants, who come to a land with an already existing
culture and must deal with the process of acculturation (covered in Chapter 14).
Groups also differ in the amount of contact they have with other cultures through
geographical proximity and accessibility. Is the environment bounded by many other
regions with many other cultures, as in Europe? Or is the environment bounded by
ocean, creating an island mentality of separateness, like Japan or the United Kingdom?
One could argue that the United States has some aspects of an island mentality. All
these factors influence people’s attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, and hence their
culture.
The factors discussed here affect cultures within countries. In the United States,
for instance, each part of the country has a local economy that comes from the
geography, climate, and resources available. Growing corn on the northern Alaskan
slopes is difficult; there is no timber or fishing industry in Death Valley; and there
aren’t many gold or coal mines in Florida. People still have to survive from what they
can find around them (unless huge amounts of money are used to overcome the harsh
environment, such as in Las Vegas). Harsh climates and scarce resources tend to push
people toward valuing the idea of hospitality and helping one’s family and neighbors.
In very dissimilar places like the Middle East and northern Greenland, we find similar
emphases on hospitality and helping, which is not as much emphasized in many other
places, and much of these emphases result from geography and climate. People who

live in places with high population density and low resources need to cooperate in
order to survive.

Latitudinal Psychology. Exciting new research has led to the development of a

latitudinal psychology, which has built on the recognition of the importance of latitudinal
psychology A
climate and resources, especially affluence, mentioned previously (Van de Vliert, 2009;
perspective that understands
Van de Vliert & Kong, 2019; Van de Vliert & Van Lange, 2019). This theory suggests group differences in mental
that harsh, demanding climates produce environmental stress, which, in turn, affects processes and behaviors
ways of living. These stresses, however, can be buffered by greater affluence, that is, according to a combination
of distance from the equator
money. People or groups with more money can purchase things and services (e.g.,
and affluence.
clothes, heating and air conditioning, refrigerators) to help manage environmental
stresses. People and groups with less money cannot, and thus their ways of living are
more affected by environmental stress.
Considering temperate climates (22°C, 72°F) as a midpoint, latitudinal psychology
uses the north and south poles of the globe as points of reference to measure
environmental stress, and locates human habitats in terms of their geographic position
on a bipolar axis from the poles. In doing so, stress is the least when habitats are close
to areas with temperate climate, and furthest from that climate, that is, closer to either
pole. Using latitudes as reference points and accumulating global psychological data
from multiple sources, a number of psychological variables have been associated
with latitude in predicted ways, including creativity, aggressiveness, life satisfaction,
individualism, trust, and suicidality (Van de Vliert & Van Lange, 2019).
For example, review Figure 1.4, which is a scatterplot graph of the association
between latitude of residence and average creativity across many countries of the
world. On average, creativity increases in countries away from a midpoint, which is
not the equator because it’s too hot, but slightly away in a temperate climate zone.
Creativity increases on both sides of the graph, indicating that it increases toward both
the north and south poles.
As another example, refer to Figure 1.5, which shows the same type of graph
related to aggressiveness. On average, aggressiveness is highest near the midpoint
and decreases on both sides of the graph as countries are nearer the poles.
Other data supporting a latitudinal perspective in psychology also exist. Across
108 countries, ancient climates conducive to dairy farming and lactose tolerance, com-
bined with resources from industrial development, have been linked to freedom and
autonomous individual choice (Van de Vliert et al., 2018). These kinds of data are new
and exciting for the field and provide a different way for understanding various con-
textual influences on culture and behavior.

The Evolved Human Mind

From the beginning of time, all human groups have had the same problem, namely,
how to survive, if not thrive, in the place they lived. In order to do so, they need
to adapt to their environments. Fortunately, people do not come to the world as
blank slates in order to create solutions. They come to the world with a universal universal
psychological
psychological toolkit that provides them with the tools with which to adapt and toolkit A set of basic
survive (Table 1.2). The universal psychological toolkit refers to the needs, motives, psychological skills and
and many tools—abilities and aptitudes—with which nature and evolution endowed abilities that people can use
to meet their needs. These
humans in order to adapt to their environments and survive. These tools, or “cognitive
include complex cognitive
gadgets” (Heyes, 2020), emerged with the evolution of the human brain and are skills, language, emotions,
important parts of the human mind. and personality traits.

3 Switzerland

Sweden
Germany
Luxembourg Finland
USA

Denmark
2 Netherlands
Singapore UK
Israel Japan Austria
Norway
Belgium
Iceland
Qatar S. Korea Ireland
New Zealand France
Canada
Australia Estonia
UAE Slovenia
Malta
1 Malaysia Czech Rep.
Italy
Latvia
Liberia Spain Rungary
Creativity (Z)

Taiwan
Hong Kong Poland
Oman Cyprus Portugal Lithuania
Guyana Russia
China Bulgaria Croatia
Saudi Arabia Brunei Slovakia
Chile S. Africa Mauritius Jamaica Greece Belarus
Trinidad and Tobago Thailand Mongolia
0 Brazil Seychelles Jordan
Uruguay Namibia Vietnam Belize Turkey Kazakhstan Ukraine
Barbados Mexico Serbia Moldova
Zambia Tunisia
Bolivia Panama Kuwait
Argentina Botswana Senegal Lebanon Georgia
Ecuador EI Salvador Iran
Paraguay Mauritania Bosniai
Suriname
Swaziland Morocco Kyrgyzstan
Uganda Honduras
Madagascar Fiji Syria Uzbekistan
Peru Kenya Nicaragua
Libya Tajikistan
Lesotho Zimbabwe Myanmar
–1 Tanzania Guinea Cuba
Pakistan
Angola
Venezuela Haiti Algeria Albania
Mozambique Cape Verde Nepal
Yemen
Burundi Togo
Laos
Sudan
Niger

–2

–40 –20 0 20 40 60
South North
Latitude

Figure 1.4 Latitudinal Distribution of Creativity. Scatterplot (with Best-Fitting Regression Line) Shows the
Relationship between Latitude of Residence and Creativity. Each Dot Represents a Country’s Population
Source: Van de Vliert & Van Lange (2019), p. 868.

Needs and Motives. Humans come to the world with basic needs that are ultimately
related to reproductive success (Boyer, 2000; Buss, 2001). These include physical needs—
the need to eat, drink, sleep, deal with waste, and reproduce—as well as safety and
security needs—the need for hygiene, shelter, and warmth (remember our discussion
above about climate). These needs are universal to all people of all cultures, and if
these needs are not met, people don’t survive.

Eritrea
3

Somalia

Afghanistan
Sudan Myanmar

2 DR Congo Turkmenistan
Pakistan
Chad Iran
Russia
Colombia
Zimbabwe
Guyana Nigeria Cuba
Maldives Yemen
Venezuela Guatemala Belarus
Suriname Nepal
Kenya
1 Burundi Sri Lanka
Mexico Uzbekistan
Aggressiveness (Z)

S. Africa Central African Rep. Honduras Lebanon

Ivory Coast China Kyrgyzstan
Lesotho Peru EI Salvador Jamaica Saudi Arabia
Cameroon Georgia
Algeria Azerbaijan
Swaziland Paraguay Rwanda
Uganda Naiti Laos
Brazil Tajikistan
Madagascar Kazakhstan
Seychelles Ecuador India Turkey
Papua New Guinea Vietnam Senegal Mauritania Ukraine
Comoros Albania
Argentina Mozambique Mali Syria Mongolia
0 Zambia Liberia Bhutan Libya Macedonia
Tenga Bolivia Sierra Leone Moldova
Tanzania Niger USA
Namibia Nicaragua Bahrain Tunisia Bulgaria Romania
Fiji Malawi Morocco
Uruguay Botswana Togo Serbia
Indonesia Poland
Jordan Boniai
Malaysia Costa Rica Cyprus Croatia
Chile Mauritius Singapore UAE Kuwait Lithuania
Spain France
Ghana Taiwan
–1 S. Korea UK Latvia
Cape Verde Greece
Australia Oman Qatar Netherlands
Japan
Slovakia Estonia
Hong Kong Malta Slovenia Belgium Canada
Ireland
New Zealand Portugal Sweden
Switzerland Germany
Austria
Norway
–2 Denmark
Iceland
Luxembourg Finland

–40 –20 0 20 40 60
South North
Latitude

Figure 1.5 Latitudinal Distribution of Aggressiveness. Scatterplot (with Best-Fitting Regression Line) Shows the
Relationship between Latitude of Residence and Aggressiveness. Each Dot Represents a Country’s Population
Source: Van de Vliert & Van Lange (2019), p. 869

These basic needs are associated with social motives (Hogan, 1982; Sheldon, 2004),
which are also ultimately related to reproductive success. Social motives include the
motive to achieve and the motive to affiliate with others. Over history, people must have
solved a host of distinct social problems in order to adapt and thus achieve repro-
ductive success. These social problems include negotiating complex status hierarchies,
forming successful work and social groups, attracting mates, fighting off potential

Table 1.2 Contents of the Universal Psychological Toolkit

Complex Cognitive
Needs and Motives Abilities Emotions Personality Traits

■ Physical Needs ■ Shared Intentionality ■ Basic Emotions ■ Extraversion

■ Safety and Security ■ Verbal Language ■ Self-Conscious ■ Neuroticism
Needs ■ Ratcheting Emotions ■ Openness
■ Motives to Achieve ■ Memory ■ Moral Emotions ■ Agreeableness
■ Motives to Affiliate ■ Hypothetical ■ Conscientiousness
with Others ■ Reasoning
■ Problem Solving
■ Planning

rivals for food and sexual partners, giving birth and raising children, and battling
nature (Buss, 1988, 1991, 2001). People need to do these things in their everyday lives
today, as well as throughout human history.

Intentionality. Humans are endowed with several amazing cognitive tools that
allow for complex cognition. These tools emerged in conjunction with the coevolu-
tion of the human brain and culture (Heyes, 2020). One of the most important think-
ing abilities in the toolkit concerns intentionality—the wishes, desires, and motives
to think and act. Humans are not unique in knowing that the self and others have
intentions; other animals also have such cognitive abilities. What sets humans apart
from other animals is knowing that others know that one has intentions, which can be
summarized like this: “I know I have intentions, and that you have intentions; and I
also know that you know that I have intentions.” That’s why being in public takes on
special meaning for humans, because we know that others can make judgments about
us, but the anonymity of darkened theaters or anonymous online chat rooms allows
us to do and say things we normally wouldn’t in person. That’s also why we don’t
just take off our clothes in the middle of the street or just punch those with whom we
disagree. Other animals, however, seem to not care as much.
Because of this complex cognitive ability, we have causal beliefs (which form the
basis for attributions, which we will cover in Chapter 14). Morality, a uniquely human
product, is rooted in this unique human cognitive ability (more in Chapter 4). This
ability apparently turns on in humans around nine months of age (Tomasello, 1999),
which is a critical time of development of many cognitive abilities (more in Chapter 4).

Verbal Language. Verbal language is another incredibly important tool in our tool-
kit. Humans, unlike other animals, have the unique ability to symbolize their physical
and metaphysical world (Premack, 2004), to create sounds representing those symbols
(morphemes), to create rules connecting those symbols to meaning (syntax and gram-
mar), and to put all these abilities together in sentences. Moreover, since the use of
papyrus to develop paper, humans developed writing systems so we can reduce those
oral expressions to words on paper. This book, and everything you have ever read, are
shared intentionality uniquely human products.
Knowledge about motiva-
Language is an ability that sets humans apart from all others. The major function
tions concerning behaviors
that are common among of human language abilities is to communicate a shared intentionality (Matsumoto
people in a group. & Hwang, 2016; Tomasello & Herrmann, 2010), that is, for humans to communicate

with others about what they are going to do and not do. Shared intentionality is at the
heart of social coordination, which allows for the creation of unique aspects of human
culture (Fiske, 2000). Increased social coordination because of shared intentionality
allows humans to be extremely efficient in meeting and adapting to the demands of
the environment in order to not only survive but also thrive.

Ratcheting. Humans also have the ability to build on improvements continually.

When humans create something that is useful, it usually evolves to a next generation,
in which it is even better. This is true for cell phones, computers, cars, music players,
raising crops, breeding animals, and, unfortunately, developing weapons. Tomasello,
Kruger, and Ratner (1993) called this the ratchet effect. Like a ratchet, an improve- ratchet effect The
ment never goes backward; it only goes forward and continues to improve on itself. concept that humans
continually improve on
The ratchet effect does not occur in other animals; monkeys may use twigs to catch
improvements, that they
insects, but they don’t improve on that tool. do not go backward or
revert to a previous state.
Memory. Our cognitive toolkits also include the ability to have memories, and Progress occurs because
improvements move
because we have memory, we can create histories, and because we can create histories,
themselves upward, much
we have traditions, customs, and heritage (Balter, 2010; Liu et al., 2005; Liu et al., 2009; like a ratchet.
Paez et al., 2008; Wang, 2006; Wang & Ross, 2007). Our cognitive skills also include
the ability to think hypothetically and about the future, to problem solve, and to plan.
This allows us to plan things and worry about the uncertainty of the future, both of
which form the basis of important human cultural practices.

Emotions. Humans are also endowed with the ability to have emotions. Emotions
are rapid information processing systems that aid humans in reacting to events that
require immediate action and that have important consequences to one’s welfare with
minimal cognitive processing (more in Chapter 8). They are part of an archaic, bio-
logically innate system that we share with some other animals. Humans have many
different types of emotions, such as basic emotions; self-conscious emotions like pride,
shame, guilt, or embarrassment; or moral emotions such as outrage or indignation. As
part of our evolutionary heritage, emotions have allowed humans to react immedi-
ately to events in the environment that have aided in our survival.
Facial expressions of emotion are an important component of the emotion system,
and as we will learn in Chapter 8, some emotions are universally expressed and rec-
ognized across all cultures. Facial expressions of emotion also allow humans to share
intentions, just like verbal language. Unlike verbal language, however, humans share
the ability to produce facial expressions of emotion with some other animals.

Personality Traits. Humans also come to the world equipped with personality
traits. These are partially biologically innate predispositions humans bring with them
to the world that help them adapt to their environments, solve social problems, and
address their basic needs. We’ll discuss these more in Chapter 6, where we will cover
universal personality traits of extroversion, neuroticism, openness, conscientiousness,
and agreeableness.
Collectively, the universal psychological toolkit allows humans to adapt to their
environments in order to meet their needs. That’s why people born anywhere in the
world can learn their specific cultural ways and language, because they all have basic
toolkits that allow them to do so. People are pre-equipped with an evolved, naturally
selected set of abilities and aptitudes that allows them to adapt, survive, and create
human cultures.

Group Life
Despite the amazing capabilities humans come into the world with, people learned
many hundreds of thousands of years ago that living in groups was better than living
alone (just as many other animal species have). Being alone, a person has relatively
more trouble surviving the attacks of animals, feeding themselves, taking care of chil-
dren, and meeting all the other tasks of living than doing so with others. And humans
generally want the companionship of others.
Living in groups increase the chances for survival because group life increases
efficiency through division of labor. Division of labor allows groups to accomplish
more than any one person can, which is functional and adaptive for all group mem-
bers. Division of labor allows for accomplishing more tasks so that survival rates
increase. Shared intentionality and all the tools in the universal psychological toolkit
discussed earlier, especially language, allow us to achieve greater social coordination
within our groups. Thus, humans can decide who will do what, when, where, how,
and why so that any one person doesn’t have to do it all.
But group life also has a potential downside, as possibilities for social conflicts and
chaos increase because people are different. Because of those differences, groups can
become inefficient, reducing probability for survival. Individuals can also have differ-
ent goals and agendas, and even work to subvert group goals. If groups are uncoordi-
nated and individuals just do their own thing without considering others, conflict and
disorganization occur. Thus, living in groups also bring the potential for social chaos.
Group life therefore poses a problem for humans as they struggle to adapt to their
environments in order to survive—how can any group increase social coordination (and
thus efficiency) while at the same time decrease social chaos? The answer is culture.

A Definition of Culture
A Functional Understanding of Culture
Putting the previous section together, all human groups have a universal problem of
how to adapt to their environments in order to address their needs and motives; thus,
they must create solutions to these problems. These solutions can be very specific to
each group because the contexts in which each group lives—the physical environ-
ment, social factors, and types and sizes of their families and communities—are differ-
ent. Every human group requires social coordination; if people are coordinated, they
are efficient in doing their part for their group to survive, and shared intentionality is
at the root of social coordination. If groups are not coordinated, there is social chaos,
which would undermine efficiency and ultimately survival. Thus we need to main-
tain social order and reduce social chaos, so we can accomplish tasks efficiently and
survive.
Humans come to the world with universal psychological toolkits to create ways to
adapt their behavior to their environment and maximize available resources in order
to meet their needs, maintain social order, and reduce social chaos. These adaptations
produce behaviors, ways of living, ways of thinking, and ways of being. These ways
are adopted by groups to help them survive, if not thrive. These “ways” are culture.
“Culture” is a metaphor for these ways, helping explain and describe those ways.
Culture provides guidelines on what to do, how to think, and what to feel. Those
guidelines are passed from one generation to the next so that future generations don’t
have to keep reinventing the wheel; cultural products are always ratcheted up, never
down (Figure 1.6).

Group Life

Behaviors That
Increase Social Social
Coordination and Complexity
Reduce Social Chaos

Need for
Culture Social
Coordination

Figure 1.6 A Functional Understanding of Culture

Previous Definitions
Defining culture is very difficult because the word culture is used in many different
ways in everyday language and discourse and touches on so many aspects of life.
Over the years, many scholars have defined culture differently. Culture has been used
to describe
■ rules, norms, learning, or problem solving; the origins of a group and its heri-
tage or traditions; and the organization of a group (Berry et al., 1992; Kroeber &
Kluckholn, 1952/1963).
■ general characteristics; food and clothing; housing and technology; economy and
transportation; individual and family activities; community and government;
welfare, religion, and science; and sex and the life cycle (Murdock, Ford, &
Hudson, 1971; Barry, 1980; Berry et al., 1992).
■ all capabilities and habits learned as members of a society (Tylor, 1865).
■ social heredity (Linton, 1936).
■ patterns of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting
the distinct achievements of human groups, including their embodiments in arti-
facts (Kroeber & Kluckholn, 1952/1963).
■ the totality of equivalent and complementary learned meanings maintained by a
human population, or by identifiable segments of a population, and transmitted
from one generation to the next (Rohner, 1984).
■ not only rules and meanings but also behaviors (Jahoda, 1984).

■ aspects of personality (Pelto & Pelto, 1975).

■ shared symbol systems transcending individuals (Geertz, 1975).
■ the shared way of life of a group of people (Berry et al., 1992).
■ an information-based system that allows people to live together and satisfy their
needs (Baumeister, 2005).
The concept of culture also has different meanings in other cultures. In Japan,
culture may refer to flower arranging or a tea ceremony. In France, culture might refer
to art, history, or food. In the United Arab Emirates, culture may refer to traditions
and religious rituals. Thus the concept of culture itself is culture-bound. Culture, in
its broadest sense, cannot be fully covered in one place—not in this book, not in a
university course, not in any training program. Thus, we must begin by recognizing
the breadth, scope, and enormity of culture.

A Working Definition for This Book

culture A unique We define human culture as unique meaning and information systems, shared within
meaning and information groups and transmitted across generations, which allow groups to meet survival needs, pursue
system, shared by a group
and transmitted across
happiness and well-being, and derive meaning from life.
generations, that allows the At their most elemental level, human cultures exist to enable us to meet basic
group to meet basic needs of needs of survival. Human cultures provide guidelines to meet others, procreate and
survival, pursue happiness produce offspring, put food on the table, provide shelter from the elements, and care
and well-being, and derive
meaning from life.
for our daily biological essential needs. That’s a part of culture we share with nonhu-
man animals (more later).
But human cultures are so much more than that. They allow for complex social
networks and relationships. They allow us to enhance the meaning of normal, daily
activities. They allow us to pursue happiness, and be creative in music, art, and drama.
They allow us to seek recreation and engage in sports and organize competition,
whether in the local community football club or the Olympic Games. Human cultures
allow us to search the sea and space, and create mathematics as well as an educational
system. They allow us to go to the moon, create research laboratories on uninhabitable
areas like Antarctica, and send probes to Mars and Jupiter. Unfortunately, human cul-
tures also allow us to have wars, create weapons of mass destruction, and recruit and
train terrorists.
Human cultures do all this by creating and maintaining complex social systems,
institutionalizing and improving cultural practices, creating beliefs about the world,
and communicating meaning systems to other humans and subsequent generations.
They are the product of the evolution of the human mind and complex abilities and
aptitudes that are part of the universal psychological toolkit, in response to specific
environments and the resources available. Cultures are products of the interaction
among universal biological needs and functions, universal social problems needed to
address those needs, and the context in which people live. Cultures are solutions to
the problem of living, that is, groups’ adaptations to their contexts to address their
social motives and biological needs. As adaptational responses to the environment,
cultures help to select behaviors, attitudes, values, and opinions that optimize the tap-
ping of resources to meet survival needs and motives. Out of a myriad behaviors pos-
sible in the human repertoire, cultures help focus people’s behaviors and attention on
a few limited alternatives to maximize their effectiveness, given their resources and
their environment (Poortinga, 1990).

What’s Unique about Human Cultures?

All living beings need to adapt to their environments to meet basic needs and survive,
and many characteristics of human cultural life are shared with other animals. Many
animals are social and work and live in groups: fish swim in schools, wolves hunt in
packs, and lions roam in prides. Many animal societies have social networks and hier-
archies; the staring game played by humans is used by animals to create dominance
hierarchies, and like the human game, animals that smile or avert their gaze lose and
become the subordinate. Nonhuman animals invent and use tools (Whiten, Horner, &
De Waal, 2005); perhaps the most famous example of this is monkeys who use twigs
to get insects to eat. Japanese monkeys at Koshima Island washed sweet potatoes and
bathed in the sea (Matsuzawa, 2001), and their relatives began to wash sweet potatoes.
Many animals communicate with each other; bees dance to communicate the source
of flowers; ants leave trails to communicate their paths to themselves and others.
Thus, animals have at least a rudimentary form of culture consisting of social customs
(McGrew, 2004) and solutions to the problem of adapting to context in order to meet
basic needs for survival (Boesch, 2003; refer also to de Waal, 2013).
Yet human cultures are different from other animal cultures. Understanding how
we are different serves as an important basis to understanding how humans are uni-
versally similar in important ways, because the largest cultural difference in the world is
not among the various human cultures around the world, but between human and nonhuman
animal cultures. This begs the question of what is unique about human cultures.
Several characteristics of human cultural life allow human cultures to be different
from those of nonhuman animals. Human cultures are cumulative; knowledge, tools,
technology, and know-how accumulate over time and continue to improve (recall our
discussion above about ratcheting) (Dean et al., 2012). Humans have specialized socio-
cognitive skills, which include teaching through verbal instructions, imitation, and
prosociality that allow them to reach higher-level solutions when solving problems;
other animals do not possess these skills, which prevents them from achieving a
cumulative culture that rachets up (Dean et al., 2012). Human cultures have language,
which allows them to share intentions within and among each other like no other
animal species can.
For these and many other reasons, human cultures differ from animal cultures on
three major dimensions: complexity, differentiation, and institutionalization. First, human
cultures are complex. We have many levels of social structures, groups, communities,
and so on, embedded within and branching across each other, and individuals can be
members of multiple groups, organizations, and communities at any one time and
especially across time.
Human cultures are differentiated. Role specialization is rampant throughout
many human cultures, and we have people who do very different things in order for
the entire cultural group to survive. Think about all the various jobs that exist in many
human cultures today and how spread out yet interconnected they all are; all are
collectively part of the differentiated machinery of human cultures that allows those
cultures to function.
Finally, human cultures are institutionalized. We create organizations, govern-
ments, clubs, and many other social structures within many cultures, each with their
own rules and norms. Businesses; churches, mosques, and temples; city, state, county,
and federal governments; sport organizations, and the like all have their own struc-
tures at many levels of society, all contributing to human cultures.

These characteristics differentiate human from nonhuman cultures. For example,

not only do humans make tools, but we also make tools to make tools. We create auto-
mated processes to make tools, create organizations to make the tools to make the
tools, and mass distribute those tools around the world for global consumption. The
same is true for growing and distributing food, which is one of the reasons many peo-
ple can enjoy food from almost anywhere around the world almost any time of the
year. These accomplishments are possible because humans have complex social cogni-
tion, language, shared intentionality, and ratcheting.
For these reasons, human cultural life is very unique and different from that
of nonhuman animals. Humans have evolved to have unique human cultures, and
human cultures ensure a great diversity in life. Increased diversity, in fact, greatly aids
in survival, and humans appear to be doing a good job at surviving.

The Difference between “Society” and “Culture”

We distinguish between the terms “society” and “culture.” Society refers to a system
or structure of interrelationships among individuals and groups. Culture refers to the
meanings and information that are associated with those social structures and inter-
relationships. “Family,” for example, is a social group that exists all around the world.
But each human culture gives the concept of family its own unique meaning, and
individuals draw specific information from these meanings. “Older brother” is part of
many families and thus of many societies. The meaning of “older brother,” however, is
different in different cultures. In some cultures, there is little difference between older
or younger brothers or sisters—each is seen as an individual. In other cultures, age
is associated with status in a hierarchy, and older brother is a relatively more exalted
position within the family, associated with certain duties and obligations that do not
exist with younger siblings.
Society and culture are terms often used interchangeably, most likely because one
doesn’t exist without the other, and in everyday discourse, “society” often refers to
“culture.” In this book, we focus on culture, which is the meaning and information
system associated with groups.

Identifying Groups with Culture

Given our definition earlier, groups can be identified as having culture if they have
a meaning and information associated with them that is transmitted across genera-
tions. One important marker of a cultural group is likely language. As we will discuss
in Chapter 9, language is a symbol system that allows groups to represent meaning-
ful things in its world by encoding them into symbols known as words, creating and
incorporating unique rules (syntax, grammar, pragmatics) to manipulate those sym-
bols, and communicating them among its members in unique ways. Language allows
for symbolic representations of a meaning and information system of a group.
Even within languages, different dialects of a language often denote different
subcultures. English, for example, is the primary language of England, parts of
Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. The same is true of Spanish,
French, and Arabic among various countries of the world. But there are differences in
the specific use of languages across countries, and they denote interesting differences
in cultures. Within countries, different dialects and regional differences in language
denote differences in local and regional cultures.

Cultures are also associated with countries. “Country” is a geopolitical

delineation of a world area, but they have the characteristics of culture. Countries are
defined by specific boundaries that describe their environment—geography, climate,
and natural resources. Countries also have their own unique sociocultural history,
language, government, and economic base, all of which affect culture. At the same
time, many countries have subcultures or may even be a constellation of different
cultures without a major culture. There are major cultural differences, for instance,
within countries in different regions of the world, such as the Middle East, North
Africa, and South and Southeast Asia. Data from 35 African countries, for instance,
demonstrated that ethnolinguistic distinctions are just as important as nation in
delineating cultures (Van Pinxteren, 2020). Different cities within a country also
have different cultures (Sevincer, Varnum, & Kitayama, 2017). In the United States,
work has suggested the existence of 11 separate cultures (refer to Figure 1.7; from
Woodard, 2011).

First Nation

The Midlands New

The Left France
Coast

Yankeedom Yankeedom
The Far West
New
Netherland
The Midlands

Tidewater
Greater Appalachia

Deep South Atlantic

Ocean

Pacific New France

EL Norte
Ocean
Part of the
Spanish
Caribbean

Figure 1.7 Different Cultures within the United States: The American Nations Today
Source: Woodard, C. (2011). American nations: A history of the eleven rival regional cultures of North America. Viking Press.
© Cengage.

Different ethnic groups also have culture. The word ethnicity is derived from the
Greek ethnos, meaning people of a nation or tribe, and is used to denote one’s racial,
national, or cultural origins. Ethnicity is generally used in reference to groups charac-
terized by a common nationality, geographic origin, culture, or language (Betancourt
& Lopez, 1993). But understanding the relationship between ethnicity and culture can
be tricky because the term ethnicity is often equated with race, and as we will dis-
cuss later, race is not culture; and there are cultural differences in how people define
ethnicity (Hamer et al., 2020). In this book, ethnicity has important associations with
culture in terms of norms and values; the strength, salience, and meaning of ethnic
identity; and attitudes associated with minority status (Phinney, 1996), all of which are
aspects of culture. Culture makes ethnic group differences meaningful.
Many other groups can be considered cultural, such as gender (more in Chapter 7),
disability (e.g., Conyers, 2003; De Clerck, 2010; Eddey & Robey, 2005), or sexual
orientation (Herdt & Howe, 2007). We view these, and other descriptive terms referring
to groups, as gatekeepers to important cultural distinctions—that is, in meaning and
information systems shared by groups and transmitted across their generations. Thus,
recognizing that one of the most important features of these social categories is its
underlying culture—that unique set of shared attributes that influences its members’
mental processes and behaviors—is crucial.

Contrasting Culture, Race, Personality, and Popular Culture

Culture and Race
Race is not culture and the terms should not be used interchangeably. There has been
considerable controversy surrounding what race is (Anderson & Nickerson, 2005).
Many scholars have suggested that there are three major races—Caucasoid, Mongoloid,
and Negroid—but past studies of the origins of race have proposed as many as 37 (Yee
et al., 1993). Although laypersons typically use physical characteristics such as skin color
to define race, most physical anthropologists use population gene frequencies. Regard-
less of which characteristics are used, the concept of race is much less clear-cut than pre-
viously believed (Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin, 1984). Some authors have suggested that
the distinctions among races are arbitrary and dubious at best (Zuckerman, 1990), and
studies of genetic systems, including blood groups, serum proteins, and enzymes, have
shown considerably more within-group than between-group variation, suggesting that
racially defined groups are actually more similar than different.
There are also controversies about the origins of race. Prevalent theories posit
a common ancestor originating in Africa 200,000 years ago, whose descendants
migrated to other parts of the world. Other theories suggest that humans may have
existed in multiple regions of the world as far back as two million years ago and that
intermixing among regions occurred (Wolpoff & Caspari, 1997).
Many psychologists today agree that race is more of a social construction than a
biological essential. People have a natural propensity to create categories, especially
those dealing with human characteristics (Hirschfield, 1996). Because easily identifi-
able physical characteristics are often used in this category formation process, “race”
becomes central to folk theories and thus gains cognitive and social meaning and
importance. Race as a biological construct may be questionable, but race as a social
construct is real (Smedley & Smedley, 2005).
Interesting issues arise when race is understood as a social construction. Category
boundaries among the socially constructed races are ambiguous and vary with social

context (Davis, 1991; Eberhardt & Randall, 1997; Omi & Winant, 1994), and people of
different cultures differ in their definitions of race. In some cultures, race is a contin-
uum along a dimensional scale, not a category (Davis, 1991). Many Brazilians believe
that race is not heritable and varies according to economic or geographic mobility
(Degler, 1971, reported in Eberhardt & Randall, 1997). In some countries, socioeco-
nomic mobility is associated with changes in perceptions of physical properties such
as skin color and hair texture (Eberhardt & Randall, 1997).
“Racial” differences may be of little scientific value without an understanding of
the underlying causes of similarities and differences observed (Betancourt & Lopez,
1993; Helms, Jernigan, & Mascher, 2005; Zuckerman, 1990). These causes will neces-
sarily involve culture, as defined in this book, because culture is a functional concept
that determines what is psychologically meaningful and important for different races.
Culture gives race meaning.

Culture and Personality

Culture is not personality. Culture is a macro-social construct that characterizes
groups; it is the social psychological frame within which individuals reside, much like
the structure of our houses and homes. Personality refers to the unique constellation
of traits, attributes, qualities, and characteristics of individuals within those frames; it
refers to the individual differences that exist among individuals within groups.
Just because individuals exist in a culture and are representatives of a culture,
they should not be equated with the culture or its attributes. Individuals have their
own mental representations of culture, and these differing representations may be an
aspect of their personality. But individual-level mental representations of culture are
not culture on the macro-social level, a point we will come back to in Chapter 2. Cul-
ture, as we have defined it, involves a shared meaning and information system that is
transmitted across generations. Personality and individual differences are not neces-
sarily shared. Culture is relatively stable across individuals, whereas personality is
vastly different. We’ll discuss personality further in Chapter 6.

Culture and Popular Culture

Popular culture refers to trends in music, art, and other expressions that become popular
among a group of people from time to time. Popular culture and culture as we have
defined it share some similarities, most importantly the sharing of an expression and its
value by a group. But there are important differences. Popular culture does not necessar-
ily involve sharing a wide range of psychological attributes across various psychologi-
cal domains; culture involves systems of rules that include attitudes, values, opinions,
beliefs, norms, and behaviors. Also, popular culture refers to values or expressions that
come and go as fads or trends within a few years; culture is relatively stable over time
and even across generations (despite its dynamic quality and potential for change).

Comprehension Check
1. Describe the factors that influence the origin of culture listed in
Table 1.1.
2. What is the book’s definition of culture? How do human cultures differ
from nonhuman cultures? And how can we understand which groups
have culture and which do not?

1-3 The Contents of Culture

Culture as a meaning and information system is an abstraction that refers to many
aspects of our ways of living. Its contents can be divided roughly into two categories
known as the objective and subjective elements of culture (Kroeber & Kluckholn,
1952/1963; Triandis, 1972).

Objective Elements
Objective elements of culture include explicit, physical manifestations of a meaning
and information system, such as architecture, clothes, foods, art, or eating utensils—
anything you can see and touch. Advertising, texts, mass media, music, social media,
and YouTube videos are all physical, tangible, and important artifacts of culture
(Lamoreaux & Morling, 2012; Morling & Lamoreaux, 2008). Examining the contents
of these artifacts can give clues to culture. For example, an analysis of millions of
digitized books—about 4% of all books ever printed—demonstrated changes in
vocabularies, grammar, collective memory, adoption of technology, pursuit of fame,
censorship, and historical epidemiology were evidence of cultural trends over time
(Michel et al., 2011). Interesting cultural differences in meanings and associations with
national flags have also been documented (Becker et al., 2017). Objective elements of
culture are the focus of archaeology or physical anthropology.

Subjective Elements
Subjective elements of culture include all parts of culture that do not exist as physi-
cal artifacts. These include culture-level attitudes, values, beliefs, norms, and behav-
ior. Subjective elements of culture tap into psychological processes that constitute the
meaning and information systems of groups (Figure 1.8).

• Individualism vs. Collectivism

Values • Power Distance
• Long- vs. Short-Term Orientation

• Dynamic Externality
Beliefs • Societal Cynicism
• Religions

• Rituals
Norms • Etiquette and Politeness
• Tightness vs. Looseness

• Opinions
Attitudes • Stereotypes
• Prejudice

• Self-Concepts
Worldviews • Cultural Worldviews
Figure 1.8 Subjective • Attributions
Elements of Culture

Values
Values are guiding principles that refer to desirable goals that motivate behavior, and values Trans-situational
define moral, political, social, economic, esthetic, or spiritual ethics. Values exist on goals that serve as a
guiding principle in the
two levels—individual and culture. Individual-level values are personal; culture-level life of a person or group
(or cultural) values are shared, abstract ideas about what a social collectivity views as (e.g., kindness, creativity).
good, right, and desirable. Here we discuss culture-level values, which has received Values motivate and
the most attention by research extracting the contents of culture. justify behavior and serve
as standards for judging
The most well-known set of cultural values comes from Hofstede, who originally people, actions, and events.
reported data from 72 countries involving the responses of more than 117,000 employees
of a multinational business organization, spanning over 20 different languages and
seven occupational levels to his 63 work-related values items (Hofstede, 2001). Based
on his original and more contemporary research, six value dimensions that differenti-
ate cultural groups have been identified (Hofstede, 2011):

1. Individualism versus Collectivism. The degree to which groups will encourage

tendencies for members to look after themselves and their immediate family only, or
for them to belong to in-groups that look after its members in exchange for loyalty.
2. Power Distance. The degree to which groups will encourage less powerful mem-
bers to accept that power is distributed unequally.
3. Uncertainty Avoidance. The degree to which groups will encourage members to
feel threatened by unknown or ambiguous situations and develop beliefs, institu-
tions, or rituals to avoid them.
4. Masculinity versus Femininity. The degree to which groups value success,
money, and things as opposed to caring for others and quality of life, and the dis-
tribution of emotional roles among genders.
5. Long- versus Short-Term Orientation. The degree to which groups encourage
delayed gratification of material, social, and emotional needs among its members.
6. Indulgence versus Restraint. The degree to which groups allow relatively free
gratification of basic and natural human drives related to enjoying life and
having fun, or whether it suppresses gratification of needs and regulates them
through strict social norms.

Hofstede’s culture-level value dimensions have provided interesting ways to

characterize cultures. Instead of using country names or other descriptors, groups can
be referred to as individualistic or collectivistic, long or short term oriented, or high
sacred values Values
or low on Power Distance. These dimensions allow for an understanding of groups considered to be
along meaningful dimensions of psychological variability. nonnegotiable. They differ
Some cultural values are nonnegotiable and are called sacred values (Atran from normal values because
& Axelrod, 2007; Ginges et al., 2007). They differ from other values because they they incorporate moral
beliefs that drive action
incorporate moral beliefs that drive action in ways dissociated from prospects for in ways dissociated from
success. Across the world, people believe that devotion to core values (such as the prospects for success. Across
welfare of their family and country or their commitment to religion, honor, and justice) the world, people believe
that devotion to core values
is, or ought to be, absolute and inviolable. Such values outweigh others, particularly
(such as the welfare of their
economic ones. Many of us have learned some things we regard as moral values, family and country or their
some of which may be a part of religion. Most of us believe there is something morally commitment to religion,
wrong with letting down your team members. Most Americans believe you shouldn’t honor, and justice) is, or
ought to be, absolute and
cheat on your spouse. Some cultures permit people to have multiple spouses. Some
inviolable. Such values
cultures believe that a family’s honor depends on the chastity of women in the family, outweigh other values,
and it is more important than their lives. particularly economic ones.

Differences in values (and beliefs; more below) lead to different characterizations

of cultures. Over the years, many characterizations have been proposed such as shame
or guilt cultures (Piers & Singer, 1971), honor cultures (Cohen et al., 1996; Vandello
et al., 2009), face and dignity cultures (Kim, Cohen, & Au, 2010; Ting-Toomey, 1994),
high- or low-context cultures (Hall, 1966, 1973; Matsumoto et al., 2009), and power or
hierarchical cultures (Matsumoto, 2007a; Torelli & Shavitt, 2010). We will return to dis-
cussions of honor cultures in Chapter 14 (in discussions of aggression), and of high- or
low-context cultures in Chapter 10 (in discussions of communication styles).
There have been many other large-scale attempts at identifying cultural values, nota-
bly by Schwartz (Schwartz & Ros, 1995) and the Globe project (House et al., 2003). But
by far, Hofstede’s approach and the dimension of individualism versus collectivism have
received the greatest attention in cross-cultural research., being used to predict and explain
many differences across cultures, especially in many aspects of thinking and emotions
(Oyserman & Lee, 2008; Schimmack, Oishi, & Diener, 2005; Triandis, 2001). Much of the
works described later in this book use this dimension to understand cultural differences.

Beliefs
beliefs A proposition that Beliefs are propositions that are regarded as true, and like values, exist on the indi-
is regarded as true. People of vidual and cultural levels. We focus here on culture-level beliefs, also known as social
different cultures have dif-
axioms (Bond et al., 2004; Leung et al., 2002). These are general beliefs and premises
ferent beliefs.
about oneself, the social and physical environments, and the spiritual world; they
social axioms General are assertions about the association between two or more entities or concepts. People
beliefs and premises about
oneself, the social and endorse and use them to guide their behavior in daily living, such as “belief in a reli-
physical environment, and gion helps one understand the meaning of life.”
the spiritual world. They Leung et al. (2002) demonstrated the universal existence of five types of social
are assertions about the
axioms on the individual level in 41 cultural groups. Bond et al. (2004) then conducted
relationship between two or
more entities or concepts; culture-level analyses on these data (more about the differences between individual-
people endorse and use level and culture-level analyses in Chapter 2) and demonstrated that two social axiom
them to guide their behavior dimensions existed on the cultural level:
in daily living, such as
“belief in a religion helps 1. Dynamic Externality. This dimension represents beliefs concerning external
one understand the meaning
forces such as fate, a supreme being, and spirituality. It aids citizens to mobilize
of life.”
psychologically to confront environmental difficulties. “Belief in a religion helps
one understand the meaning of life” and “good deeds will be rewarded, and bad
deeds will be punished” are examples. Cultures high on this dimension tend
to be more collectivistic, conservative, hierarchical; have high unemployment
levels, less freedom, and fewer human-rights activities; and have aspirations for
security, material resources, and longer life.
2. Societal Cynicism. This dimension represents an apprehension or pessimism
of the world. “Caring about societal affairs only brings trouble upon oneself”
and “kind-hearted people usually suffer losses” are examples. Cultures high on
this dimension believe that the world produces malignant outcomes, that they
are surrounded by inevitable negative outcomes, and that individuals are sup-
pressed by powerful others and subjected to the depredations of willful and self-
ish individuals, groups, and institutions.
belief in a zero-sum Research has expanded knowledge of social axioms on the topic of belief in a
game The proposition that zero-sum game, which is a belief system about the antagonistic nature of social rela-
social relations are basically
antagonistic—that one
tions—that one person’s gain occurs at the expense of others’ losses. In a study of
person’s gain occurs at the 37 nations, people, and countries who believed more strongly in a zero-sum game
expense of others’ losses. engaged more in win–lose social exchanges over limited resources than people and
.
countries that did not have such beliefs (Rózycka-Tran, Boski, & Wojciszke, 2015).
Belief in a zero-sum game was negatively associated with GDP, corruption, the human

development index, the democracy index, and subjective well-being, and positively
with inflation rates and income disparities.
One important belief system that characterizes many cultures is religion, which religion Organized
are organized systems of beliefs that tie together many ways of life for large groups of systems of beliefs that tie
together many attitudes,
people (Saroglou & Cohen, 2011). Different religions are similar in the sense that they values, beliefs, worldviews,
all help people manage themselves in order to avoid social chaos and provide social and norms. They provide
coordination. But they all do so in different ways and have different, specific beliefs guidelines for living.
associated (e.g., existence of one vs. more than one God).
Cross-cultural research on religion has flourished in the early 2000s and has
proffered interesting insights. A belief in God has been associated with self-regula-
tion, reinforcement of social norms, and risk-taking (Laurin, 2017), all of which allow
groups to coordinate socially and avoid social chaos. Participation in religious services
of all kinds has also been associated with many positive aspects of functioning across
cultures, including happiness, life satisfaction, mental and physical health, meaning
and purpose, character and virtue, and close social relationships (VanderWeele, 2017).
The concept of religiousness has been delineated along four basic dimensions:
believing, bonding, behaving, and belonging (Saroglou, 2011, 2019). Data from 14
countries varying in religious heritage (Catholicism, Protestantism, Orthodox Christi-
anity, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism/Taoism) showed that the four dimensions were
distinct across cultures and religions, differentially preferred across cultural zones,
and characterized by distinct features (Saroglou et al., 2020). Believing and bonding
were primarily related to spirituality and preferred in Western secular societies, while
behaving and belonging were valued in religious societies and related to fundamental-
ism, authoritarianism, and low openness. Belonging and bonding were uniquely asso-
ciated with life satisfaction, and believing was uniquely related to existential quest and
decreased life satisfaction (refer to Figure 1.9; from Saroglou et al., 2020, p. 569).

Religious Christian Countries Religious

East Asian Religions (Taiwan) Fundamentalism

Existential Quest Need for Closure

Low Life Islam (Turkey)
Satisfaction
Believing Behaving
Beliefs, Morality,
Meaning Norms Coalitional Religiosity
Devotional Religiosity
Low Openness to Exp.
Spirituality
Authoritarianism
Secular West. EU Low Existential Quest
Bonding Belonging
Rituals, Group,
Emotions Tradition
Extraversion
Life Satisfaction Life Satisfaction
Judaism (Israel) Ranked

Agreeableness
Conscientiousness

Figure 1.9 Synthesis of the Main Findings on the Characteristics of the Four
Dimensions of Religiousness
Source: Saroglou et al. (2020) p. 569.

Norms
norms A generally Norms are generally accepted standards of behavior for any cultural group, and
accepted standard of describe behavior that members of a culture have defined as “appropriate” in a given
behavior within a cultural or
subcultural group.
situation. All cultures provide expectations about people’s behavior through norms,
which increase social coordination and decrease social chaos. In some cultures,
people wear little or no clothing, while in others people normally cover almost all
their bodies. Many different types of norms exist, including norms describing typical
beliefs, values, or behavior of one’s group (Shteynberg, Gelfand, & Kim, 2009), as
well as norms for controlling one’s emotional expressions (Matsumoto et al., 2009;
Matsumoto et al., 2008).
rituals Culturally Normal behavior is related to social rituals across cultures. Rituals are culturally
prescribed conduct or any prescribed conduct or any kind of established procedure or routine. These include reli-
kind of established routine
or procedure.
gious rituals such as a bride’s walking down the aisle with her father in weddings in
many cultures, or doing daily or weekly prayers. Rituals are important because they
reinforce cultural meaning systems by reducing ambiguity of things that “should” be
done in a situation.
Some rituals are related to politeness, and many cultures reify norms of politeness
etiquette Culturally in shared behavioral patterns called etiquette. This is a code of behavior that describes
prescribed code of behavior expectations for polite behavior. Cultures differ in how much they value etiquette,
that describes expectations
and in cultures that value etiquette, they are considered signs of maturity and sanity.
for polite behavior.
Forms of etiquette are culture specific, so that what kinds of behaviors are deemed
polite differs across cultures. In some cultures like the United States, “looking others
in the eye” is often considered a form of respect; in others, doing so is often considered
disrespectful, and avoiding looking directly at another person when talking, espe-
cially higher-status others, is considered good manners. In the Middle East and North
Africa, showing the soles of one’s feet is often regarded as insulting; people who cross
their legs in a meeting may unwittingly offend their interacting partners.
An important dimension of cultural variability with respect to norms involves a
tightness versus concept known as tightness versus looseness (Pelto, 1968), which has two compo-
looseness A dimension nents: The strength of social norms, or how clear and pervasive norms are within societ-
of cultural variability that ies, and the strength of sanctioning, or how much tolerance there is for deviance from
refers to the variability
within a culture of its
norms within societies. Pelto (1968) coined this term, arguing that traditional societies
members to norms. Tight varied in their expression of and adherence to social norms. In Pelto’s work, Pueblo
cultures have less variability Indians, Hutterites, and Japanese were examples of tight societies, in which norms
and are more homogeneous were expressed very clearly and unambiguously, and severe sanctions were imposed
with respect to norms;
loose cultures have more on those who deviated from norms. The Skolt Lapps of northern Finland and Thais
variability and are more were examples of loose societies, in which norms were expressed through a wide vari-
heterogeneous. ety of alternative channels, in which there was a general lack of formality, order, and
discipline and high tolerance for deviant behavior.
Surveys of 6,823 people in 33 countries demonstrated the importance of
tightness–looseness as an important cultural dimension (Gelfand et al., 2011). It is part
of a loosely integrated system that incorporates ecological and historical components,
such as population density, resource availability, history of conflict, and disease, with
the strength of everyday recurring situations in facilitating mental processes and
behaviors. The tightest cultures in this study—with the strongest social norms and
sanctions for social transgressions—were Pakistan, Malaysia, Singapore, and South
Korea; the loosest were Ukraine, Estonia, Hungary, and Israel.
Cultural tightness (vs. looseness) has been considered to result from two factors.
One is threats to survival, both historical and current, and includes resource scarcity,
wars, terrorism, natural disasters, political turmoil, water safety, and others. Societies
living under such conditions would have to create strong norms and sanctions to deal

with such threats. The other factor is sociopolitical context, including how traditional
the society has been and institutional repression. Together, these factors interact to
influence cultural tightness, which, in turn can influence psychological processes on
the individual level (refer to Figure 1.10 from Uz, 2015, p. 321).
Cultural tightness can also be applied to regions within countries. In the United
States, states associated with higher incidences of natural disasters, greater disease
prevalence, fewer natural resources, and greater degree of external threat had higher
tightness (Harrington & Gelfand, 2014). Tighter states also had higher levels of social
stability (lowered drug and alcohol use, lower rates of homelessness, and lower social
disorganization), higher incarceration rates, greater discrimination and inequality,
lower creativity, and lower happiness, relative to loose states (refer to Table 1.3 from
Harrington & Gelfand, 2014, p. 2).
The tightness–looseness construct has also been applied to differences across
provinces in China. Across 31 Chinese provinces (Chua, Huang, & Jin, 2019), cultur-
ally tight provinces were associated with increased governmental control, constraints
in daily life, religious practices, and exposure to threats; but they were also associ-
ated with urbanization, economic growth, better health, greater tolerance toward the
LGBTQIA+ community, and gender equality. Differences between tight and loose
provinces in China and across 32 countries have been linked to rice (vs. wheat) farm-
ing (Talhelm & English, 2020). Premodern rice farming may have created strong social
norms because such farming relied on irrigation networks, and rice farmers coordi-
nated their water use and monitored each person’s labor contributions. Rice villages
also established strong norms of reciprocity to cope with labor demands that were
twice as high as crops like wheat.

Attitudes
Attitudes are evaluations of things occurring in ongoing thoughts about those things, attitudes Evaluations of
or stored in memory. Cultures facilitate attitudes concerning actions and behaviors, objects occurring in ongoing
thoughts about the objects,
which produces cultural filters, which we will discuss in Chapter 14; these serve as or stored in memory.
the basis of stereotypes and prejudice. Cultures also foster attitudes that are not tied to

Threat to Survival Psychological Symptoms

• Historical
• Subjective States (Negative
• Current Association)
- Feelings of Freedom of
Choice and Control
- Subjective Well-Being
Cultural
Tightness
• Attitudes Toward Dissimilar
Others and Deviance
(Negative Association)
- Willingness to Live near
Socio-Political Context Dissimilar Others
• Traditional - Tolerance for Moral
Society Deviations
• Institutional
Repression • Behavioral Inhibition

Figure 1.10 A Framework for Cultural Tightness

Source: UZ (2015) p. 321.

Table 1.3 State Tightness-Looseness Rankings

Rank State Srore
1 Mississippi 78.86
2 Alabama 75.45
3 Arkansas 75.03
4 Oklahoma 75.03
5 Tennessee 68.81
6 Texas 67.54
7 Louisiana 65.88
8 Kentucky 63.91
9 South Carolina 61.39
10 North Carolina 60.67
11 Kansas 60.36
12 Georgia 60.26
13 Missouri 59.60
14 Virginia 57.37
15 Indiana 54.57
16 Pennsylvania 52.75
17 West Virginia 52.48
18 Ohio 52.30
19 Wyoming 51.94
20 North Dakota 51.44
21 South Dakota 51.14
22 Delaware 51.02
23 Utah 49.69
24 Nebraska 49.65
25 Florida 49.28
26 lowa 49.02
27 Michigan 48.93
28 Minnesota 47.84
29 Arizona 47.56
30 Wisconsin 46.91
31 Montana 46.11
32 Illinois 45.95
33 Idaho 45.50
34 Maryland 45.50
35 New Mexico 45.43
36 Rhode Island 43.23
37 Colorado 42.92
38 New Jersey 39.48
39 New York 39.42
40 Alaska 38.43
41 Vermont 37.23
42 New Hampshire 36.97
43 Hawaii 36.49
44 Connecticut 36.37
45 Massachusetts 35.12
46 Maine 34.00
47 Nevada 33.61
48 Washington 31.06
49 Oregon 30.07
50 California 27.37
Higher scores indicate greater tightness.

Source: Harrington and Gelfand (2014) p. 2.

specific kinds of actions, such as believing that democracy is the best form of govern-
ment. In many cultures, especially in the past, people believed that most people aren’t
capable of understanding government, and that countries are best ruled by kings who
are very religious or spiritually advanced.

Worldviews
Cultures also differ importantly in cultural worldviews, which are culturally specific cultural worldviews
belief systems about the world. Worldviews summarize attitudes, beliefs, opinions, Culturally specific belief
systems about the world.
and values; they are assumptions people have about their physical and social reali-
They contain attitudes,
ties (Koltko-Rivera, 2004). Worldviews are intimately tied to how we think about our beliefs, opinions, and values
self—known as self-concept (more in Chapter 5). In the United States, people often about the world. People
tend to think that they are responsible for their choices and that they are independent have worldviews because of
evolved, complex cognition;
individuals. Other cultures do not foster such worldviews as strongly; in some, it is thus, having a worldview
assumed that fate makes choice inevitable or that everybody depends on everyone is a universal psychological
else. In these cultures, all choices are group choices and everyone expects to share process. The specific content
both the benefits and the failures of everyone’s choices. of worldviews, however, is
specific to and different for
People have worldviews and all subjective elements of culture because of evolved, each culture.
complex cognition; thus, having these elements is a universal psychological process.
self-concept The cogni-
Their content, however, is specific to each culture. Also, cultural worldviews may or tive representations of who
may not correspond to actual behavior (Matsumoto, 2006b); what people say is not one is, that is, the ideas or
always what they do. Having a somewhat idealistic worldview of oneself and others images that one has about
is a part of culture. oneself, especially in relation
to others, and how and why
one behaves. The sum of
one’s idea about one’s self,
Comprehension Check including physical, mental,
historical, and relational
1. List and describe the various subjective elements of culture. aspects, as well as capaci-
ties to learn and perform.
2. How do the various subjective elements of culture comprise a group’s Self-concept is usually con-
meaning and information system? sidered central to personal
identity and change over
time. It is usually considered
partially conscious and
partially unconscious or

1-4 What Is the Association between Culture and inferred in a given situation.

Mental Processes and Behavior?

Given the contents of culture described above, culture influences mental processes
and behavior in multiple ways. A direct way is through norms, and in fact norms and
religiosity have been associated with the largest differences across cultures (Saucier
et al., 2015; refer also to Smith & Bond, 2019 for a review). Norms work this way:
Cultures assign social contexts specific meanings, and these meanings serve as drivers
that regulate thoughts, feelings, and actions (recall discussion of tightness vs. loose-
ness above and the important of situational contexts) in those contexts (Figure 1.11).
Being in a classroom that is set up for a lecture with a professor at the front dictates
certain behavior, while being at that same professor’s office in a one-on-one interac-
tion dictates different behavior. These differences occur because of difference in mean-
ings in those contexts, and those meanings, and corresponding norms, are derived
from culture. Humans navigate an amazingly complex number of contexts, and have
the ability to learn those norms (and implicitly, contextual meaning) for the myriad of
contexts of complex human social life.

”Context”
Home
Class Club

Work Theater

Behaviors
Attitudes

Opinions Beliefs

”Culture” Rituals

Norms
Rules

Figure 1.11 Cultures Imbue Contexts with Meaning and Information That
Inform Norms

Cultures as macro-social constructs also informs broad, high-level, abstract psy-

chological elements such as values, beliefs, and worldviews that overlay and underlie
norms and context. People are taught such elements directly, as well as extract them
from learned norms indirectly. Thus, culture infuses ideological worldviews, values,
and beliefs, as well as influences specific behavior in specific contexts, all of which
facilitate social coordination and reduce social chaos.
Cultural contents—contextual meanings, norms, and high-level abstractions—are
learned. Newborns have no culture (although they have biological and temperamental
predispositions to learn cultural tendencies; more in Chapters 3 and 4) and begin the
enculturation The pro- process of learning their culture through a process known as enculturation (Chapter 3
cess by which individuals is devoted to this topic). The enculturation process gradually shapes and molds how
learn and adopt the ways
individuals think, feel, and act, including how individuals perceive their worlds,
and manners of their specific
culture. create reasons underlying their and others’ actions, have and express emotions, and
interact with others. Children learn specific, normative behavior appropriate, and not,
for their culture in specific contexts, as well as generalized values, beliefs, attitudes,
and worldviews. Because the content of many psychological processes is constructed
by culture during enculturation, they are so intertwined and infused with cultural
influences that understanding them outside a cultural context may make little sense.

The Press of Culture and the Push of Noncultural Factors

But we also cannot ignore the fact that much human behavior is also influenced
by noncultural factors such as biologically based predispositions, human nature,

personality, temperament, and reactivity (more in Chapter 4). These factors all influ-
ence how one perceives, evaluates, and behaves in the world. Mental processes and
behavior are products of both cultural and noncultural factors, and their interaction,
which provides a nuanced understanding of behavior. In some contexts, behavior
may be more influenced by noncultural factors; in other contexts, behavior may be
more influenced by cultural factors. Understanding the influence of culture, therefore,
requires adoption of a sophisticated way of understanding and explaining human
behavior, one that acknowledges and incorporates other great factors that push and
pull behavior.

The Cyclical Nature of Culture and Behavior and Cultural

Changes
The association between culture and behavior is not a one-way street; it is dynamic
and interrelated, feeding back on and reinforcing itself. While culture certainly influ-
ences behavior, engaging in culturally derived and appropriate ways of thinking,
feeling, and acting also reinforces and influences the nature and contents of culture.
Thus, the association between culture and behavior is a two-way street, reciprocal and
cyclical.
Because of the cyclical nature of culture–behavior associations, cultures are
not static and can change. Cultural changes occur because of changes in behavior
and ways of living (bottom-up changes), changes in the environment that produce
changes in ways of living (top-down changes), or their interaction. For example,
changes in ecology such as climate change have brought about changes in ways of
living in many countries for centuries (Behrensmeyer, 2006). Climate changes that
occurred thousands of years ago along with monsoon seasons brought about changes
in ancient South Asian cultures (Kathayat et al., 2017). When plant species go extinct,
knowledge networks about plants, which are part of the meaning and information
system of a culture, collapse (Cámara-Leret, Fortuna, & Bascompte, 2019).
Changes in affluence of a region, country, and individuals bring about changes
in ways of living, and thus changes in culture. Consider countries and cultures such
as Japan, South Korea, Singapore, China, or Barbados for major changes in culture
because of affluence. Many studies have documented cultural changes in Japan,
including in the number of people living alone, number of nuclear households,
divorce rates; three-generation households, household size, attitudes, and behavior
(Matsumoto, 2002; Matsumoto et al., 1996; Ogihara, 2017, 2018). Similar changes have
been documented in other East Asian and Pacific island nations (Allen et al., 2007),
Russia and the Soviet Union (Skrebyte, Garnett, & Kendal, 2016), across 43 countries
around the world (Evans & Kelley, 2017), and across states within the United States
(Bianchi, 2016).
Technological changes that have occurred in the last 150 years or so, begin-
ning with the industrial revolution and continuing through today, have facilitated
major cultural changes. Communication technology (such as cellular phones, the
Internet, e-mail, social media, all inconceivable a generation ago) brings with it
its own brand of communication culture, in which rules regarding interactions
and interpersonal engagement change rather rapidly (Figure 1.12). Widespread
use of computers has brought with it the ability to work independently, loosen-
ing reliance on others to get work accomplished and the need to interact with
coworkers.

4000
Read Only Web Read/Write Web Social Web

3500
• Instagram
• iPad
• 480m Broad-
band Subs
• Uber
3000
• WhatsApp
• Chrome Users
• Airbnb
• MobileWeb
> Desktop
Hosts and Users (Millions)

2500
• iPhone • Google Glass
• Twitter • 6.8b Mobile Users
• Enterprise 2.0
• Web 2.0 • 600m Broadband Users
Dot Com • Broad WiFi use • Snapchat
2000 • YouTube
Bubble
• Firefox
• Facebook
• Skype
• Wikipedia Facebook
1500 Users
• Broadband
• WiFi
• PayPal
• Google
• Ebay
1000
• Internet Explorer Hosts
• Amazon
• Streaming Media
• SSL Encryption
500 • Netscape Navigator Twitter Users
• Mosaic
• Commercialization
• WWW Introduced
0
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
Note: Events shown relate to time axis only

Figure 1.12 Internet Growth—Usage Phases—Tech Events

Source: Schueler, M., Cox, A., Yuan, S., Crouch, S., Graham, J., & Hall, W. (2019). From observatory to laboratory: A pathway to data evolution.
Living in the Internet of Things, (IoT 2019), 1–8. DOI: 10.1049/cp.2019.0137.

All these changes in ways of living bring about cultural change, which is what we
are witnessing around the globe today in many countries. These changes have fostered
some degree of cultural homogenization: Global trends toward individualism are
evident (Santos, Varnum, & Grossmnn, 2017), as well as global shifts in qualities that
parents would like to see in their children (e.g., away from religion and obedience and
toward independence and responsibility; Kaasa & Minkov, 2020). Across time, there
has been growing disconnection from nature in works of popular culture in English
in the twentieth century (Kesebir & Kesebir, 2017). Some authors have argued that
three “psychological continents” exist in the world today: liberal European countries,
Canada, and Australia; conservative countries from South and Southeast Asia, Sub-
Saharan Africa, and Latin America; and all others including Russia, China, and the
United States (Stankov & Lee, 2016). In the United States, many changes in social
interactions have produced documented changes in well-being and mental health

across the decades, with both positive and negative aspects (Twenge, 2000, 2014). All
these trends point to the fact that the association between culture and behavior is not a
one-way street; it is reciprocal, dynamic, and complex.

Universal and Culture-Specific Psychological Processes: Etics

and Emics
Because culture is a metaphor for solutions to problems of adapting to environments
in order to survive for all humans, there are many similarities and differences in
psychological processes across cultures. For example, because humans have the
unique ability for self–other awareness concerning intentionality, we draw inferences
about reasons underlying our own and others’ behavior. These are called attributions, attributions Inferences
and the process of making attributions is universal to all humans. But different cultures people make about the causes
of events or behaviors, their
facilitate different content and ways of creating them, producing cultural differences own as well as others’.
in attributional styles (more in Chapter 8). Humans are born with the ability to create
sounds and language; culture informs how people learn to shape those sounds into
words and arrange those words into the different languages (more in Chapter 10).
Humans are born with the ability to have emotions, but culture informs what to
become emotional about and how to deal with them (more in Chapter 9). We all have
a sense of morality, but cultures influence what we learn as right and wrong (more in
Chapter 4).
Thus, at one level of consideration, many psychological processes are universal
to all humans because humans come to the world equipped with the ability to have
those processes. At another level, human cultures fill in the content of those processes
in different ways. A rough analogy is a coloring book: humans come to the world with
the ability to create a coloring book; cultures provide guidelines on how those books
are created and colored in. Sometimes you get the same kind of coloring book across
cultures; sometimes you get very different ones.
Cross-cultural psychologists have a vocabulary for talking about universal and
culture-specific psychological processes. Etics refer to processes or behavior that are etics Aspects of life that
consistent across cultures; that is, etics refer to universals. Emics refer to those pro- appear to be consistent
across different cultures;
cesses or behavior that are different across cultures; emics, therefore, refer to cultural universal or pancultural
differences. These terms originated in the study of language (Pike, 1954), with phonetics truths or principles.
referring to aspects of language and verbal behavior that are common across cultures, emics Aspects of life that
and phonemes referring to aspects of language that are specific to a particular culture appear to differ across cul-
and language. Berry (1969) was one of the first to use these linguistic concepts to tures; truths or principles
describe universal versus culturally relative aspects of behavior. (Refer to Lonner, 1980; that are culture specific.

Norenzayan & Heine, 2005, for more discussion on universal psychological processes.)

Comprehension Check
1. Describe the association between culture and mental processes and
behavior.
2. What are some noncultural factors that influence mental processes and
behavior? Describe what the “press of culture” and “push of noncul-
tural factors” refer to.
3. Are cultures stable or fluid, changing across time?

Conclusion
While people of different cultures are often different in what they do, they are very
similar in why they do them, and understanding culture at these different levels is
important. If we just look at the surface, cultural differences may seem strange; but
if we get to know how and why they developed, they can make sense. We all have
needs for respect and belonging; we all want to find someone to share our lives; we all
are worried about our social image to others and about feeling good about ourselves;
and we all want to achieve goals and carry out basic functions of living. Cultures find
ways to help people address those needs. Because cultures exist in different regions
of the world with different histories, they often find different ways to address those
same needs. To do so,
■ sometimes culture is a multiplier, enhancing certain behavior;
■ sometimes culture is a creator, producing new behaviors not seen elsewhere;
■ sometimes culture is an enabler, facilitating and encouraging behavior;
■ and sometimes culture is a suppresser, discouraging behavior.
One goal of this book is to highlight universal and culture-specific aspects of these
psychological processes.
An important thing to remember about human cultures is their success at help-
ing people survive. Just look at world population statistics; if cultures hadn’t worked,
people would not have survived. Cultures have long histories of having worked for
many generations in the past, and it is apparent that cultures are very successful in
doing what they are supposed to do (Figure 1.13).

10
POP (in Billions)
9

8
The World Population (in Billions)

0
0 1750 1910 1950 1990 2020 2100
Year

Figure 1.13 Growth in the Human Population—Evidence for the Success

of Human Cultures

Key Terms
arable land deviation from temperate climate rituals
attitudes emics sacred values
attributions enculturation self-concept
belief in a zero-sum game etics shared intentionality
beliefs etiquette social axioms
cross-cultural psychology latitudinal psychology tightness versus looseness
cross-cultural research norms universal
cultural worldviews population density universal psychological toolkit
culture ratchet effect values
culture specific religion

Exploration and Discovery

Why Does This Matter to Me?

1. How does the definition of culture in this chapter 3. How do you identify yourself in terms of race?
differ from definitions of culture you may have Ethnicity? Sexual orientation? What cultural char-
had before reading it? What implications do you acteristics do these have for you?
think those differences may have in your life? In 4. What kinds of cultural differences have
psychology? In research? Did you equate culture you encountered in your daily life? At your
with race or ethnicity previously? workplace?
2. What are some of the values, beliefs, norms, and 5. From your experiences, how do you think people
worldviews that are important to you? Do you of different cultures are similar?
have any sacred values? What about the values,
6. How do you envision thinking about culture
beliefs, norms, and worldviews of your friends?
may affect your understanding of psychological
Classmates? Acquaintances in the community?
theories and research you may have learned until
now? From now?

Suggestions for Further Exploration

1. If you could design a study on anything about would you design a study to show how culture
human behavior to show how it is the same can be hurtful to people?
across cultures, what would that be? 4. Reflect on the origins of your culture, or cultures
2. Likewise, if you could design a study on anything that you’re familiar with. Then find out informa-
about human behavior to show how it is different tion about cultures that you’re not familiar with,
across cultures, what would that be? and research their origins. Do you note any simi-
3. How would you design a study to show how cul- larities or differences across cultures?
ture can be beneficial to people? Likewise, how

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Textbook Ch. 1

Uploaded by

Textbook Ch. 1

Uploaded by

An Introduction to

Culture and Psychology

1.4 Explain what differentiates human cultures from nonhuman

1-1 Psychology with a Cultural Perspective

The Goals of Psychology

Build a Body of Allow Others to

Figure 1.1 The Goals

Psychology across Cultures

Figure 1.2 The Goals of Psychology as a Discipline

cross-cultural research and examines cultural parameters of psychological knowledge

Impact on Psychological Knowledge

Cross-cultural research and psychology play important roles in helping psycholo-

Growth of Cross-Cultural Research and Psychology

Heightened interest in cross-cultural psychology is a normal and healthy devel-

1-2 What Is Culture?

Table 1.1 Factors That Influence the Creation of Cultures

Group Life Environments The Evolved Human Mind

■ Division of Labor ■ Climate ■ Basic Human Needs and

Resources. Another major component of the environment is resources, includ-

Latitudinal Psychology. Exciting new research has led to the development of a

The Evolved Human Mind

S. Africa Central African Rep. Honduras Lebanon

Table 1.2 Contents of the Universal Psychological Toolkit

■ Physical Needs ■ Shared Intentionality ■ Basic Emotions ■ Extraversion

Ratcheting. Humans also have the ability to build on improvements continually.

Figure 1.6 A Functional Understanding of Culture

■ aspects of personality (Pelto & Pelto, 1975).

A Working Definition for This Book

What’s Unique about Human Cultures?

These characteristics differentiate human from nonhuman cultures. For example,

The Difference between “Society” and “Culture”

Identifying Groups with Culture

Cultures are also associated with countries. “Country” is a geopolitical

The Midlands New

Deep South Atlantic

Pacific New France

Contrasting Culture, Race, Personality, and Popular Culture

Culture and Personality

Culture and Popular Culture

1-3 The Contents of Culture

• Individualism vs. Collectivism

1. Individualism versus Collectivism. The degree to which groups will encourage

Hofstede’s culture-level value dimensions have provided interesting ways to

Differences in values (and beliefs; more below) lead to different characterizations

Religious Christian Countries Religious

Existential Quest Need for Closure

Threat to Survival Psychological Symptoms

Figure 1.10 A Framework for Cultural Tightness

Table 1.3 State Tightness-Looseness Rankings

Source: Harrington and Gelfand (2014) p. 2.

Mental Processes and Behavior?

Cultures as macro-social constructs also informs broad, high-level, abstract psy-

The Press of Culture and the Push of Noncultural Factors

The Cyclical Nature of Culture and Behavior and Cultural

Figure 1.12 Internet Growth—Usage Phases—Tech Events

Universal and Culture-Specific Psychological Processes: Etics

Figure 1.13 Growth in the Human Population—Evidence for the Success

Exploration and Discovery

Why Does This Matter to Me?

Suggestions for Further Exploration

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