Culture is:

• A complex whole which includes knowledge, art as well as capabilities and habits acquired by a member of society.
• A collective programming of the mind that distinguishes one group of people from another.
• Any kind of information that is acquired from other members of one’s species through social learning that is capable of affecting an individual’s behaviour.
• Socially transmitted information

It includes a particular group of people living within a shared context and individuals exposed to the same cultural information. There is no consensus on the definition of culture although there are shared aspects of culture:

• Culture is acquired
• Culture is shared among its members
• Culture is socially transmittable
• Culture affects behaviour.

Culture, however, is not:

• Culture is not the same as cultural values.
• Culture is not the same as a nation.
• Culture is not stable over time.
• Culture is not homogeneous within a group.

Culture consists of implicit and explicit parts and can change through reflection upon their own values and ideas (1) and through globalization (2).

People in different cultures differ in their psychology because psychological processes are shaped by experience and culture shapes experience, although psychological processes are constrained and afforded by the neurological structures that underlie them. Culture can affect psychological processes.

One example of this is the Müller-Lyer illusion. This asks people which line is longer although both lines are equally long. Non-Westerners are better at this than Westerners and this might be because Westerners tend to employ more analytic thinking (1) and because Westerners tend to use carved corners to estimate depth (2).

Cultural values are preferences for one state of affairs over another that distinguishes countries, rather than individuals, from each other. They are not exclusive categories and are part of a continuum. There is a lot of heterogeneity within cultures and there are no superior cultural values, although some cultural values are more functional in a given culture or are historically more prevalent in a culture.

People create a network of thoughts, behaviours and feelings surrounding a cultural idea, depending on the extent to which people in a culture are faced with this idea. A network that is activated more often will become stronger. A strong network will be prioritized over weaker networks and this (i.e. the most accessible network) differs between cultures. The meaning of an action is derived from particular cultural experiences.

Multicultural communities in a globalized world need to deal with group differences. However, psychological research makes use of the universality assumption and, therefore, most research is based on WEIRD samples; Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic samples. These samples cannot be generalized because:

• People from Western societies demonstrate more pronounced responses than people from non-Western societies.
• People from the United States demonstrate more extreme responses than other Westerners.
• Undergraduate students

Cultural variation can be explained in two ways:

1. Evoked culture
   This states that cultural norms develop as a biologically encoded response to certain ecological factors (e.g. parasite prevalence leads to physical attractiveness being important in mate selection). 
2. Transmitted culture
   This states that cultural norms are learned from other individuals, which leads to spreading of the norm that has been developed.

The effects of transmitted culture are greater than the effects of evoked culture. Cultural norms are adaptive responses to features of the ecology (e.g. geography has an influence on the cultural norms that develop).

An example of ecological factors changing the culture can be found in China. Rice growing communities became more interdependent and wheat growing communities became more independent, demonstrating that ecological differences can lead to differences in psychology.

Proximal causes refer to causes that have direct and immediate relations with their effects. Distal causes refer to the initial differences that lead to effects over longer periods, often through indirect relations.

There are several characteristics of cultural ideas that are more likely to spread:

1. Useful ideas
   Cultural ideas that are useful are more likely to be transmitted to others.
2. Communicable ideas
   Cultural ideas that are easy to communicate to others are more likely to be transmitted to others, meaning that less complex ideas are more likely to spread.
3. Minimally counterintuitive ideas
   Cultural ideas that are mostly intuitive but have some aspects that are counterintuitive are more likely to be transmitted to others.
4. Emotional ideas
   Cultural ideas that evoke shared emotions are more likely to be transmitted to others, as this allows people to bond with each other.

Cultures have been changing because of globalization; which leads to cultures becoming more homogeneous at an international level. However, at a local level, there is glocalization; cultures becoming more diverse. A result of globalization is the existence of hybrid cultural products.

Cultures persist because cultural innovations are constrained by pre-existing structures. There appears to be a disproportionate influence on cultural evolution by early ecological factors (e.g. gun-slave cycle). Pluralistic ignorance, a situation in which a majority of group members privately rejects a norm but incorrectly assumes that most others accept it and, therefore, goes along with it, also allows cultures to persist.

There is a rise of individualism because of leisure activities that are socially isolating (e.g. television) (1), more work and financial pressures (2), a lack of nationally unifying events (e.g. war) (3) and an increase in sub-urbanisation (4).

The Flynn effect states that there is a rise of IQ over generations which might be due to improved nutrition (1), better and more education (2) or because pop culture is more complex (3). The dynamic social impact theory states that individuals come to influence each other and primarily do so based on how often the individuals interact.

The development niche theory is a theoretical framework for understanding and analysing how culture shapes child development:

• Physical and social setting
  This regards the question of what the social setting provides for the child (e.g. nutrition).
• Customs and practices of child-rearing
  This regards the question of what the inherited and adapted ways of nurturing, entertaining, educating and protecting the child are.
• Caretaker’s psychology
  This regards the question of what parental ethno-theories (e.g. parenting styles) are used.

A sensitive period refers to a period of time in an organism’s development that allows for the relatively easy acquisition of a set of skills. There exists a sensitive period for language learning which is demonstrated by:

• The discrimination and categorization of phonemes in early life
• The development of accents after a sensitive period (i.e. puberty).
• Bilinguals representing language in the same area in Broca’s area.
• Feral children having great difficulty in learning a language.

There appears to be a sensitive period for culture learning. After the age of 15, people have greater difficulty with learning language. Exposure with the host culture increased identification with this culture, especially if this happens before the age of 15. The sensitive period for cultural learning could be influenced by the degree of integration in the new host culture. However, the existence of a sensitive period for culture learning is controversial.

There are four major differences in cultural variation in early developmental experiences:

• Personal space
  This regards how much space the child needs.
• Co-sleeping
  This regards what the attitude towards co-sleeping is and this reflects different values in a culture.
• Parenting style
  This regards what parenting style is used in order to raise the child.
• Noun bias
  This regards to how prevalent nouns, relative to verbs are in a young child’s vocabulary.

A lot of face-to-face contact, rather than bodily contact in infants can lead to more individualism. Parenting style can be seen as a continuum rather than distinct categories and the parenting style might change with the age of the child. The measurement of parenting styles fails to consider developmental stage (1), the fact that expression and perception of warmth depend on culture (2) and the role of training (3). The noun bias might reflect differences in language (e.g. nouns being in more salient positions) or differences in analytic or holistic reasoning.

There are different parenting styles:

1. Authoritarian parenting
   This is an approach which puts a high demand on children and there are strict rules and there is little open dialogue between the parent and the child. This parenting style involves low warmth and responsiveness by the parent to the child’s protest.
2. Authoritative parenting
   This is an approach which is child-centred in which parents hold high expectations of the maturity of the child. The parents attempt to understand

Enculturation refers to the process of first-culture learning. Acculturation refers to the process of cultural change when you interact with people from another culture (i.e. second-culture learning). It is relevant to study acculturation as there is a lot of contact (1), diversity (2) and contact with other cultures (3).

Migration refers to the movement of a person or a group of persons either across an international border or within a nation. There are economic migrants (1), sojourners (2), refugees (3), asylum seekers (4) and displaced people (5).

The process of acculturation includes contact (1), influence (2) and change (3). The change occurs for individuals of both cultures. There are three stages of acculturation:

1. Honeymoon stage (first few months)
   This is a stage in which there is excitement of participating in a novel and exotic environment.
2. Culture shock stage (after the honeymoon stage)
   This is a stage in which there are increasingly negative views about the host cultures.
3. Adjustment stage
   This is a stage in which people adjust to the host culture and tend to become increasingly proficient at functioning in the new culture.

A culture shock refers to the feeling of being anxious, helpless, irritable and homesick when one moves to a new culture. The acculturating individual’s adjustment is influenced by the ease which migrants can be accommodated by the host culture.

The outcome of acculturation consists of sociocultural adaption (1) and psychological adjustment (2). Acculturation can be accompanied by acculturative stress, a reduction in mental health and well-being of ethnic minorities during the process of the adaptation to a new culture. This stress can occur because of language issues (1), perceived cultural incompatibilities (2) and cultural self-consciousness (3). It might be a proxy or a mediator for mental health.

Push factors (e.g. poverty) are factors that push a person away from a country and a culture. Pull factors (e.g. safety) are factors that pull a person towards a country and a culture.

There are several acculturation strategies:

1. Integration strategy (positive views towards both cultures)
   This involves attempts to fit in and fully participate in the host culture while striving to maintain the traditions of one's heritage culture.
2. Assimilation strategy (negative of heritage culture, positive of host culture)
   This involves attempts to fit in and fully participate in the host culture while making little or no efforts to maintain the traditions of one’s heritage culture.
3. Separation strategy (positive of heritage culture, negative of host culture)
   This involves efforts to maintain the traditions of the heritage culture while making little or no effort to participate in the host culture.
4. Marginalization strategy (negative views towards both cultures)
   This involves little or no efforts to participate in the host culture while making little or no efforts to maintain the traditions of the heritage culture.

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Analytic thinking can be characterized by different things:

• It focusses on objects and attributes.
• It holds that objects exist independently of their context (i.e. context independence).
• It uses abstract rules to explain and predict the behaviour of objects.
• It employs taxonomic organization.
• It makes use of rule-based reasoning (e.g. universal abstract rules and laws).
• It emerges through formal schooling.

Holistic thinking can be characterized by different things:

• It focusses on the relations between objects.
• It holds that objects are perceived in terms of how they relate to the context (i.e. context-dependency).
• It uses experience to explain and predict the behaviour of objects.
• It employs thematic organization.
• It makes use of associative reasoning (e.g. considering the relationship between objects).
• It is a more natural way of thinking.

Taxonomic organization refers to grouping stimuli according to the perceived similarity of their attributes. Thematic organization refers to grouping stimuli based on causal, temporal or spatial relationships among them.

The differences in thinking style are caused by socialization and ongoing social experiences (i.e. proximal cause) and the differences in philosophical traditions (i.e. distal cause).

Holistic thinking allows for the ability to attend to a lot of information at once, which is reflected in how information-laden collectivistic cultural settings are (e.g. urban areas). This makes Japanese cities more complex than American cities, as it affords different thinking styles. Holistic thinking allows for better skills for finding details in a busy scene.

Analytic and holistic thinking influence several parts of cognition:

There are several universal physical features of attractiveness:

1. Clear skin
   It is possible that this is a universal physical feature of attractiveness because a clear skin indicates good health, making mating more viable. This is an evolutionary reason why clear skin is attractive.
2. Symmetry
   It is possible that this is a universal physical feature of attractiveness because symmetry indicates developmental stability, which is an indication for good health. This is an evolutionary reason why symmetry is attractive.
3. Average faces
   It is possible that this is a universal physical feature of attractiveness because average faces are less likely to have genetic abnormalities, indicating good health (1) and because average faces are cognitively easier to process (2).

It is possible that mixed-ethnicities faces are more attractive because genetic diversity is a marker of healthy genes (1) and it is more average than a one-ethnicity face (2).

There is cultural variation in the ideal body weight of women with smaller-scale societies finding women with a higher body weight more attractive whereas societies which have been exposed to Western culture more finding women with a lower body weight more attractive. People in lower social-economic settings find heavier bodies more attractive whereas higher social-economic settings finding thinner bodies more attractive.

Body dissatisfaction and a desire for thinness are more common in societies with more exposure to Western ideals and high social-economic settings. There also is cultural variation in the preference for and kind of body decorations.

There are two effects that can influence attractiveness:

1. Propinquity effect (universal and powerful)
   This effect states that people are more likely to start a relationship (e.g. friendship) with whom they interact frequently. It operates through the mere exposure effect as higher exposure leads to familiarity (1) and easier processing (2), which results in people liking it more.
2. Similarity effect (cultural variation)
   This effect states that people are more likely to start a relationship (e.g. friendship) with people who are similar to oneself. This effect holds for individualistic cultures but not for collectivistic cultures.

It is possible that the similarity effect does not hold for collectivistic cultures because of a different stance towards strangers and lower relational mobility.

Attractive people are seen as having more positive qualities as demonstrated by the halo effect. This effect does not hold in cultures with low relational mobility. The residential context in which a person lives or the fact whether a person moves a lot influences the kind of relationships a person has.

Every relationship consists of one or more parts of the relational model typology:

1. Communal sharing (e.g. family dinner)
   This type of relationship is characterized by taking what you need (1) and the absence of recordkeeping (2). It is more prevalent in foraging societies with little or no surplus.
2. Authority ranking (e.g. military)
   This type of relationship is characterized by privileges

The universality thesis states that certain configurations of facial movements are universally perceived as expressing particular emotions. It is possible that people are active perceivers who categorize facial movement using culturally learned emotion concepts.

The universality thesis might have found more support because of the methodological constraints put on the participants (e.g. matching facial expressions to a fixed list of answers). Less constraining methods weaken the evidence found for the universality thesis.

It is possible that the universality thesis has to be weakened as it might be possible that people do not recognize emotion concepts in other people but recognize pleasure and displeasure in all people. People from small-scale societies do not always infer a specific mental feature as the cause of facial movements. They also show action identification, where they make sense of facial movements as behaviours.

Emotion perception requires the perceiver to give meaning to the facial expression which might be culturally determined.  

People of Western culture tend to engage in context-independent cognitive processes and people of East Asian cultures tend to engage in context-dependent cognitive processes. The cultural differences in attentional pattern might be afforded by cultural differences in the physical environment.

Japanese scenes (i.e. cities) are judged to be more ambiguous and complex than American scenes. Cultural differences in the perceptual environment are larger in the smaller, more rural areas than in the megalopolises.

Cultural differences in the perceptual environment can lead to different patterns of attention. People primed with Japanese scenes attended more to contextual information than people primed with American scenes.

There are major cultural differences within China. Farming rice makes a culture more interdependent, whereas farming wheat makes a culture more independent.

Western culture is more individualistic and analytic thinking and East Asian culture is more interdependent and holistic thinking. Analytical thinking uses abstract reasoning and formal categories and holistic thinking is more intuitive. There are four main theories which attempt to explain the reasons for differences between the East and the West:

1. Modernization hypothesis
   The more wealthy, educated and capitalistic societies become, the more individualistic and analytical societies become.
2. Pathogen prevalence
   A high prevalence of communicable diseases makes it more dangerous to deal with strangers, making those societies insular and collectivistic.
3. Subsistence theory
   There are some forms of subsistence (e.g. farming) which require more functional interdependence than other forms of subsistence (e.g. herding).

The biggest differences between farming rice and wheat are irrigation (1) and labour (2). Rice requires more labour and more elaborate irrigation systems, which required the cooperation of multiple people.

Rice cultures have more holistic thought, more interdependent self-construals and lower divorce rates. Wheat cultures had more analytic thought, individualism and divorce. It is believed that subsistence style can shape culture long after people have stopped relying on that subsistence style.