Lecture 2: Cultural transmission, Cross-cultural cognition
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Health and Illness: positive concept of health and negative concepts of disease/ illness/ sickness are defined differently in different cultures!
Culture influences:
Culture can be thought of as a set of implicit and explicit guidelines/information that individuals acquire as members of a particular society or context, regarding, eg how to view the world/ how to experience emotions/ how to behave in relation to other people/ to supernatural forces or gods/ to the natural environment. It also provides a way of transmitting these guidelines to the next generation (enculturation).
Enculturation: a 'lens' through which the individual perceives and understands the world that he inhabits and learns how to live with it. The group or context itself.
Challenges to definitions/ challenges to define cultures:
Multiple levels of culture
(Cross-)cultural psychology
'Humans seek meaning in their actions, and the shared ideas that make up cultures provide the kinds of meanings that people can derive from their experiences. Cultural meanings are thus entangling with the ways that the mind operates, and we cannot consider the mind separate from its culture.' --> quote from the author of the textbook, he is clearly a relativist
Universality vs cultural variability
Whether a process is universal or culturally variable often depends on the level of definition. Abstract definitions generally lead to evidence supporting universality. Concrete definitions generally lead to evidence supporting variability.
Degrees of universality--> zie bb voor model
Cultural dimensions theory: cultures can be distinguished according to five dimensions:
Theoretical constructions: generalizations: groups also vary in homogeneity. Individual differences/ layers within cultures.
Socio-Economic Status
SES also has cultural implications! Interaction with culture and specifically relevant for health.
Differences in health behaviours within western cultures:
Poverty: socioeconomic level influences many variables that impact development and health in children (parental stress, neighbourhood risk, access to health care, social capital, financial investment).
Acquiring culture: cultural norms (and cultural differences!) are created through different ways of socialization. In general: when you are born, you will learn it. Because we are born open to learning any culture. Younger children across cultures should be relatively similar because there had been relatively little socialization. Older adults should show greater cultural differences between cultures due to more socialization. Cultural differences increase with age.
Parenting: Effects of parenting generally studied under Baumrind's typology:
Which is best? Studies usually show authoritative parenting to yield best results in for instance school achievement, and perceived parental warmth. But some suggest the typology is laden with Western notions of development! Many other cultures commonly have a strict, parent-centred parenting style; but these do not fit neatly into Baumrind's "authoritarian" style. In many Asian cultures, parenting style changes according to child's stage of development. There is more explicit communication of parental warmth in Western societies, but more implicit communication of it in Asian societies. "Authoritarian" style fails to capture nuances of culture-specific notions of parenting styles (eg jiao xun or training, in Chinese parenting).
Universality of life stages
Terrible two's = a developmental milestone in the West. Important for children to assert autonomy and individuality. Serves as a foundation for future mature relationships. But this developmental stage is not seen universally. Some cultures view noncompliance as immaturity, not a step toward personal growth.
Adolescent rebellion = a developmental milestone considered by Western researches to be natural. Assumed to be due to hormonal changes in puberty. Characterized by disobedience, delinquency, and defiance of authority. But examining ethnographies of 175 pre-industrialized societies revealed that over half of them did not associate adolescence with antisocial behaviour.
Sensitive period: span of an organism's life when it can gain a new skill relatively easily. Skill acquisition subsequent to this becomes much more difficult. Evident across many different species, across many domains. Not applicable to all domains of learning in humans but applies to language and culture acquisition.
Migrant development: immigrant stress: many problems that make immigrants develop more poorly. Important sources of stress and health problems: poverty, discrimination, loyalty conflicts, trauma (depending on reasons to leave original country), homesickness, etc.
Immigrant paradox: despite lower SES, immigrant adolescents are less likely to have behavioural psychological, or health problems than national adolescents. Mean immigrant SES markedly lower than that of nationals. Second generation decline: effect becomes smaller. Eventually, convergence or even surpassing in negative direction. Potential explanations:
In Europe: only in sociocultural adaptation, not psychological adaptation!
Netherlands: despite markedly lower SES, immigrants tend to perform as well or better than their national peers. Second generation decline. Smaller effects than in the USA or Canada.
Downward assimilation: where will most immigrant adolescents live? They start to assimilate toward the wrong groups when they live in "bad neighbourhoods".
Segmented assimilation: effects of acculturation depend on context. Assimilation may have positive effects in an affluent context. However, most immigrants do not arrive in an affluent context. Assimilation into the lower segment of society, combined with a feeling of discrimination adverse effects. Selective assimilation may help.
Dealing with differences
Colour-blind approach | Multicultural approach |
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Error of ethnocentrism: Recognize our own ethnocentrism: perceiving one's own culture as standard of comparison. The tendency to judge people from other cultures by comparing them to your own culture.
Current research practice: selection bias
Who is WEIRD: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic
WEIRD countries only make up about 16% of the world's population! Evidence for WEIRD thinking has been shown by contrasting:
WEIRD group even appears to be particularly unusual, with differences appearing in visual perception; fairness; cooperation; spatial reasoning; categorization and inferential induction; moral reasoning; reasoning styles; self-concepts and related motivations; heritability of IQ. But also, our main source of information.
(Cross-)cultural psychology aims to better understand the full distributions of human psychology and the implications of cross-cultural variation. Learning about cross-cultural variation helps us to interact in a globalizing world, especially in multicultural societies.
Goals:
Approaches: Quantitative and qualitative
Practical aspects
Methodological equivalence: how easily can you apply measures across cultures?
Extensive piloting and validation!
Measurement quality: reliability and validity
Central themes:
Universality of a specific trait: often: looking across groups (remember the levels of universality!)
Influence of a specific trait on thinking & behaviour: often: looking with in (multiple) groups
Studying a culture as a whole rather than individuals: often: looking at cultural messages (news, media, etc) for specific traits
Comparisons: what are the right contrasts: depends on the specific research question.
Instruments: surveys, experiments (behavioural/physiological), observation, interviews, economic games, archival work, field work, etc.
Questionnaire translation: process of forward and backward translation to achieve 'equilibrium'. Full process:
Response biases:
What to do?
Reference group effects: the response to questions may depend on the group that one is using for reference. For example: how does one respond to the item "I am tall?" To control for this, it's better to use objective and concrete measures, by providing specific scenarios as questions, asking quantitative questions and/or using behavioural and physiological measures.
Deprivation effects: the tendency for people (or cultures) to value what they would like not what they have. No clear solution for this bias, except to interpret results with caution.
Experimental methods
Important: culture is not a trait that can be manipulated! As usual:
The dependent variable can come from behavioural responses (ratings, correct answers, etc) and physiological measures (brain, hormones, heart rate, etc).
Findings are statistically evaluated. Aim to work in a hypothesis-testing, theoretically grounded way!
Unpackaging culture
Unpackaging= identifying underlying variables that create cultural differences
Three steps:
Culture-specific method 1: situations sampling: how do people respond to situations regularly experienced.
A two-step method:
This allows for two types of analyses:
Culture-specific method 2: cultural priming
Entails inducing cultural ways of thinking that were not enculturated by the participant's cultural group. Assumes that while some ways of thinking may be different between Cultures A and B, Cultures A's way of thinking may still be present, but to a limited extent. When cultural ideas are activated that actually fit more into another culture (priming), then people start to think more in ways of that culture.
Mixed methods: no single study design is perfect, due to alternative explanations and methodological flaws. The best way to counter such problems is to use multiple, differing methods. Using multiple methods to replicate findings while disproving alternative accounts provides the most compelling evidence.
Interpretation bias
Cross-cultural health research
Many challenges: language barrier in an already complicated field, limitations of practical settings, eg membership in a cultural group is not always clear-cut; types and prevalence of disorders may be different, eg specific psychiatric syndromes; health communication is more difficult across cultures; translation, adaptation and validation of measures is time-consuming and costly, yet even more necessary in health contexts.
Summary
Health and Illness: positive concept of health and negative concepts of disease/ illness/ sickness are defined differently in different cultures!
Culture influences:
Culture can be thought of as a set of implicit and explicit guidelines/information that individuals acquire as members of a particular society or context, regarding, eg how to view the world/ how to experience emotions/ how to behave in relation to other people/ to supernatural forces or gods/ to the natural environment. It also provides a way of transmitting these guidelines to the next generation (enculturation).
Enculturation: a 'lens' through which the individual perceives and understands the world that he inhabits and learns how to live with it. The group or context itself.
Challenges to definitions/ challenges to define cultures:
Multiple levels of culture
(Cross-)cultural psychology
Cultural variation: differences between cultural groups. Cultures are fluid and dynamic, in most cases changing over time. But cultural ideas and norms don't necessarily emerge to address universal problems. Rathe result from cultural learning. Example: fashion, tertiary level.
Sources of cultural variation: ecological geographical differences are important and can lead to far-reaching consequences. Eg availability of food sources, ease of living in specific habitats, interdependence among groups, etc. Local ecologies influence cultural values and norms and can lead to cultural in different ways: proximal causes vs distal causes and evoked culture vs transmitted culture.
Proximal causes: influenced that have direct and immediate effects. - eg when Spanish conquistadors invading had good armour, allowing a quick victory over the Incans, who lacked such technology.
Distal causes: initial differences that lead to effects over long periods of time. - eg because of sufficient food, people could devote their time to nonfood activities such as creating tools.
Evoked culture: specific environmental conditions evoke specific responses from (all) people within that environment, becoming part of a culture. - eg acting in an intimidating manner when your children are being threatened.
Transmitted culture: cultural information passed on or learned via social transmission or modeling. - eg copying behaviour, clothing, aspects of etiquette, etc, from food-finding to social interaction.
Evoked and transmitted culture are not always clearly separated! Eg more emphasis on physical attractiveness due to greater parasite prevalence, vs parents teaching their children to pay attention to physical attractiveness. Transmitted culture is arguably always involved in maintaining cultural norms, even when evoked cultural responses are also present. Evoked culture based on ecological pressures alone cannot explain cultural variation. Transmitted culture represents situation-specific AND group-specific knowledge.
Transmission of cultural information, how is information transferred
Parallel with biological evolution, the main mechanisms are natural selection: increasing proportions of traits that confer a survival advantage; sexual selection: increasing proportion of traits that confer reproductive advantages. Sometimes conflicting!
Cultural evolution
Similarities with biological evolution: Ideas can be persistent (high survival rate) and ideas can be more prone to being passed around (reproduced more).
Differences: cultural ideas can be transmitted horizontally among peers, not only vertically across generations.
What makes ideas interesting and sticky?
Started with Darwin: Emotions and emotional expressions are universal; everyone has the same. Later there was discovered by Ekman & Friesen that there were six basic emotions: happiness, surprise, sadness, disgust, fear and anger.
How did they do the research: They asked different people, who have never met, how they would express certain sentences. These were checked with different societies.
Assessing universality: in particular, pride has been proposed to be universally recognized expression. Pride is different in that it involves much of the body, not just the face: erect posture, head tilted back, slight smile, arms extending away. Even people who are born blind, show this emotion.
What is an emotion: face, posture, subjective feeling, caused by the environment, combination of physiological reaction and cognitive,
Perspectives on emotions
Universality vs cultural variability
The JL theory predicts that emotions should be universal due to physiological similarities of all humans. If JL was right, then emotions would be universal, the same in every human being.
The Two-Factor theory predicts that emotions should vary across cultures because different cultural experiences may lead us to have different interpretations of physiological responses. If the Two-factor theory was right and it would depend on how you would interpret it, then not universal.
Do differences in emotional expressions affect emotional experiences, too?
Do people experience emotions the same? Is there a link with how emotions are expressed and how they are felt? If that is true, then you could either feel the emotion and express it and express the emotion and feel it. If the second thing is the case, then you could influence how you feel.
Facial feedback hypothesis provides one reason to expect cultural variability. The hypothesis proposes that we use our facial expression to infer our emotional state. This suggests that by making a particular emotional expression, we can think that we are experiencing the corresponding emotion. Pencil test: it suggests that our facial expressions can affect our emotional
.....read moreOverall key points
Commonalities and culture differences in:
Body and lifestyle are influenced by our culture
Note that: Influence of culture on health is very broad and complex. In these notes only some of the relevant topics will be discussed. The main aim is to raise awareness of differences, open mind to variety and views other than those that are so standard to you that you wouldn't even think about them. Differences between individuals from one culture can sometimes be larger than those between cultures.
What is universally attractive? Evolutionary psychologists suggest preferences for visual appearances have evolutionary roots. Communalities across culture in what is perceived as attractive: clear complexion, bilateral symmetry and average features. Signs that you are healthy. People are attracted to healthy mates.
Skin signals health more directly than any other visible aspect. The cosmetics industry provides people with ways to make their complexion look clearer. People have strong aversive reactions to skin conditions. Skin conditions often associated with stigmatization. Example: 2 Nigerian girls with skin disorder were hidden to protect the other children in the family, as marriage with member of family in which the skin disorder occurs is discouraged.
Bilateral symmetry is a marker of health. When an organism develops under ideal conditions its right and left sides will be symmetrical. Genetic mutations, pathogens or stressors in the womb can lead to asymmetrical development. On average, asymmetrical faces are views as less attractive.
Faces with average features are more attractive than faces that deviate from average. Average features are less likely to contain genetic abnormalities and are more symmetrical. We can more easily process any kind of stimulus that is closer to a prototype than one that is further from a prototype. And easy processing is associated with a pleasant feeling that gets interpreted as attractive.
"Average is attractive" does not apply to aspects beyond facial features. This is seen with people's weight, height, muscles, breasts and hips. For such aspects, it's often bodies that depart from average that are seen as more attractive. The kinds of body weights that are perceived to be most attractive vary considerably across cultures.
Body-weight
In 1951, anthropologist and psychologist concluded that heavier women were universally found to be more attractive.
.....read moreThere is no direct explanation but, a serious illness can be explained as a condition that carries a high risk of mortality, negatively impact the quality of life and daily function, and/or is burdensome in symptoms, treatments or caregivers stress.
Examples of serious illnesses: cancer, dementia, heart failure, diabetes, lung diseases.
Importance of communication: The moment patients are diagnosed, they need good communication: what is going on, what are their options, feel they are seen, someone is caring for them (patient and family).
Patient: Priority: complaints; Outcomes: satisfaction, bereavement outcomes, how they're loved ones feel after they died.
Healthcare professionals: Intrinsic motivation: we all have intrinsic motivation for good communication. But it is difficult, especially breaking the bad news. Poor communication is related to burnout.
Communication errors are related with culture.
In the Netherlands there is a lot of focus on what the patient wants, the family comes second. Autonomy: discuss everything with the patient first, and then maybe the relatives. Don't speak about the patient without his/her permission. Tell everything clearly and honestly. The patient decides, not the family. A lot of cultures are more family-centred.
The stress-coping model of communication
It really about the 'need to know' (cognitive information) and the 'need to feel known' (affective empathy).
Illness attributions: When facing serious illness, patients attribute these illnesses to several causes. Where you attribute the illness to, is dependent of the culture.
Study among White British vs Black Caribbean MS patients in London. Two illness attributes: genetic/medical/environment vs supernatural. How people attribute their illness, could also change the information you have to give.
The role of religion: religion can play a large role in illness perceptions. Islam: disease can be a divine test and only Allah knows and need to continue aggressive treatment. Christianity:
.....read moreNeuropsychology: study of the relationship between behaviour, emotion and cognition on one hand, and brain function on the other.
Clinical neuropsychology(NP): assessing and cognitive, emotional and behavioural function after suspecting brain damage for diagnosis and potential treatment.
Brain damage after trauma, vascular accidents, tumours, toxicity, infections, also (neurodegenerative) diseases, or just ageing.
NP assessment: 'imperfect index of brain function'
Physical differences: brain - Brain plasticity can be affected by: specialized skill acquisition, enrichment, deprivation, education, health, stress, correlates of differing cognitive mechanisms, experience more generally.
Cultural neuroscience: field with focus on factors that affect biologicals and psychological processes that reciprocally shape beliefs and norms shared by groups of individuals.
Physical differences: genetics - Core of nature/nurture interactions!
Heredity: passing on characteristics from parents to children based on genetic material. Although about 99% of genes are fixed, 1% differs across individuals. Genes can have effects that depend on external variables.
Epigenetics: environmental factors cause genes to switch on or off without modification of the DNA sequence. Chemical tags can control genes in specific cells. Epigenetic tags can result from lifestyle choices or specific experience. Some epigenetic tags are hereditary! Part of our genetics that only become available in certain circumstances.
Physiological approach is relatively new! Questions:
The relation between biology and behaviours may depend on the cultural meaningsof behaviours, rather than on the actual behaviours.
Measuring brain function: NP assessment: intelligence; memory; verbal abilities; executive functions; visuo-spatial functions; attention; syndrome-related combinations; general batteries. The scores will be compared to normative data, sometimes with correlations for age or education level.
Culture and NP assessment: Normative data based on very limited subsample WEIRD patients: which is partial and biased.
There are several thousands of cultures, and over 6800 language spoken! Relative differences
.....read moreThe epicentre: eastern/southern Afrika. 10% of the world population lives there. 75% of all people infected with HIV and 75% of newly infected people live there.
Anthropology: how individuals’ behaviour is shaped more by group norms and values, but they have been too focused on group norms. They studied only the cultures and took themselves as the norm and the other as needed of explanation. We still see this today. But, our own point of view needs explanation too. The individual perspective of a culture lacked, not everyone in a culture is the same. The lay people still see their own culture as the norm and that everyone within a culture thinks the same.
Cultural relativism: becoming aware that we are also trained to see the world a certain way. The opposite of ethnocentrism. Differences between groups of people are not biological but cultural (‘man-made’/ taught). Franz Boas: "civilization is not something absolute, but is relative, and our ideas and conceptions are true only so far as our civilization goes”. cultural relativism has consequences for data collection.
Data collection: it suggests that the data is out there, has a form/shape, regardless of who finds it. That's not true, data is not easy to find. A lot of the time people just ask what they want to know, but when asked sensitive questions (about HIV for example), people don't always answer honestly. Also, our concepts of things/situations aren't always the same. For example, marriage is very different in the West, then in Afrika.
Ethnographic research: a qualitative research method centred upon direct and sustained, naturalistic interaction with people in the context of their daily lives in an attempt to grasp the world from their perspective.
How to gain the trust of a culture: participate in the daily lives, activities. Trying to bond with the people. Bodily experiencing helps to understand the people.
Differences in world views: Gender
Malawi: you squat down when talking to someone older. Social hierarchy is much more related to age/seniority than gender. Gender not a universal social stratifier in that society. In Malawi, you have words for a younger and older sibling, instead of brother or sister.
Cultural differences in health
Everywhere people try to make sense of health problems and seek ways to prevent and cure these.
.....read moreARQ: organization helping people after traumas.
Who are refugees? Because conflict or persecution they have to flee their country. No longer in their own country, having to cross borders and it is not possible to go back home safely. Countries have a legal obligation to help refugees and are not allowed to send them back if it is not safe. When do you stop being a refugee: when they can go back? When they integrate in their new country?
2017: 14.716 new asylum application. Mostly from Syria (2.202) and Eritrea (1.095). 14.490 people reunited with their families in the Netherlands.
Syrians are the largest group of refugees in the Netherlands. 40% of male and 45% of female recognised refugees have psychological complaints (anxiety, depression, PTSD).
The refugee (mental) burden:
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