The Psychology of Culture and Gender

Factors Influencing Culture □Population density □Technology □Climate □resources

Factors Influencing Culture □Climate □ Climate influences your lifestyle, including clothing and habitat. □Resources □ Abundance or lack of resources has an influence on how the people of the culture behave.

Factors Influencing Culture □Technology □ Inventions influence how people interact □Population density □ Societies with higher population densities require more rules for maintaining social order.

Individualism and Collectivism Individualism □ Giving priority to personal goals over group goals and defining identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identification Collectivism □ Giving priority to the goals of the group (often the extended family or work group) and defining personal identity accordingly.

Individualism vs Collectivism

Motivation and Culture □ Individualist cultures view motivation as an internal push and achievement as an individual triumph. □ Collectivist cultures view the desire to achieve as emerging from a sense of indebtedness or obligation to the group.

Culture and Personality □Cross- Cultural research □ Research that tests hypotheses on many groups of people to understand whether principles apply across cultures. □Culture Specific □ Principles that are true only for people of a certain culture.

Culture and personality □Socialization □ Learning to become a member of a culture including behaviors the individual expects, and what is expected of the individual □Ethnocentrism □ The tendency to view the world through your own cultural filters.

Culture and Gender □ Our definition of male and female, based on socially and culturally influenced characteristics, as well as biology.

Culture and Gender □Gender Roles □ A set of expected behaviors for male and female. □Gender Identity □ Our sense of being male or female.