1 Psychology 307: Cultural Psychology Lecture 1

2 International Service Learning Course: May-October, 2013 Psychology 417A: Psychology and Developing Societies ●June-August: 12-week placement in Africa. July: Mid-placement reflection sessions. ●ARCAAP funding available to psychology majors for % of program and travel costs. ●Instructor: Dr. Sunaina Assanand.

3 ●Placement opportunities include: Uganda: Microfinance and development, health and mobility (program development and/or assessment). South Africa: Educational empowerment for youth and parents (curriculum design and assessment). Swaziland: HIV/AIDS advocacy (monitoring and evaluation).

●Application and information available on Go Global’s website: abroad/international-service-learning/current- programs/psychology-and-developing-societies/. 4 ●Application due on January 17, 2013.

●Go Global’s drop-in hours: Mondays: 12:00-2:00, Room University Boulevard, Wesbrook Building Wednesdays: 2:00-4:00, Centre for Student Involvement, Brock Hall ●Contact information for Go Global: 5

6 Introductory Concepts 1.What is culture? 2.What is cultural psychology?

7 Learning Objectives A list of the knowledge or abilities that you should acquire from the information discussed in each class period. Use as a diagnostic tool to monitor your progress. Create essay questions from the learning objectives to assess your mastery.

8 Learning objectives are not presented in the textbook. Consider constructing learning objectives for each section of the textbook (e.g., what should I take away from this section?).

9 1. describe the categories of definitions of culture that have been identified in the literature. By the end of today’s class, you should be able to: 3. distinguish between the universalist view of the mind and relativist view of the mind. 2. explain why “race” is not a valid construct.

10 What is culture? ● A multitude of definitions of culture have been proposed by theorists. ● As early as 1952, Kroeber and Kluckhohn identified 160 definitions of culture in the anthropological literature. They classified these definitions into several categories:

11 (a) Descriptive definitions E.g., Culture refers to “all social activities in the broadest sense, such as language, marriage, property system, etiquette, industries, art, etc.” (Wissler, 1920). (b) Historical definitions E.g., “As a general term, culture means the total social heredity of mankind, while as a specific term a culture means a particular strain of social heredity” (Linton, 1936).

12 (c) Normative definitions E.g., “Patterns for living... the individual's role in the unending kaleidoscope of life situations of every kind and the rules and models for attitude and conduct in them” (Brooks, 1968). (d) Non-genetic definitions E.g., “Culture consists of all phenomena that have been directly or indirectly caused by … non-genetic communication of phenomena from one individual to another” (Hart, 1941).

13 (e) Psychological definitions E.g., “Culture consists of traditional ways of solving problems … of responses which have been accepted because they have met with success; in brief, culture consists of learned problem-solutions” (Ford, 1942).

14 ● Our textbook adopts two definitions of culture: 1. Culture is “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” (Heine, 2012, p. 3). According to Kroeber and Kluckhohn’s (1952) classification system, this is a ______________ definition of culture.

15 Thus, cultures may be defined on the basis of any variable (e.g., age, sex, health status). Cultural psychologists tend to define cultural groups on the basis of nationality. 2. Culture “refers to dynamic groups of individuals that share a similar context, are exposed to many similar cultural messages, and contain a broad range of different individuals who are affected by those messages” (Heine, 2012, p. 5).

16 What is cultural psychology? ● Cultural psychology is concerned with identifying the links between culture and the psychological processes of people exposed to that culture. ● “General” psychology adopts a universalist view of the mind. In contrast, cultural psychology adopts a relativist view the mind.

17 ● Consistent with the relativist view of the mind, Shweder (1991) described cultural psychology as: “the study of the way cultural traditions and social practices regulate, express, and transform the human psyche, resulting less in psychic unity for humankind than in ethnic divergences in mind, self, and emotion.”

18 Introductory Concepts 1.What is culture? 2.What is cultural psychology?