Culture and Development
Definition
Development
The process of growth and change that occurs throughout a person's life, influenced by biological, psychological, and socio-cultural factors.
- Cultural norms and values play a crucial role in shaping how individuals develop socially, emotionally, and cognitively.
- These influences can differ significantly between cultures.
- It can influence our values, social interactions, and perspective on life.
Challenges in Research
- The operationalization of cultural variables may be difficult, especially since these concepts are usually abstract and vague. This may lead to an overgeneralization of cultural norms.
- Ecological fallacy: assuming all people in a culture adhere to the same norms.
- In a world with ever-increasing migration, technology, and globalization, accurately measuring these cultural concepts may be difficult.
Common Mistake
- These difficulties do not make the research invalid.
- Psychological studies often have limitations, which researchers usually attempt to overcome in later research.
Language and Morals
- Expression of emotions, moral reasoning, and certain phrases may be linked to a certain culture.
- Globalization introduces an interesting complexity since many people are now bicultural or are influenced by 3 or more cultures.
Example
- In many places, it is normal to nod to agree.
- In others, however, if you were to nod, they would infer it as you disagreeing.
Case study
Shahaeian et al. (2014)
Aim
To compare the development of theory of mind (ToM) across cultures, namely Iran and Australia.
Method
Participants were asked to complete tasks increasing in difficulty. This included testing the following concepts:
- Diverse Desires: 2 or more people can have different desires.
- Diverse Beliefs: 2 or more people can have different beliefs about the same situation.
- Knowledge Access: Other people may not be able to access the same information they are able to.
- Hidden Emotion: People can hide their true emotions.
- False Belief: If an object is moved without one's knowledge, they will still look for it where they left it.
- Sarcasm: Detecting sarcasm in speech.
Results
- There was an insignificant difference in scores between both groups overall.
- Australian children more often passed the diverse beliefs/desires task
- On the other hand, Iranian children passed the knowledge access and sarcasm task.
- In other concepts, all children performed similarly.
Link to Concepts
- Perspective: Being brought up in different cultural environments can change one's perspective, so it is important to continuously bring it into consideration.
- Bias: Etic Bias and Ecological Fallacies are important to consider in psychological research.
