CHAPTER 1
Cross-cultural psychology is the critical and
comparative study of cultural effects on human
psychology.
Culture is a set of attitudes, behaviors, and symbols
shared by a large group of people and usually
communicated from one generation to the next.
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Attitudes include beliefs (political, ideological,
religious, moral, etc.), values, general
knowledge (empirical and theoretical), opinions,
superstitions, and stereotypes.
Behaviors include a wide variety of norms,
roles, customs, traditions, habits, practices, and
fashions.
Symbols represent things or ideas, the meaning
of which is bestowed on them by people.
Explicit characteristics are the set of observable acts
regularly found in this culture.
Implicit characteristics refer to the organizing principles
that are inferred to lie behind these regularities on the
basis of consistent patterns of explicit culture.
A society is composed of people, whereas a culture is a
shared way of interaction that these people practice.
Race is a group of people distinguished by certain
similar
and
genetically
transmitted
physical
characteristics.
Ethnicity usually indicates cultural heritage, the
experience shared by people who have a common
ancestral origin, language, traditions, and often religion
and geographic territory.
good and evil, right and wrong behavior, and
the purpose of human life.
4. Legal knowledge. This knowledge exists in the
form of laws and other prescriptions
established by authorities
Cultural Roots
1. Traditional culture is a cultural construct based
on traditions, rules, symbols, and principles
established predominantly in the past.
2. Nontraditional culture or modern is based on
new principles, ideas, and practices.
Power distance is the extent to which the members of a
society accept that power in institutions and
organizations is distributed unequally.
Uncertainty orientation refers to common ways used
by people to handle uncertainty in their daily situations
and lives in general.
Uncertainty avoidance is the degree to which the
members of a society feel uncomfortable with
uncertainty and ambiguity.
Individualism is typically interpreted as complex
behavior based on concern for oneself and one’s
immediate family or primary group, as opposed to
concern for other groups or the society to which one
belongs.
Collectivism is typically interpreted as behavior based
on concerns for others and care for traditions and
values.
Nation is defined as group of a people who share
common geographical origin, history, and language and
are unified as a political entity—an independent state
recognized by other countries.
Harry Triandis (1996) introduced the concept of
“cultural syndrome” as the pattern, or combination, of
shared attitudes, beliefs, categorizations, definitions,
norms, and values that is organized around a theme
identified among those who speak a particular
language, during a specific historic period, or in a
definable geographic region.
Religious affiliation indicates an individual’s acceptance
of knowledge, beliefs, and practices related to a
particular faith.
Natural science is a branch of science concerned with
the description, prediction, and understanding of
natural phenomena.
Knowledge is information that has a purpose or use.
Social science is concerned with society and the
relationships among individuals within it.
1. Scientific knowledge. This type of knowledge is
derived from the systematic observation,
measurement, and evaluation of a wide range
of psychological phenomena.
2. Folk theories – encompasses a collection of
popular beliefs and assumptions.
3. Ideological or value-based. This type of
knowledge stems from cohesive and stable
perceptions about the world, the nature of
Within the social sciences, cross-cultural psychology
draws from such fields as anthropology, economics,
and sociology.
Indigenous groups are protected by international or
national laws, retaining specific rights based on their
historical ties to a particular territory and their cultural
and historical uniqueness.
Ethnocentrism is the view that involves judgment about
other ethnic, national, and cultural groups and events
from the observer’s own ethnic, national, or cultural
group’s outlook.
Multiculturalism is a view that encourages the
recognition of equality for all cultural and national
groups and promotes the idea that various cultural
groups have the right to follow their own unique paths
of development and have their own unique activities,
values, and norms.
CHAPTER 2
Metathinking – it is a skill (or, more accurately, a series
of skills) that can be successfully taught and learned.
Metathoughts – “thoughts about thought”
Remember that most person-related phenomena—such
as traits, attitudes, and beliefs—lie along a continuum.
Barnum statement is a personality description about a
particular individual or group that is true of practically
all human beings; in other words, it is a general
statement that has “a little something for everybody.”
Barnum effect refers to people’s willingness to accept
the validity of such overly inclusive and generic
appraisals.
A schema is a cognitive structure that organizes our
knowledge, beliefs, and past experiences, thereby
providing a framework for understanding new events
and future experiences.
Accommodation refers to the process wherein we
modify our schema to fit the data.
Assimilation means to modify the data to fit our
schema.
Heuristics – mental shortcuts
Representativeness heuristic
Representativeness bias
Availability heuristic – refers to the process of drawing
on instances that are easily accessible, or available,
from our memory.
When our use of the availability heuristic results in
systematic errors in making such judgments, we may
refer to this as the availability bias.
Dispositional attributions involve assigning the causes
of behavior to people’s personality traits,
characteristics, or attitudes, that is, to “internal”
influences.
Situational attributions involve assigning the causes of
behavior to people’s circumstances, surroundings, or
environment, that is, to “external” influences.
Fundamental attribution error – explain the behavior of
others as resulting predominantly from their
personality, whereas we often minimize (or even
ignore) the importance of the particular context or
situation.
Cognitive biases refer to systematic mistakes that
derive from limits that are inherent in our capacity to
process information.
Motivational biases refer to systematic mistakes that
derive from our efforts to satisfy our own personal
needs, such as the desire for self-esteem, power, or
control.
Self-fulfilling prophecy – a perceiver’s assumptions
about another person may lead that person to adopt
those expected attributes.
A correlation is a statement about the relationship or
association between two (or more) variables.
Post Hoc Error
Parataxic Reasoning – magical thinking
Naturalistic Fallacy
Belief Perseverance Effect – to protect our beliefs, as if
to protect ourselves; tend to cling to our beliefs,
sometimes even in the face of contrary evidence.
CHAPTER 3
The measure of central tendency indicates the location
of a score distribution on a variable; that is, it describes
where most of the distribution is located.
Four types of measurement scales: nominal, ordinal,
interval, and ratio.
Psychobiographical research, or an in-depth analysis of
particular individuals—usually outstanding persons,
celebrities, and leaders— representing different
countries or cultures.
Application-oriented strategy - a methodology or
procedure tested in a particular cultural context is
tested in a different cultural setting.
Comparativist strategy focuses primarily on similarities
and differences in certain statistical measures in a
sample of cultures.
Equivalence stands for the evidence that the methods
selected for the study measure the same phenomenon
across other countries or cultures chosen for the study.
Three strategies for sample selection
1. Availability or Convenience Sampling
2. Systematic
3. Random Sampling
Observation — the acquisition of information about
identifiable variables from a primary source—to
conduct their study.
In direct surveys, the interviewer maintains or can
maintain a direct communication with the respondent
and is able to provide feedback, repeat a question, or
ask for additional information.
In indirect surveys, the researcher’s personal impact is
very small because there is no direct communication
between the respondent and the interviewer. The
questions are typically written and handed in, mailed, or
sent electronically to the respondents in their homes,
classrooms, or workplaces.
Pagtatanung-tanong – a special unobtrusive survey
procedure that can be used in relatively small, stable,
and homogeneous communities.
Content analysis is a research method that
systematically organizes and summarizes both the
manifest (what was actually said or written) and latent
(the meaning of what was said and written) content of a
text, a message, or any other type of communication.
Holistic refers to the study of systems with multiple
interconnected elements.
CHAPTER 4
Sensation – the process by which receptor cells are
stimulated and transmit their information to various
brain centers.
Absolute threshold – the minimum amount of physical
energy needed for an individual to notice a stimulus.
Perception of Pictures – This perception is linked to a
person’s educational and socialization experience or the
lack of it.
Depth perception refers to the organization of
sensations in three dimensions, even though the image
on the eye’s retina is two dimensional.
Dimensions of Color
1. Hue is what people mean by color.
2. Brightness refers to a color’s intensity.
3. Saturation indicates a color’s purity.
The sense of touch is a combination of at least three
qualities: pressure, temperature, and pain.
Aesthetic experience or perception of the beautiful is
used to identify the feeling of pleasure evoked by
stimuli that are perceived as nice, attractive, or
rewarding.
Consciousness — the subjective awareness of one’s
own sensations, perceptions, and other mental events.
Behavioral environment – a mental representation of
time, space, and the interpersonal world.
Sleep is a nonwaking state of consciousness
characterized by general unresponsiveness to the
environment and general physical immobility.
Monophasic cultures value cognitive experiences that
take place only during normal waking phases and do not
incorporate dreams into the process of social
perception and cognition; a materialistic worldview on
psychological experience.
Polyphasic cultures value dreams and treat them as
part of reality; associated with the spiritual or
traditional view.
Difference threshold is the lowest level of stimulation
required to sense that a change in the stimulation has
occurred.
Altered states of consciousness (ASC) is the general
name for phenomena that are different from normal
waking consciousness and include mystic perceptual
and sensory experiences, such as meditation, hypnosis,
trance, and possession.
Sensory adaptation is the tendency of the sensory
system to respond less to stimuli that continue without
change.
Trance is a sleeplike state marked by reduced sensitivity
to stimuli, the loss or alteration of knowledge, and
automatic motor activity.
Perception – the process that organizes various
sensations into meaningful patterns.
Meditation is a quiet and relaxed state of tranquility in
which a person achieves an integration of thoughts,
perceptions, and attitudes.
Perceptual set – expectations that make particular
interpretations more likely to occur and increase both
the speed and efficiency of the perceptual process.
Transcendental meditation – the individual recites a
mantra, practicing for 15–20 minutes once or twice a
day while relaxing with the eyes closed.