Showing papers in "Online Readings in Psychology and Culture in 2014"

How Death Imitates Life: Cultural Influences on Conceptions of Death and Dying

Abstract: Regardless of how or where we are born, what unites people of all cultures is the fact everyone eventually dies. However, cultures vary in how they conceptualize death and what happens when a person dies. In some cultures, death is conceived to involve different conditions, including sleep, illness, and reaching a certain age. In other cultures, death is said to occur only when there is a total cessation of life. Similarly, certain cultural traditions view death as a transition to other forms of existence; others propose a continuous interaction between the dead and the living; some cultures conceive a circular pattern of multiple deaths and rebirths; and yet others view death as the final end, with nothing occurring after death. These different conceptions have a noticeable influence on their lifestyles, their readiness to die for a cause, the degree to which they fear death, their expressions of grief and mourning, and the nature of funeral rituals. Any reasonably broad conceptualization of death issues would necessarily have to incorporate these various cultural variations. Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. This article is available in Online Readings in Psychology and Culture: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/orpc/vol6/iss2/3

The Role of Culture in Social Development Over the Life Span : An Interpersonal Relations Approach

Abstract: This article aims to illustrate the role of culture for individual development throughout the life span. First, theoretical approaches how culture affects the ontogenesis is presented, starting from early anthropological to recent eco-cultural and culture-informed approaches. Then, culture-specific conceptualizations of development over the life span are discussed, focusing on development in childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age. Finally, we concentrate on selected areas of social development and report on recent studies on subjective theories, transmissions of values, and intergenerational relations. These studies are discussed as aspects of a more extended interpersonal relations approach to development within culture. Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. This article is available in Online Readings in Psychology and Culture: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/orpc/vol6/iss2/1

Fatherhood in Brazil, Bangladesh, Russia, Japan, and Australia

Abstract: This article illustrates that the roles of fathers are highly variable and context-dependent. Research data from five diverse societies (Brazil, Bangladesh, Russia, Japan, and Australia) show that fathers, fathering, and fatherhood differ within societies according to eight types of contextual influence. Examples are provided of each contextual factor: (1) geographical location (e.g., dispersion of fathers across huge land masses in Russia and Australia; impact of dense populations in Japan and Bangladesh); (2) long-term historical legacies (centuries of patriarchy in Brazil) and short-term historical events (fall of communism in Russia); (3) family characteristics (joint, extended families of Bangladesh; small Japanese families); (4) economic factors (high standards of living in Australia and Japan); (5) work-related conditions (long work hours in Australia; level of encouragement for paternal work leave); (6) societal norms and values (social expectations for Russian fathers to be disengaged and uninvolved); (7) ethnic groupings (homogeneity of Japanese; impact of Islam on Bengali fathers); and (8) patterns of immigration and emigration (emigration from Bangladesh; immigration to Brazil). It is possible to identify general differences in fathers between the five societies, but fathering diversity within societies make it clear that over-generalizations about fathering anywhere are dangerous. Although the quantity and quality of fathering research is improving in all five of the societies, we still need to know more about how fathering behavior varies within and between societies, and the mechanisms (e.g., through socialization, economic contexts, etc.) by which cultures influence fathers and vice versa. Opportunities abound for future psychological research on fathers and families in cultural context. Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. This article is available in Online Readings in Psychology and Culture: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/orpc/vol6/iss3/4 Barbara and David Shwalb Introduction Socialization and childrearing have been studied often by cross-cultural psychologists and developmental psychologists for well over half a century. As a result, excellent data are available about cultural influences on family life and child development (Georgas, Berry, Fons, van de Vijver, & Kagitçibasi, 2007; Harkness & Super, 2002; Kagitçibasi, 2007; Tudge, 2008; Whiting & Whiting, 1975). Within this literature, however, most international studies on socialization and parenting have focused on mother-child relations and paid much little attention to the father’s role. This article presents information about fathers (called the “forgotten contributors to child development” by Lamb, 1975), with an emphasis on diversity within five societies: Brazil, Bangladesh, Russia, Japan, and Australia. In Fathers in Cultural Context (FICC, Shwalb, Shwalb, & Lamb, 2013), experts on fifteen societies or regions wrote about fathers (biological and ‘social’), fathering (their behavior), and fatherhood (conceptualizations of their roles). FICC concluded with five general statements, specifically that (1) cultural and historical change and continuity are important influences on fathers; (2) the quality and quantity of fathering research, and enthusiasm for active fathering, vary between societies; (3) social policies and laws relevant to fathering are extensive in some societies but rare in others; (4) diversity of fathering is universal within societies; and (5) economic and employment conditions comprise an important influence on fathering. The conclusion about diversity underscored Tudge’s (2008) observation that “...researchers interested in cultural issues have paid too little attention to heterogeneity within societies...cross-societal research should always recognize the within-society heterogeneity that is a function of social class, race, ethnicity, and so on...” (p. 17). Most of the society-wide or regional generalizations about fathers made by the chapter contributors in FICC were tentative and cautious, given the limited research data on fathering in most societies and also because the chapter writers knew that fathers are highly diverse within their societies. After reconsidering the issue of diversity, we wrote a postscript to FICC as a follow-up handbook chapter (Shwalb & Shwalb, in press) and categorized eight main sources of within-society variability among fathers: 3 Shwalb and Shwalb: Fatherhood in Brazil, Bangladesh, Russia, Japan, & Australia Produced by The Berkeley Electronic Press, 2011 1. Geography – spatial location of the father; features of the physical environment 2. History – long-term or short-term 3. Family characteristics – family structure and size; marital or residential status 4. Economic factors –at the family and societal level 5. Employment/work conditions – employment patterns, work hours, leave policies 6. Norms, values and beliefs – ideology, value system, role expectations 7. Ethnicity – language, culture, country of origin, religion 8. Immigration/emigration – rural-to-urban or international; generation since immigration. This article provides evidence of variability in fathers, fathering, and fatherhood in a subset of five of the fifteen societies discussed in FICC (2013). There were three considerations in the selection of the five societies: (1) their original inclusion in FICC as based on geographical balance and existence of empirical research data; (2) exclusion of data on fathering in China, India, Central/East Africa, and the Caribbean, which we have recently highlighted elsewhere (see Shwalb & Shwalb, in press); and (3) substantial evidence of within-society fathering diversity. The five portrayals of fathers are presented below in size order of national population: Brazil (201 million), Bangladesh (164MM), Russia (142MM), Japan (127MM), and Australia (22MM). Of these five, there is a deep and broad fathering literature only for the Japanese, although sufficient information about fathers was available from all five societies to compose chapters in FICC. Throughout this article we use the term “society” (organized communities that may equate with a culture, nation, or both) to describe Brazil, Bangladesh, Russia, Japan, and Australia, rather than “nation” (a geo-political entity). “Society” also seemed the more appropriate focus here than “culture” (a pattern of beliefs and behavior common to a social group and transmitted between or within generations ‘non-biologically’ Hewlett, 2000), because most of the research reported was not concerned with aspects of cultural construction or transmission. Fathers in the five societies selected for review here do not represent fathers worldwide, and diversity of men within each society makes it impossible to claim that we have represented all fathers within any of these societies. This article aims to contribute to an understanding of fathering by providing evidence of diversity, and hopefully it will encourage other researchers to add to the knowledge base on fathering diversity, which has improved but still is neither broad nor deep for most societies. Biological anthropologist Sarah Hrdy (2009) concluded in Mothers and Others that 4 Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, Unit 6, Subunit 3, Chapter 4 http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/orpc/vol6/iss3/4 “...nurturing responses in human fathers are extremely facultative --that is, situation-dependent and expressed only under certain conditions. This generalization holds true whether we consider provisioning or the observable intimacies between father and child.” (p. 161) This paper illustrates that fathers are facultative and that variability is a hallmark of fatherhood; future research is required, however, to determine empirically whether fathering is more situation-dependent or variable than mothering.

Integrating intercultural communication and cross-cultural psychology: Theoretical and pedagogical implications

Abstract: While psychology and communication have borrowed theories and methodologies from each other, much scholarly discussion tends to focus on the flow from psychology to communication. Relatively less attention has been paid to the work in communication that adds to psychology, particularly in examining the processes of developing relationships with culturally different others. It is timely for us to look at how communication theory and methodology have contributed to psychology in understanding differences between groups, as well as in improving intergroup relations. This paper focuses on intercultural communication, particularly acculturation of immigrants and sojourners as a clear intersection between cross-cultural psychology and communication. We aim to identify points of departure and points of integration between the two fields, drawing implications for theory in both fields and suggesting specific pedagogical tools to develop intercultural communication awareness and competence among psychology students.

Cultural Neuroscience: A Historical Introduction and Overview

Abstract: The integration of cognitive neuroscience with the study of culture emerged from independent ascensions among both fields in the early 1990s. This marriage of the two previously unconnected areas of inquiry has generated a variety of empirical and theoretical works that have provided unique insights to both partners that might have otherwise gone overlooked. Here, I provide a brief historical introduction to the emergence of cultural neuroscience from its roots in cultural psychology and cognitive neuroscience to its present stature as one of the most challenging but rewarding sub-disciplines to have come from the burgeoning growth of the study of the brain and behavior. In doing so, I overview some of the more studied areas within cultural neuroscience: language, music, mathematics, visual perception, and social cognition. I conclude with a discussion of how both parent fields (cognitive neuroscience and cultural psychology) have reciprocally benefited from the involvement of the other. Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. This article is available in Online Readings in Psychology and Culture: https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/orpc/vol9/iss2/1 Historical Background In 1991, Hazel Markus and Shinobu Kitayama published a seminal review that brought cultural psychology to the attention of mainstream researchers in psychology. Previously an interdisciplinary subfield of social psychology, cultural differences in thought and behavior constituted a topic of interest to anthropologists, linguists, and scholars of communication as much or more than it was to psychologists. Markus and Kitayama’s (1991) paper changed that by effectively integrating questions about cultural differences with questions of interest to researchers in social cognition (the dominant theoretical focus of social psychology at the time). Although scholars have not uniformly accepted some of Markus and Kitayama’s arguments and questioned the magnitude of empirical support behind them (e.g., Matsumoto, 1999; Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002), their paper has garnered over 12,000 citations to date, positioning it as arguably the most influential paper in cultural psychology and one of the most cited in all of the social and behavioral sciences. Thus, the work marked a new era for cultural psychology and a historical turning point that provided momentum for rebirth of the study of culture among scholars in psychology. At approximately the same time that Markus and Kitayama’s (1991) review was reshaping the fate of cultural psychology, a separate set of exciting advances was occurring in neuroscience. Researchers at AT&T’s Bell Laboratories in 1990 and at the Massachusetts General Hospital in 1991 independently developed the ability to reliably track bloodflow within the brain, setting the foundation for a revolution in cognitive neuroscience (see Kwong, 2012, for a historical review). It was not long until studies of human brain activity were being published using this technological innovation (e.g., Belliveau et al., 1991), touching off an explosion of interest in cognitive neuroscience over the next decade. The degree to which psychology departments embraced this new hybrid field was revolutionary: they invested unprecedented resources in acquiring functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scanners, hired physicists and neurologists onto their faculties, and even changed their names to highlight the new “brain sciences” (Jaffe, 2011). The number of brain-imaging studies in psychology grew exponentially by the new millennium and has continued to rise in the last 25 years (e.g., Derrfuss & Mar, 2009). It was not long after this renaissance in cognitive neuroscience that a second generation of offspring fields developed. Perhaps the most prominent of these has been social neuroscience (also called “social cognitive neuroscience” and “social cognitive affective neuroscience”; see Lieberman, 2006). Rather than applying measures of brain activity and brain-mapping to questions about basic cognition (e.g., the representation of different patterns in the visual cortex; Le Bihan et al., 1993), researchers began using these tools to ask questions about social thought and social behavior. Social neuroscience quickly splintered into a host of topic-based fields such as personality neuroscience, affective neuroscience, and neuroeconomics, each with their own flavor and inspiration from a distinct tradition that shared some interest with questions previously asked by social psychologists (i.e., personality psychologists, interdisciplinary emotion researchers, and economists, respectively). Most notable to the current work, cultural neuroscience (also 3 Rule: Cultural Neuroscience Produced by The Berkeley Electronic Press, 2011 referred to as “transcultural neuroscience;” Han & Northoff, 2008) was among these as well. Cultural neuroscience may best be defined as the application of cognitive neuroscience tools to answering questions about cultural differences in thought and behavior. Similar to neuroeconomics, affective neuroscience, and personality neuroscience, cultural neuroscience shares overlap with the interests of social neuroscientists but also touches on topics of interest that are broader than those addressed in psychology. Not unlike its parent discipline of cultural psychology, the content area of cultural neuroscience is interdisciplinary: relevant to scholars in anthropology, linguistics, communication, sociology, and others within the social sciences. Cognitive neuroscience, too, is an interdisciplinary field, traditionally attracting interest from researchers in cognition, perception, vision sciences, medicine, physics, physiology, and a host of other disciplines in the natural sciences (see Gazzaniga, 1984). The product of this merging is therefore a field that is simultaneously very broad in the number of domains to which it is connected and also quite narrow in that it is limited to questions and phenomena within these fields that are only related to cultural differences. This has resulted in a veritable cornucopia of research published in cultural neuroscience, ranging from questions about basic cognition (e.g., neural correlates of mathematical processing across cultures; Tang et al., 2006) to questions about high-level social phenomena (e.g., brain regions associated with election outcomes in different nations; Rule, Freeman, Moran, Gabrieli, & Ambady, 2010). Since its inception, cultural neuroscience has come to envelope a variety of topics and has spawned a number of edited volumes (e.g., Han & Pöppel, 2011) and special issues of journals (e.g., Chiao, 2010) devoted to cultural neuroscience exclusively. The questions investigated in these areas have continued to be wide-ranging and have even grown to include other elements of neuroscience that extend beyond the brain, such as genetic factors that differ crossculturally and interact with the cognitive and behavioral processes more traditionally studied in cognitive neuroscience (e.g., Way & Lieberman, 2010). Empirical work in cognitive neuroscience can be logistically challenging and many of these challenges are only compounded by those inherent to conducting cross-cultural work. A common assumption (and, thus, criticism—see Poldrack, 2010) of cognitive neuroscience is that the brain’s structure and function are equivocally linked. Harkening back to phrenological claims about the areas of the brain that are responsible for particular thoughts (such as described by Browne, 1869, for example), there is a temptation in brainmapping to isolate “the part of the brain that does X.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, the operations of the brain are not so simple. Although there may be correlations between measures of metabolism, bloodflow, or electroconductivity in the brain with specific or general classes of thought and behavior, these data are only suggestive (e.g., Horwitz, 2003). An important distinction is therefore that cognitive neuroscience may provide instruments to test hypotheses about brain function and behavior, rather than objective measurements of cognitive processes or their sequelae. Much of cognitive neuroscience has been, and presently remains, exploratory and this may be particularly true of its offspring fields like cultural neuroscience that are working at the frontiers of what is known. 4 Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, Unit 9, Subunit 2, Chapter 1 https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/orpc/vol9/iss2/1 In terms of theory, measurement, and analysis (for which there are many variables requiring consideration; see Poldrack et al., 2008), cognitive neuroscience is still an emerging field. Hence, its offspring, such as cultural neuroscience, depend critically upon the resolution of a great many issues within the parent. Exacerbating this, cultural neuroscience invites unique complications of its own. For instance, if one wishes to truly compare the brain response of individuals from two cultures, it is best if data are collected using the same fMRI scanner, or at least using the same model of fMRI scanner. The calibrations and parameters that must be programmed into a scanning protocol are also highly multivariate even within the same machine. Thus, great care must be taken to assure that a long list of variables is kept constant in addition to all of the usual challenges and preconditions of cross-cultural work, such as the possible overreliance upon dichotomies (interdependent versus independent; East versus West) that may not capture the breadth of cultural differences (e.g., Sperber, Devellis, & Boehlecke, 1994; van de Vijver & Leung, 1997; Weeks, Swerissen, & Belfrage, 2007). Indeed, a key limitation of cultural psychology that is magnified in cultural neuroscience is the solicitation of participants from wealthy nations that possess the resources needed to carry out such studies (see H

Differentiating Ideals versus Practices in the Discussion of Confucian Influences on Chinese Parent–Child Relationships

Abstract: The primary purpose of this essay is to call for a renewed understanding of Confucianism in the discussion of Chinese parent-child relationships. Citing historical evidence, we present the evolution of Confucianism as a school of thought in China. In addition, we present research on Chinese parent–child relationships, which to a varying degree are said to be associated with Confucian influences, in contemporary Chinese communities. By comparing Confucian ideals versus practices in the name of Confucianism, we conclude that Confucianism has been through transformations throughout history and its influences on Chinese parent–child relationships are intertwined with practical needs of the specific historical time and social context. In addition, we suggest focusing on social class variability in the study of Confucian influences represented in parent–child relationships. To conclude, it is important to study the actual beliefs and practices of families, taking into consideration to specific historical time, social contexts, as well as individual circumstances and characteristics of participants.

Why Power does not Guarantee Happiness across Cultures

Abstract: Recent literature has shown that power enhances happiness in the Western context. However, it is likely that this may only hold true in cultures that promote independent and autonomous expression of self. For those in collectivist contexts, it is argued that power could reduce happiness since power can thwart them from achieving relationship harmony. The current paper presents research on the psychological effects of power on happiness carried out in the Western context and the Philippine context. Future directions towards developing a culturally-sensitive theory of power are also elucidated. Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. This article is available in Online Readings in Psychology and Culture: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/orpc/vol5/iss3/7