Cross-cultural views on human development in the third millennium

Dasen, Pierre R.; Mishra, Ramesh Kumar

doi:10.1080/016502500750037973

Cited by 40 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 19 publications

(8 reference statements)

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“…Our study also is limited by the use of a measure of age identity that is rather general; research has shown that people hold multidimensional age identities-for example, biological, social, and psychological age identities (Montepare and Zebrowitz 1998;) and feelage, look-age, do-age, and interests-age (Barak and Stern 1986). Despite these limitations, the use of two nationally representative samples compares favorably to the ad hoc methods of data collection (Dasen and Mishra 2000) on which cross-cultural studies on later life have tended to rely.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Because few systematic crosscultural studies on aging and life-span development exist, little is known about cultural variations in aging and its subjective experience (Dasen and Mishra 2000;Fry 1996). Two studies that compared the United States to Finland (Uotinen 1998) and to Japan (Ota et al 2000) found that the gap between subjective and objective age is larger among Americans than among Fins and Japanese.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Forever Young?

2003

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This study compares age identities of middle-aged and older adults in the United States and Germany. Differences between countries in social systems and cultural meanings of old age are expected to produce different age identities. Data are from respondents between ages 40 and 74 in the United States (MIDUS; n = 2,006) and Germany (German Aging Survey; n = 3,331). Americans and Germans tend to feel younger than their actual age, but the discrepancy is larger among Americans. The bias toward youthful identities is stronger at older ages, particularly among Americans. In both counties, persons with better health have younger identities and role losses are not related to age identities. The study shows that different social and cultural systems produce different subjective experiences of aging. As these differences exist within Western culture, the study makes clear that one should be careful in generalizing findings from aging research across countries.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Forever Young?

2003

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“…Within the field of psychology, it is mainly cultural psychologists that have challenged this occidental-biased approach to human cognition (Berry, Poortinga, Segall, & Dasen, 2002;Dasen, Inhelder, Lavallée, & Reitschitzki, 1978;Dasen & Mishra, 2000;Haun, Rapold, Call, Janzen, & Levinson, 2006;Majid, Bowerman, Kita, Haun, & Levinson, 2004;Murray, 1999;Segall, Dasen, Berry, & Poortinga, 1999), but their contributions still need to be considered seriously by the experimental psychologists. At the same time, social psychologists have also invested a lot of time to demonstrate how socioecological conditions affect the development of cognitive capacities in humans (e.g., Carpendale & Lewis, 2004;Correa-Chavez & Rogoff, 2005;Holmes, Black, & Miller, 1996;Rogoff, 1990), and their contributions are important to balance the predominant importance given to data coming from White middle-upper class Westerners.…”

Section: Deterministic Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

What makes us human (Homo sapiens)? The challenge of cognitive cross-species comparison.

Boesch

2007

Journal of Comparative Psychology

193

188

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Two major theoretical approaches have dominated the quest for uniquely human cognitive abilities: a developmentalist approach stressing the importance of environmental and social conditions, and a predominant approach in experimental and comparative psychology, the deterministic approach suggesting the effect of environmental and social conditions to be minimal. As a consequence, most claims of human cognitive uniqueness are based on comparisons of White middle class Westerner humans (Homo sapiens) with captive chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). However, humans are much more than only White middle class Westerners, and chimpanzees are much more than only captives. A review of some data available on different populations of humans and chimpanzees reveals that only the predictions of the developmentalist approach are supported. In addition, systematic biases are too often introduced in experiment protocols when comparing humans with apes that further cast doubts on cross-species comparisons. The author argues that only with consideration of within-species population differences in the cognitive domains and the use of well-matched cross-species experimental procedures will an objective understanding of the different cognitive abilities between species emerge. This will require a shift in the theoretical approach adopted by many in experimental and comparative psychology.

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“…Cross-cultural comparisons often deal with student samples so that the second half of life hardly exists in such research (Fry, 1996). Furthermore, most samples are not representative, data were collected in a so called "safari-style" (Dasen & Mishra, 2000) or they only deal with a small age-range, so that nothing can be said about age-gradients or cohort differences.…”

Section: Self Culture and Agingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individuality and relatedness in middle and late adulthood: A study of women and men in the Netherlands, East- and West-Germany

Bode¹

2003

PsycEXTRA Dataset

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Coding scheme and example sentences for individuality and relatedness MANOVA with centrality as factor and gender, region and agegroup as independent variables Centrality of individuality and relatedness according to regionChapter one gives a brief introduction into the concepts "individuality and relatedness" and "personal meaning". The main research questions o f this thesis are presented as well as the reasoning for the chosen methodology. Furthermore, the SELE-instrument (a sentence completion instrument), the related coding approach as well as samples and data collection are introduced. Finally, an overview of the book chapters is given. Chapter 1 Introduction Individuality and relatednessIndividuality and relatedness are two comprehensive orientations during the whole life course. They can be seen as life long developmental tasks which are associated with various psychological modes and processes. According to Schneewind (1994), orientations of individuality and relatedness have a motivational basis, are closely connected with emotions, are supported by corresponding beliefs and are expressed in concrete behavior. Every person has to balance wishes for control, agency and uniqueness with desires for relatedness and intimacy. This process takes place in all phases of the life course; personal as well as environmental characteristics influence the search for an appropriate balance.Our knowledge about the basic orientations of individuality and relatedness concerning the second half of life is rather limited. Some developmental theories assume an incline of individuality during middle and late adulthood (for example Erikson, 1973; Buhler, 1933;Jung, 1972; for an overview see Sugarman, 1986) and stability with regard to relatedness (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Nevertheless, direct theoretical as well as empirical considerations regarding orientations of individuality and relatedness in the second half of life are scarce.Research activities with regard to individuality and relatedness may be fruitful on account of aging societies and also as contribution to the life span perspective of in the second half of life, this thesis is an examination with regard to the importance and contents of these orientations. In addition to the focus on age differences during the second half of life, emphasis lies on differences and similarities between men and women as well as on national differences with regard to individuality and relatedness. Furthermore, the cross-national comparison realized in this thesis shed a light on the topic of cultural variability of aging.Due to the lack of empirical and theoretical knowledge regarding the second half of life regarding individuality and relatedness, it is important to investigate the concept close to the experiences of men and women. Therefore we apply the perspective of personal meaning construction (Dittmann-Kohli, 1995a). In this perspective and its methodology we are able to focus on the subjective view of people in the second half of life in order to investigate which role orie...

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Cross-cultural views on human development in the third millennium

Cited by 40 publications

References 19 publications

Forever Young?

Forever Young?

What makes us human (Homo sapiens)? The challenge of cognitive cross-species comparison.

Individuality and relatedness in middle and late adulthood: A study of women and men in the Netherlands, East- and West-Germany

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