Cultural difference, inside and out

Abstract

Cultural psychologists study the extent to which human psychological experience is shaped by our participation in sociocultural practices, meanings, and products. Cultural psychologists document cultural differences both inside the head (in the form of emotions, cognitions, or motivations) and outside the head (in the form of public behaviors, cultural products, or institutions). Because cultural psychologists argue that culture and psyche “make each other up,” it is appropriate to study cultural difference at many loci—not just the traditional psychological areas in which many of us were trained. In this article, I describe cultural psychological evidence based on its social visibility and tangible nature. One category is collected on private, intangible, inside‐the‐head activities such as emotions, values, or motives. Another category, social interactions and behavioral performances, is intangible, public, and outside the head and includes how people talk to each other and how they walk, drive, or dress. A third category contains cultural products, which are tangible, public, and outside the head; it includes texts, websites, advertising, art, and architecture. These varying loci of cultural psychology allow us to appropriately document cultural differences and also allow us to study how humans are shaped by, and participate in recreating, their cultural contexts.

Attitudes, behavior, and institutional inversion: The case of debt.

“…But do not the people of a culture set up those institutions, doing so in ways that reflect their attitudes and values? In many cases, the answer is yes (Adams & Markus, 2004; Kashima et al, 2019; Morling, 2016; Oyserman et al, 2002; Yamagishi, 2011). However, the value-expressive functions of institutions need to be separated from the behavioral outcomes they produce.…”

The Social Lives of Infectious Diseases: Why Culture Matters to COVID-19

“…First, we adopt a working definition of culture as a set of meanings (i.e., values, beliefs, knowledge, norms) that are required to function in a particular community (Goodenough, 1994 ). Second, we hold that cultural meanings are observable in the world as consensually-understood practices and products that emerge from and support these meanings (Ryder et al, 2011 ; Morling, 2016 ). Third, we follow Shweder ( 1991 ) in understanding culture and mind as existing in a relation of mutual constitution; we cannot fully understand one without referring to the other.…”

An Integrated Ecological Approach to Mapping Variations in Collectivism Within China: Introducing the Triple-Line Framework

“…In contrast, people living in collectivistic cultural contexts (e.g., China, Japan, and Korea) tend to be more concerned about maintaining harmonious relations with in-group members, and the boundaries between themselves and these others are much less firm. This distinction is reflected in cognition, perception, memory, cultural products, and even brain function (Morling, 2016; Nisbett & Masuda, 2003; Oyserman et al., 2002; Zhu et al., 2007). Many explanations for these differences have been proposed, including cultural heritage (Ma et al., 2016), modernity (Inglehart & Baker, 2000), climato-economic theory (Van de Vliert et al., 2013), the subsistence system (Uskul et al., 2008), the historical risk of infectious disease (Fincher et al., 2008), and geographic and relational mobility (Oishi, 2010).…”

“…Even the same facet, such as harmony, could be measured using different self-report scales, non-self-report tasks, or cultural products. Different facets or different tools may not be consistent with one another in some conditions (Huang et al., 2016; Kitayama et al., 2009; Kitayama & Uskul, 2011; Morling, 2016; Na et al., 2010). For example, Van de Vliert et al.…”