Cultural Psychology: Article Analysis

The classic definition for culture was proposed by Tylor (1871/1958) and still commonly cited: Culture is “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, arts, morals, law, custom, and many other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (p. 1). This definition focuses on attributes that are acquired through growing up or living in a particular society, rather than through biological inheritance (Kottak, 2002). In Giger and Davidhizar’s (1991) Model for transcultural care, culture was defined as a patterned behavioral response that develops over time as a result of imprinting the mind through social and religious structures and intellectual and artistic manifestations.

As a psychology major, it is important to know how to work with diverse populations, especially in today’s society. It seems that there are more cultural groups today, compared to the past because of groups such as LGBTQ and an increase in immigration to America from more countries than just Europe and Africa. In America, we expect people to know how to speak English and have a basic understanding of the American culture, but for the most part, Americans lack a willingness to understand other people’s cultures. While some do not want to take the time to understand different cultures, those individuals who work with diverse populations have to understand different cultures in order to truly help those from diverse situations. In order to learn

Culture incorporates many different aspects of life such as religion, food, language, ethnicity, and many more. All of these aspects influence the way a person lives and acts. Although culture provides a positive influence by bestowing self worth, it could also negatively affect someone’s life. Culture affects a person in many ways by creating internal and external conflict, which influences the way others view them and therefore affects their actions and how they feel about themselves.

Have you thought of someone’s culture as weird? Have you thought that you are completely different from them? If so, what prompts us to make that assumption. Culture is a very good reason for this. So, to what extent does one’s culture inform the way one views others and the world? Culture informs a person on the way others are and the world.

According to cultural anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor, culture is a “complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” In other words, culture is a concept that social organizations practice in order to explain certain phenomena in nature whether through mythology, rituals, art, music, and language. However, as explained by Ethan Watters in “The Mega Marketing of Depression in Japan,” culture is not permanent, since it has the ability, and more than ever in the present society, to “move across boundaries of race, culture, class, and nation” (Watters 519). In addition, as demonstrated by Oliver Sacks in the articled called “The Mind’s Eye: What the Blind See,” it is a mistake to think that individuals are bound to behave in a way that culture told them to behave. Instead, individuals are free to create his or her own unique experience of interpreting the world. We might consider the “reality” that we live in to be fiction to the extent that we are willing to use different faculties and analyze what we are witnessing; this gives us the power, as individuals, to think and search for each of us’s unique interpretation of reality. .

Culture may be defined in a broad and narrow context. The broad definition includes demographic variables ( age, gender), status variables ( social, educational, economic) and affiliations ( formal and informal), as well as ethnographic variables, such as ethnicity, nationality, language. Narrow definition of culture is limited to the terms of ethnicity and nationality, which are important for individual and familial identity, but the concept of culture in Counselling usually goes beyond national and ethnic boundaries. It interprets culture in a broader aspect, it aims to go beyond its more obvious and verifiable symbols toward the more subjective perspectives its members hold. Counselling deals

What I found was that when looking at culture it is important to hold a holistic view. What I mean is that it is important to understand that no one is without culture, we as humans find ourselves as being a part of some sort of group and by observing the myths, rituals, key metaphors, and customs of these groups we can gain insights into the values and beliefs of the people within it. However, insights can only be gained by keeping an open mind, which can only be done by wholeheartedly accepting that there are customs, and beliefs that exist beyond our own culture

Using this understanding however, one simply has to side that American Psychological research can not be generalized to be applicable to all cultures. Each have different ideas and perceptions making culturally diverse research absolutely critical to worldly understanding of psychology. As Arnett proves, a cultural context is vital to the complete picture of a study, without the research is not whole. Furthermore emphasizing just how great studies need that cultural context. The diversity in a study helps to further the research. Real life issues are far more complex than the simple physicality of science. Humanity is intensely impacted on its outside factors like religion, and historical factors. For example, mental illness is prevalent in all parts of the world, but where you are in the world the illness is treated differently based on those factors. This just further demonstrates just how important cultural context is to a study, as without the results can not be put toward the advancement of

For the purposes of this piece, culture is defined as “the full range of human patterned experience” as described by Cole (1996) cited in Gla ̆veanu & Jovchelovitch (2017, p.113). This chapter also provides a description of the importance culture plays in psychological research.

Most people do not think their family has a culture. They associate culture with countries and ethnic groups. But the family for most people is just a group of family people who do what they always do. Directly and subtly, children are shaped by the family culture in which they are born. At the stage of growth, their assumptions about what is right or wrong, good and bad, reflect the beliefs, values, and traditions of the family culture. Most take their family manners for granted and bring into adulthood numerous attitudes and behaviors acquired in childhood. Even those who later reject all or part of the family culture often find that they are not totally free of their early influences. 1

As a baby we aren’t born with culture. The people who are responsible for our socialization are our parents and others who we might associate with…teachers, friends, etc. As a very small child we learn about the culture we were born in as well as our gender roles. Depending on some cultures women for example are taught that they will be homemakers and do a large share of work. In my culture I learned my future role which would be a daughter, friend, sister, a wife in the future possibly, and then maybe a mother. This is also the time we learn what society expects of us; the norms per say. This is also the time in our lives that our personality forms. While our personality has much to do with our upbringing and genes it also is created by the culture we are in. “Research in geographical sciences has shown regional variation on a number of indicators—including public

Cross cultural psychology and cultural psychology are two fields of psychology that are often confused. Cross-cultural psychology and cultural psychology have many similarities and they differ in a few areas. Cross-cultural psychology is a comparative field of psychology that studies the cultural effects on human psychology. A cross-cultural study draws its conclusions from at least two samples of at least two different cultures and compares them in order to examine underlying reasons for diversity between the cultures, as well as the universals that each culture shares with another. Cultural psychology seeks to find the meaningful links between a culture and the psychology of the individuals living within that culture. Cultural psychology's main message is that human behavior is only meaningful when you're studying the behavior of individuals within the particular sociocultural, or in the culture in which the behavior occurs. The comparisons that cross-cultural psychology makes about each culture must begin with cultural studies.

The concept of culture is something that defines many aspects of one’s life. From physical objects to different ways of thinking, culture adds significance to human life and makes groups of people distinct from one another. Culture is essentially a group of people who come together with similar interests and points of view. According to the Center for Advanced Language Acquisition of the University of Minnesota, “culture is defined as the shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of socialization.” From a more sociological perspective, culture is a way in which people come together in order to fulfill their needs. These shared patterns and ideas identify the members of a culture group while also distinguishing those of another group.” Culture is one of the things that sets the United States apart from the rest of the world. Not that the rest of the world is not cultural, but the circumstance here is different. Many people of different cultural backroads come to this country in search of a better life. As a consequence, the United States has become a place where many cultures merge together like a colossal pot soup.

Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1962) identify over 150 scientific definitions of the concept of culture. Indeed, many authors have tried to define culture and this is why there are so many definitions and that a unique one is hard to find. First of all, Kroeber and Kluckholn (1952) assume that culture is a suite of patterns, implicit and explicit, “of and for behaviour acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including their embodiments in artefacts” (p.47). Later, Hofstede adds that culture is “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another” (Hofstede, 1991, p.51). This definition is the most widely accepted one amongst practitioners. For Winthrop (1991), culture is the distinctive models of thoughts, actions and values that composed members of a society or a social group. In other words,

'Culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another.' (Hofstede, 1991)