Culture and Human Development

The Importance of Cross-Cultural Research for the Social Sciences

Wolfgang Friedlmeier, Pradeep Chakkarath, Beate Schwarz, Wolfgang Friedlmeier, Pradeep Chakkarath, Beate Schwarz

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781135420925
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

As intercultural encounters between people in the modern world become more common, important questions have been raised about the nature of culture-specific differences and similarities. Focusing on the relationship between culture and human development, this timely book offers an interdisciplinary exploration of key developmental processes. It combines psychological and sociological approaches with cross-cultural research to examine phenomena such as the transfer of culture between generations and the universality of attachment theory.

Drawing on detailed research from a range of cultural groups, leading international researchers consider the impact of social change and modernization on the development of the individual and at the societal level. Theoretical and methodological issues are presented in terms of how to apply the results of cross-cultural research as well as recent empirical research done in specialized areas of the field. Finally, short-term intercultural exchanges are examined and used to suggest some of the potential practical uses of cross-cultural research for the future.

This book will be essential reading for anyone studying or researching in cultural psychology, cross-cultural psychology, acculturation or behavioral development. It will also prove an invaluable source of information for anyone interested in sociology and the social sciences in general.

Part I
Theory and Methods in Cross-Cultural Research

1
The Psychological Study of Culture: Issues and Questions of Enduring Importance

Walter J.Lonner

Introduction

This chapter gives a brief overview of the nature and purpose of cross-cultural psychology. The celebratory nature of the gathering for which this chapter was prepared permits comments that are both historical and somewhat autobiographical. It also permits brief commentary on contemporary perspectives in topical areas of interest to cross-cultural psychologists as well as an overview of several methodological issues and problems that are of enduring importance. The gathering converged precisely to the month with the publication in March 1970 of the inaugural issue of the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology (JCCP) and almost exactly with the 30^th anniversary of the founding of the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology (IACCP), formed in 1972. As founding editor of JCCP as well as a charter member of IACCP, I have witnessed for over 35 years the growth of what has often been called the “modern movement” in cross-cultural psychology. All participants in this symposium have had discussions with various proponents who identify either with cross-cultural psychology, cultural psychology, indigenous psychology, ethnic psychology, or psychological anthropology and, occasionally, other perspectives such as semiotics, evolutionary psychology, ethnopsychiatry, and multicultural psychology. The latter is primarily identified with gender, ethnicity and other “diversity” issues within the United States (Bronstein & Quina, 2003). Division 45 (Society for the Study of Ethnic Minority Issues) of the American Psychological Association is active in the great diversity within a single country. All the others are more concerned with the “big picture” in global, pancultural scale. All psychologists affiliated with these “culture-oriented” perspectives generally agree that any psychol-ogy or neighboring discipline that fails to take culture into account, regardless of geographic scope, is bound to give an incomplete and inconclusive picture of human behavior in its many and complex forms.

By dint of historical developments, most of my involvement in cross-cultural psychology has been through activities associated with JCCP. I continue to measure the progression of cross-cultural psychology in terms of JCCP’s growth and continued success. For instance, it is now published six times a year, its trim size and overall appearance have received several facelifts, and there has been about a four-fold increase in publication space. These changes can mainly be attributed to the growing interest in cross-cultural psychology, but also to the formation of IACCP. Commencing with the 1973 issue (Volume 4), JCCP has been published by Sage Publications. With the exception of yours truly, who is now Senior Editor, none of the members of original interdisciplinary Editorial Advisory Board is currently associated with it. Several have died, but a few are still quite active in the field. Moreover, while manuscripts with an interdisciplinary focus are still welcome, the current Editorial Advisory Board consists mainly of psychologists. The EAB consists of an Editor, Founding and Senior Editor, five Associate Editors, about 46 Consulting Editors, and a Book Review Editor, Approximately 20 countries are currently represented on the EAB.

Despite these changes at the operational level, a strong thread of continuity governs the Journal’s policy. The key parts of the original publication policy include the following: That it will publish exclusively cross-cultural (transcultural, cross-national) research; that studies focusing on psychological phenomena (motivation, learning, attitudes, perception, etc.) as they are influenced by culture, as well as other social and behavioral research which focuses on the individual as a member of the cultural group, rather than the macroscopic groups. Studies that were not replicable were discouraged, and the criterion of relevance of the research for cross-cultural comparisons of psychological variables must be clear. The printed policy also stated that while JCCP is “broadly a psychological journal, the closely related disciplines of anthropology, sociology, criminology, psychiatry…are expected to contribute heavily to the cross-cultural understanding of human behavior,” and papers from these disciplines were invited, Casting a broad interdisciplinary net, our early promotional flyers contained the phrase “…to consult all that is human.”

A Historical Perspective on Cross-Cultural Psychology

Cross-cultural psychology prior to JCCP and IACCP

Historical details about cross-cultural efforts in psychology have been the subject of reviews by Jahoda (1980, 1990); Klineberg (1980), Hogan and Tartaglini (1994), Jahoda and Krewer (1997), and Adamopoulos and Lonner (2001). However, sandwiched between these earlier efforts and the “modern era” of cross-cultural psychology, interest in culture’s influence on behavior was generally diffuse and disorgan-ized, and characterized by sabbatical opportunism and “jet-age” forays into different and often exotic cultures. More often than not, researchers (usually from the United States) would design a study where culture or cultures were essentially treated as (quasi-) independent variables and dependent variables were various “instruments” such as so-called intelligence tests, personality or values inventories and attitude scales, visual illusions, and devices designed to measure stages of human development, factors associated with learning and thinking, and so on. Typically, researchers would make a brief trip to some other place requiring a valid passport and then return to their comfortable offices to analyze the data and publish the results in mainstream journals whose editors and readers warmly welcomed manuscripts featuring reports of cultural differences (a strong interest in the nature and origin of similarities has emerged in recent years). It was largely because of this prototypical research and the way it has been imitated and reified over the years (in contrast to the more sophisticated nature of contemporary cross-cultural research) that cross-cultural psychology has often been described and even criticized as being “nothing more than” or “nothing but” an extension of the logical positivistic ways in which psychologists trained in the EuroAmerican tradition have conducted psychological research (e.g., Gergen, Gulerce, Lock, & Misra, 1996; Tyler, 1999, 2001).

Nevertheless, and despite the many methodological and conceptual errors that in retrospect most psychologists made when studying behavior in other cultures, these earlier efforts clearly demonstrated that some psychologists, regardless of when and where they were conducting research, have always been interested in how culture influences behavior. Research forays and other inquisitive ventures, in some instances, go back hundreds of years (Jahoda, 1980). The problem is that their efforts were neither guided by solid research guidelines nor supported by a network of like-minded and sympathetic colleagues.

The modern movement in cross-cultural psychology

Several independent events or factors converged to create what is now regarded as organized, institutionalized cross-cultural psychology. The first seems to have been a small conference of approximately 100 social psychologists from numerous countries who met at the University of Nigeria during the Christmas/New Year holiday period of 1965–66. A major product of that meeting was the inauguration of the mimeographed Cross-Cultural Social Psychology Newsletter. Harry Triandis, one of the key figures at that meeting, briefly edited it. It is the predecessor of the much more sophisticated Cross-Cultural Psychology Bulletin, thanks to the creative editorship of William K.Gabrenya, Jr. Another factor was the publication of the first of a continuing series of directories of psychologists who were identified as serious scholars of culture and behavior, The first Directory, assembled by John Berry, listed the names and addresses of approximately 110 psychologists from numerous countries. It appeared as a small appendix in a 1968 issue of the UNESCO-sponsored International Journal of Psychology, which began publication in 1966. Over the years a series of IACCP-sponsored and -oriented membership directories have been published, the most recent of which was in 1998. Another influencing factor was a meeting in Istanbul, Turkey that featured the cultural adaptation of “mental tests” (Cronbach & Drenth, 1972). And in 1966 a meeting held at the East-West Center in Hawaii was attended by psychologists representing the Western world and the Eastern world. No publications resulted directly from that meeting, but it did stimulate collaboration. I only recently learned that a small conference sponsored by UNESCO, held in Bangkok, Thailand in 1958 might have predated all post-World War II conferences that were explicitly concerned with various problems and methodological issues in cross-cultural (Boesch, 1958). It would not surprise me to learn that solid and sophisticated conferences took place even earlier than this.

An important component in the development of modern, organized cross-cultural psychology was JCCP (see above). The picture was completed when IACCP was formed. At the initiative of the late John L.M.B.Dawson, the inaugural IACCP meeting took place in August 1972 at the University of Hong Kong, where Dawson was Head of the Department of Psychology. Although records are conflicting, apparently approximately 110 people attended that meeting. The conference proceedings contain all the papers that were delivered (Dawson & Lonner, 1974). As an example of continuity and dedication, the same person—Gustav Jahoda, an acknowledged pioneer in the area who has been a significant presence and somewhat of a super-ego for many cross-cultural psychologists for nearly half a century—wrote a foreword for that book just as he has written one for the present volume. At that meeting it was also agreed that, with the permission of the copyright holder, Western Washington State College (now Western Washington University), IACCP could call JCCP one of its official publications (see Lonner, 2004, for an historical overview of JCCP).

These converging factors ushered in an impressive outpouring of books, monographs, meetings, and other efforts. Why these independent events took place in the mid- to late-1960s—or earlier (see Boesch, 1958)—has been the subject of much discussion. Was it because two relatively recent, horrible world wars and then the Viet Nam conflict triggered many further questions about humanity and the state of the world? Did an increasing number of scholars recognize more than ever before that nations of the world had better recognize that an interdependent and mutually understanding world gives all nations a better chance of survival? Were better communication and the ubiquity of international air travel making collaboration more possible than ever before? Was psychology maturing as a science, finally ready and able to address psychological questions of universal concern? Whatever the cause, psychologists, like never before, were focusing on the construct of “culture” as an important factor in shaping human behavior. While the number of truly dedicated cross-cultural psychologists still tends to be small, a growing number of psychologists are giving the phenomenon increased respect and attention.

Central Issues in Cross-Cultural Psychology

What is cross-cultural psychology?

Despite nearly 30 years as an organized, institutional entity, there is no crisp and clear definition of cross-cultural psychology with which everyone agrees. However, a popular recent definition, included in a chapter reviewing culture and human development (Gardiner, 2001), states that it is “the systematic study of relationships between the cultural context of human development and the behaviors that become established in the repertoire of individuals growing up in a particular culture” (Berry, Poortinga, & Pandey, 1997, p. x).

Other definitions abound, but primarily cross-cultural psychology is an enterprise involving research and scholarship whose goal it is to help psychology develop into a more mature and broad-banded science. Its purpose is to help contribute to the development of a more global understanding of human thought and behavior. This means that all topics or domains with psychology and their dynamic interactions within and between individuals from any culture are candidates for inclusion in an extensive and increasing network of research projects involving a variety of methods. Table 1 shows what would be involved in this effort. *

Column A in Table 1 lists many of the domains and topics within Psychology (the topical areas of psychology without which the discipline would hardly have anything to study and which almost certainly transcend culture). All of these domains and their constituent parts are, as in “mainstream” psychology, candidates for an unlimited number of within-culture and cross-cultural explorations.

Column B includes some examples of rationale for making meaningful comparisons. Aberle, Cohen, Davis, Levy, & Sutton (1950) argued that there nine “functional prerequisites of society”—that is, for a society to exist (and therefore qualify for comparison with other functioning societies) it must have all of these elements. Examples of numerous additional common denominators or guidelines include Piaget’s hypothesized stages of cognitive growth, Super and Harkness’s (1986) “developmental niche,” various models such as those developed by Bronfenbrenner (1979, 1993) McClelland (1961), and Berry (1995), Hofstede’s (2001) or Schwartz’s (1994) perspectives on human values, and Cole’s (1996) “garden metaphor.” These and many other views on the nature of human nature as it interacts with culture ostensibly guarantee meaningful comparisons across cultures (provided methodological care is taken to produce valid results). Column C could potentially include conducting exhaustive research in a large number of (theoretically all) cultures, making sure in each that multi-methods are used, that representative and equivalent samples of persons are selected in each, and that researchers representing different philosophical perspectives (e.g., cognitive, psychodynamic, behavioral, etc., to guard against method bias) are used, not only for each society (here labeled A, B, C …Z) but across them all. In this way one could have multiple indigenous psychologies (i.e., looking down each column separately) with no aspirations to be comparative. While these must be understood on a column-by-column basis, one should also be able to find the common denominators by going across the columns. This is where the frameworks in Column B may be instructive as guidelines. Column D would then be involved in trying to determine what is shared or common (U, tentatively universal) across all cultures as well as what is unique or specific (S) in each society. Summing all the elements across the rows and down the columns (the lower right-hand corner), we potentially would have a truly universal psychology.

Table 1 An Idealized Theoretical Framework for a Potentially Complete Understanding of the Relationships Between Culture and Appropriate and Relevant Psychological Topics

Notes: For example, RA₁ would be Research Report No, 1 for Culture A, which would use a specific sample and a specific method or theory. RA₂ would be Research Report No. 2 for Culture 4 using its specific (and different) sample and specific (different) method or theory. S=Specific, U=Universal.

Obviously it would be impossible to complete what the overall structure in Table 1 implicitly demands; encouraging a huge number of replications of many studies and experiments across a large number of societies. It would, in fact, be a logistical nightmare to take just one topic—infant development for instance—and deal with it exhaustively both within and across cultures. Two reminders: First, when we talk about culturally unique and non-comparative psychological characteristics of a specific culture we are only “reading” down a specific column. Second, when we talk about “universals” we are generalizing across the collection of cultures. These strategies may represent, respectively, cultural psychology (and/or indigenous psychology) and cross-cultural psychology.

Three “isms” in the psychological study of culture

Probably the most familiar and debatable conceptual issue in conducting research across cultures is the “emic-etic,” or insider versus outsider, debate (Headland, Pike, & Harris, 1990). While many dislike this simple dichotomy, it does pose an important question: Can anyone outside any specific human group (culture) understand completely the workings of the group (culture) to the same degree an insider does? Is the internal structure of any specific group so intricately learned and dynamically subtle that only an insider can truly understand the complexities of the interactions? Even worse, is it an imposition and possibly a major blunder for an outsider to be s...