CROSS CULTURAL

PSYCHOLOGY

Instructor
Mekit B.
 UNIT 1

Introduction to cross cultural Psychology

What is Psychology?
What is Culture?
Cross-cultural psychology ?
Cultural psychology?
Psychology
– Psyche: Mind, soul, sprit
– Logos: Knowledge or study
Contemporary definition: The scientific study of
behavior and mental processes.
– Behavior: Overt (i.e., can be directly observed,
as with crying)
– Mental Processes: Covert (i.e., cannot be
directly observed, as with remembering)
Culture
•A set of attitudes, behaviors, and symbols shared by a large group of
people and usually communicated from one generation to the next.
- Attitudes include beliefs (political, ideological,
religious, moral, etc.), values, general knowledge
(empirical and theoretical), opinions, superstitions,
and stereotypes.
- Behaviors include a wide variety of norms, roles,
customs, traditions, habits, practices, and fashions.
- Symbols represent things or ideas, the meaning of
which is best owed on them by people. A symbol may
have the form of a material object, a color, a sound, a
slogan, a building, or anything else.
• Cultures can be described as having both explicit and
implicit characteristics.
- Explicit characteristics of culture are the set of
observable acts regularly found in this culture.
These are overt customs, observable practices,
and typical behavioral responses, such as saying
“hello” to a stranger.
- Implicit characteristics refer to the organizing
principles that are inferred to lie behind these
regularities on the basis of consistent patterns of
explicit culture.
For example, grammar that controls speech, rules
of address, hidden norms of bargaining, or
particular behavioral expectations in a standard
situation may be viewed as examples of implicit
culture.

No society is culturally homogeneous. There are

no two cultures that are either entirely similar or
entirely different. Within the same cultural cluster
there can be significant variations and
dissimilarities.
Cross Cultural Psychology

• Before reaching adulthood, most of us do not choose

a place to live or a language to speak. Growing up in
cities, towns, and villages, no matter where near Ras
Dashen the coldest place or in a the hottest place
Dallol in Ethiopia.

• People learn how to take action, feel, and understand

events around them according to the wishes of their
parents, societal requirements, and traditions of
their ancestors.
• The way people learn to relate to the world through
feelings and ideas affects what these individuals do.
Their actions, in turn, have a bearing on their
thoughts, needs, and emotions.

• Conditions in which people live vary from place to

place. Human actions and mental sets formed and
developed in various environments may also
fluctuate from group to group.

• These kinds of differences and of course, similarities

are studied by cross-cultural psychology.
 What is cross-cultural psychology?

• The scientific study of human behaviour and mental

process, including both their variability and invariance,
under diverse cultural conditions.

• Central themes, such as affect, cognition, conceptions of

the self, and issues such as psychopathology, anxiety,
and depression, are all re-examined in cross cultural
psychology in an attempt to examine the psychological
diversity and universality of these concepts and the
underlying reasons for such diversity.
Do victims of torture, rape, and genocide experience
similar painful symptoms across all cultures?  
• Cross cultural psychology cares not only differences
between cultural groups but also establishes
psychological universals, that is, phenomena common
for people in several many or perhaps all cultures.
- Eg. The structure of human personality and
enduring patterns of thinking, feeling and
acting.
• Traits such as neuroticism, extraversion, openness to
experience…. (The big five personality traits).
• Cross cultural Psychology can be perceived as the critical
and comparative study of cultural effects on human
psychology.
Two important elements of the definition.
1. This is a comparative field. Any study in cross cultural
psychology draws its conclusions from at least two
samples that represent at least two cultural groups.
2. Cross cultural psychology is all about comparisons,
and the act of comparison requires a particular set of
critical skills, which is inseparable from critical
thinking.
• Cross cultural psychology examines psychological
diversity and the underlying reasons for such diversity.
• Cross cultural psychology studies again, from a
comparative perspective the links between cultural norms
and behavior and the ways in which particular human
activities are influenced by different, sometimes
dissimilar social and cultural forces.
For example, do disaster survivors experience similar
painful symptoms across cultures? If they do can a
psychologist select a therapy aimed to treat
posttraumatic symptoms in Syria and use it in other
cultural environments, as in South Sudan or Yemen?
• Cross- cultural psychology studies cross-cultural
interactions.
• Cross-cultural psychology cares not only about differences between
cultural groups; it also establishes psychological universals, that is,
phenomena common for people in several, many, or perhaps all
cultures.

• The structure of human personality relatively enduring patterns of

thinking, feeling, and acting is, perhaps, one of such universals.

- For example, it was found that the same composition of

personality is common in people in various countries (such
as Germany, Portugal, Israel, China, Korea, and Japan) in
terms of the big five personality traits (neuroticism,
extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and
conscientiousness)
• Cross cultural psychology is the study of
- similarities and differences in individual
psychological functioning in various
cultural and ethno cultural groups;

- relationships between psychological variables

and socio-cultural, ecological and biological
variables; and of ongoing changes in these
variables.
 How is cross cultural psychology different from
cultural psychology?
• Cultural psychology
- Seeks to discover meaningful links between a culture and
the psychology of individuals living in the same culture.
- The main message of cultural psychology is that human
behavior is meaningful only when viewed in the sociocultural
context in which it occurs.
- Study whether, when, and how individuals growing up in a
particular culture tend to internalize that culture’s qualities.
- Advocates the idea that mental processes are essentially the
products of an interaction between culture and the individual.
- Seeks to discover meaningful links between a culture
and the psychology of individuals living in this culture.

Therefore, the main message of cultural psychology

is that human behavior is meaningful only when
viewed in the socio-cultural context in which it
occurs.
 Four Types of Knowledge in Cross-Cultural
Psychology
Type of Knowledge Sources of Knowledge

Scientific Knowledge Accumulated as a result of scientific

research of a wide range of
psychological phenomena.

Popular (or folk) Everyday assumptions ranging from

commonly held beliefs to individual
opinions about psychological phenomena.

Ideological (value-based) A stable set of beliefs about the world, the

nature of good and evil, right and wrong,
and the purpose of human life—all based
on a particular organizing principal or
central idea.

Legal Knowledge encapsulated in the law and

detailed in official rules and principles
related to psychological functioning of
individuals.
• Cross cultural psychology "can be thought of as a type
[of] research methodology rather than an entirely
separate field within psychology".
• In addition, cross cultural psychology can be
distinguished from international psychology which
centers around the global expansion of psychology
especially during recent decades.
• Nevertheless, cross cultural psychology, cultural
psychology, and international psychology are united by
a common concern for expanding psychology into a
universal discipline capable of understanding
psychological phenomena across cultures and in a
global context.
 Goals of cross cultural psychology
1.To test the generality of existing psychological
knowledge and theories. Whiting (1968)
2. To explore other cultures in order to discover
cultural and psychological variations which are not
present in our own limited cultural experience. Berry
and Dasen (1974)
3. Attempting to assemble and integrate, into a broadly
based psychology, the results obtained when pursuing
the first two goals, and to generate a more nearly
universal psychology that will be valid for a broader
range of cultures.
 Perspectives (general orientations )of cross-cultural psychology

1. Absolutism - assumes that psychological phenomena are

basically the same (qualitatively) in all cultures:
“honesty” is “honesty,” and “depression” is “depression,” no
matter where one observes them.
• From the absolutist perspective, culture is thought to play
little or no role in either the meaning or display of human
characteristics.
• Assessments of such characteristics are made using the same
standard instruments (perhaps with linguistic
translation) and interpretations are made easily, without
taking culturally based views into account.
2. Relativism - assumes that all human behavior is culturally patterned.
It seeks ethnocentrism - by trying to understand people “in their own
terms.”
- Based on the idea that your own group or culture is better or
more important than others.
- Based on the attitude that one’s own group is superior.

• Explanations of human diversity are sought in the cultural context in

which people have developed. (All psychological constructs are
culturally influenced i.e. human behaviors only exist and function
within a given socio-cultural environment).

• Assessments are typically carried out employing the values and

meanings that a cultural group gives to a phenomenon.

• Comparisons are judged to be conceptually and methodologically

problematic and ethnocentric, and are thus virtually never made.
• Human behavior has no meaning without
cultural context.
– No comparisons can be made between
cultures because different cultural groups
think, feel, and act differently. There are no
scientific standards for considering one group
as intrinsically superior or inferior to another.
3. Universalism - It makes the assumption that basic
psychological processes are common to all members of the
species (that is, they constitute a set of psychological variables
givens in all human beings) and that cultural influences are
the development and display of psychological
characteristics (that is, culture plays different variations on
these underlying themes).

• Assessments are based on the presumed underlying

process, but measures are developed in culturally meaningful
versions. Comparisons are made cautiously, employing a wide
variety of methodological principles and safeguards, and
interpretations of similarities and differences are attempted
that take alternative culturally based meanings into account.
 
 Universalism: All psychological variables are
common between cultures but culture influences the
development and manifestation of psychological
characteristics.
– Comparisons can be made cautiously, but with
modifications to methods and instruments to make
them culturally meaningful.
- It recognizes need for both culture – general and
culture specific stances in understanding human
behavior
SUMMARY
• Factors underlying behavior are
a. Biological for absolutists
- Ignores importance of cultural variables
b. Cultural for relativists
c. Psychological and cultural for universalists
 Assignment 1 (10%)
• What is Ethnocentrism? Give appropriate
example for it?
• What is the assumption of cross cultural
Psychology regarding Ethnocentrism?
• As a cross cultural Psychologist, how do you
evaluate Ethnocentrism in Ethiopia? Provide
both cultural and Psychological evidences for
your answer.
 The two possible approaches (methodologies) of Cross-Cultural psychology- Etics and
Emics

• The words emic and etic refer to two different

approaches while researching human behavior. Precise
definitions vary drastically across authors, but a basic
understanding is as follows:
• An etic approach
Some times referred to as outsider, deductive, top-
down approach and uses theories, hypothesis,
perspectives, and concepts as its starting point from
outside of the setting being studied.
Universal psychological processes and it emphasizes
similarity of cultures.
 Focuses on studying how different cultures are similar.

• The emic approach

Some times referred to as insider, inductive, bottom-
up approach and takes the perspectives and word of
research participants as its starting point.

Focuses on studying the differences between cultures.

It is a culture-specific processes and it emphasizes

differences between cultures.
SUMMARY

• The emic approach studies behavior from within the

culture, and mostly is based on one culture;
• The etic approach studies behavior from outside the
culture system, and is based on many cultures.
• Currently, many psychologists conducting cross-
cultural research are said to use what is called a
pseudoetic approach.
• The pseudo etic approach
This approach is actually an emic based approach
developed in a Western culture while being designed
to work as an etic approach.

• Irvine and Carroll brought an intelligence test to

another culture without checking whether the test was
measuring what it was intended to measure. This can
be considered pseudo etic work because various
cultures have their own concepts for intelligence.
 Other Approaches in Cross-cultural Psychology

Cross-cultural psychologists use several approaches to

examine human activities.
Socio-biological approach
Culture is just a form of existence that provides for
fundamental human needs and subsequent goals.
The prime goal of human beings is survival. To endure,
humans need food and resources. People look for mates,
conceive, give birth and then protects their offspring
until they mature. Humans of all cultures, like animals,
try to avoid unnecessary pain and eliminate anything
that threaten their will-being.
• Darwin’s principles are important here
Natural selection – Some organism due to various
primarily biological reasons are more likely to
survive than others.
Survival of the fittest -If members of a particular
group are better fit to live in an environment than
members of other groups the first group have more
of a chance to survive and consequently develops a
social infrastructure. Therefore, its members have a
chance to live in improved social conditions that will
make people more competitive.
Biological Approach
Biological differences between men and women such as
size, strength, bodily hormones and reproductive behavior
laid foundation for cultural customs that reinforce
inequalities between the sexes.

Proponents of this approach offer natural and

evolutionary explanations for a divers array of human
behaviors including cooperation aggression intelligence,
morality, prejudice, sexual preference, etc….
• Sociological Approach
Focuses on broad social structures that influence society
as a whole, and subsequently its individually particular
social forces that shape the behavior of large social
groups.

Human beings develop and adjust that individual

responses in accordance to the demands and pressures of
larger social groups and institutions.

Thus culture is both a product of human actively and its

major forming factions.
Several views were confined within this approach.
Structural functional views
Society as a complex system, functions to guarantee
stability and solidarity among its members. Once
created by people, society turns and confronts its
creators, demanding subordination and obedience
cultural norms and values are extremely important
regulators of human behavior.

Max Weber Symbolic- interactions approach

According to this approach preindustrial society
develop traditions which can be passed from one
generation to the next. The society evaluates particular
actions of individuals as either appropriates or
inappropriate.
 Capitalist societies, on the contrary, endorse
rationality. Rationality is a deliberate assessment
of the most efficient ways to accomplish a
particular goal, reasons, defeats emotions, calculate
and replace infections and scientific analysis
eliminates speculations.

The circle of life goes this way: individuals

develop their ideas; the ideas transform the society
which those individuals live; and transformation in
the society again affects human ideas.
Karl Marx Conflict View
Economic factors are the prime causes of human
behavior and beliefs. Each society is roughly divided into
two: the ruling class and the oppressed. In an attempt
to preserve power the ruling class creates government
ideology, education low values religion and arts.
•The oppressed classes create their own beliefs values
norms and traditions. These norms and traditions reflect
the class’s need for social and political equality.
•According to Marx, people of the same social class, but
of different ethnic groups, have much more in common
than people of the same ethnic as national group but of
antagonistic social classes.
Eco-cultural Approach
Cross-disciplinary comprehensive approach, the individual
cannot be separated from his or her environmental
context. People constantly exchange messages with the
environment, thus transforming it and themselves
(reciprocal interaction).
•The individual is seen as not as a passive and static entity
influenced by the environment, but also as a dynamic
human being who interacts with and changes the
environment.
•According to this approach the major environmental
factors influencing individual psychology are ecological
and sociopolitical setting.
 - Ecological context – the natural setting in which
human organisms and the organisms interact which
includes the economic activities of the population.
Factors such as the presence or absence of food,
quality of nutrition, heat or cold, and population
density have a tremendous impact on the individual.

- Sociopolitical context- is the extent to which

people participate in both local and global decisions.
This context includes various ideological values,
organization of the government, and presence or lack
of political freedom.
Cultural mixture Approach

According to this approach researchers should switch

their attention from traditional views on culture to new
cultural mixtures, and multiple cultural identities.

Cultures are moving and mixing. Because of travel,

migration, new communication links and globalization of
the world economic ties.

Cultural knowledge is already shared at varying degrees.

Some subgroups have more access to specific cultural
messages than others. People have more freedom to
choose what cultural messages they want to receive.
• Another approach to the cultural mixtures is linked to the
concept of globalization. It is based on a few inter connected
principles including economic, political (free market and
democracy) and cultural-psychological (freedom of choice,
tolerance, and openness to experience).

• An important psychological consequence of globalization is

that it affects people’s individuality and the way they think
about themselves and the social environment.
• Alternatives to globalization, there is
Fundamentalism. Fundamentalist idea may
become popular because it challenge the values of
globalization and encourage people to go back to
the familiar, simple, customary and traditional.

• Fundamentalism is thus, against democratic choice,

tolerance and openness. because globalization in
part undermines the power of traditional authority
while globalization eliminates boundaries, both
physical and psychological fundamentalism aims at
separation and isolation.
The Integrative Approach

Emphasizes human activity as a process of the individual’s goal-

directed interaction with the environment. Human motivation,
emotion, thought and reactions cannot be separated from human
activity which is determined by individual’s socioeconomic,
environmental, political and cultural conditions, and also changes
these conditions:
 UNIT 2
Culture and Development

Cultural and Biological Transmission

Vertical transmission – A transmission of culture from parents

to their offspring. Vertical descent is the only possible form of
biological transmission.
Other two forms of cultural transmission,
- Horizontal E.g., from peer groups

- Oblique E.g., from other adults (See the figure below).

A model for cultural and biological transmission
These three forms of cultural transmission involve two processes:
enculturation and socialization.

Enculturation: An individual is encompassed or surrounded

by a culture; what the individual acquires through learning, what
the culture deems to be necessary. Learning without specific
teaching.

Socialization: takes place by more specific instruction and

training, again leading to the acquisition of culture-appropriate
behavior.
 Early development and care taking
• Infant Development

There are cross-cultural differences in early parenting

behavior.

Eg. Japanese mothers more than mothers in Argentina,

France, and the USA use “affect-salient”.

This means that they used more incomplete utterances,
song, and nonsense expressions.
 Six central dimensions of child rearing thought to
be common to all societies. Barry et al. (1957, 1959)

1. Obedience training: the degree to which children are

trained to obey adults;
2. Responsibility training: the degree to which
children are trained to take on responsibility for
subsistence or household tasks;
3. Nurturance training: the degree to which children
are trained to care for and help younger siblings and
other dependent people;
4. Achievement training: the degree to which children are
trained to strive towards standards of excellence in
performance;

5. Self-reliance: the degree to which children are trained to

take care of themselves and to be independent of assistance
from others in supplying their own needs or wants;

6. General independence training: the degree to which

children are trained (beyond self-reliance as defined above)
toward freedom from control, domination, and supervision.
SUMMARY

Cultural Variation in Parental Support

1. Obedience
2. Responsibility
3. Nurturance
4. Achievement
5. Self-reliance
6. General independence training
 Unit 3
Cultural variations in parental support of children's play
Attachment patterns
• The 1st attachment is between the baby and its mother.
• Behaviors of human infants such as crying and smiling
will elicit care-giving reactions from adults mainly from
the mother. This develops attachment with the mother.
• As the infant grows older, there is an increase in cross-
cultural differences in the social interactions to which a
child is exposed.
• In some settings children become part of an extended
family or village community in which many adults and
other children assume caretaking roles.
• In other settings the role of the mother as primary
caretaker remains more central and exclusive.
• In urban Western settings, a new pattern has been
developing recently: bringing children from a few
months of age onward to a day care center.
Cultural aspect of development

Moral development

• Cross-cultural interest in moral development was stimulated by the work of

Kohlberg (1981, 1984), who proposed that there were three major levels of
moral reasoning.

1. Pre-conventional:- moral conduct is in the interest of individuals

themselves, or in the interest of relatives; reasons for doing right are the
avoidance of Punishment and the principle of fairness in an exchange (Reward
and Punishment orientation).

2. Conventional: - concern about loyalty and about the welfare of other

persons and society at large are given as reasons to justify one’s actions.

3. Post-conventional:- actions are based on ethical principles to which

individuals have committed themselves, and that serve as absolute standards,
even taking priority over the laws of society that may violate these principles.
• Kohlberg proposed that the development of moral
reasoning would follow the same invariant sequence in
all cultures and lead toward the same ultimate level of
development, representing universal ethical principles.
• To assess whether they are “universal” or not, Kohlberg
proposed three different criteria:
1. whether the stages could be identified empirically
in all cultures;
2. whether the same “operations” applied to all human
beings; and
3. whether all people acted in a specific way in similar
situations
 Culture as context for development
According to Super and Harkness (1997), the concept of the
developmental niche is a system that links the development of a
child with three features of its cultural environment:
1.The physical and social settings (e.g., the people and social
interactions, the dangers and opportunities of everyday life).
2.The prevailing customs about child care (e.g., the cultural
norms, practices, and institutions) and
3. Caretaker psychology (e.g., the beliefs, values, affective
orientations, and practices of parents.
. Ecological Systems Theory
Urie Bronfenbrenner

• Ecological system theory emphasizes

the importance of children's
environment and their interactions with
various members of the environment
for shaping child development.

• Both the environment and biology

influence the child's development.

• The environment affects the child and

the child influences the environment.
• According to Bronfenbrenner every child grows up in
the midst of a large number of social systems that
interact in important ways.

• Those systems (Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Model)

include the:
- Micro system
- Meso system
- Exo system
- Macro system
- Chrono system
1.The microsystem - activities and interactions in the child's
immediate surroundings: parents, school, friends, etc.

2.The mesosystem - relationships among the entities involved in

the child's microsystem: parents' interactions with teachers, a
school's interactions with the daycare provider.

3. The exosystem - social institutions which affect children

indirectly: the parents' work settings and policies, extended
family networks, mass media, community resources.

4.The macrosystem - broader cultural values, laws and

governmental resources.

5.The chronosystem - changes which occur during a child's life,

both personally, like the birth of a sibling and culturally.
 Cultural Variations in Parental Support of children play

• Children's play often occurs in the midst of on-going

adult activities.

• The amount of time children can devote to playing is

determined in part by the cultural values of childhood.

• In some cultures emphasis is placed on the acquisition

of the skills that contribute to the economic gain of the
family as children perform daily chores and other family
responsibilities such as child care.
• In other communities, such as many middle class
families in the United States, children have few
responsibilities other than play and school throughout
much of their childhood.

• Others argued that the critical variable in determining

the amount of parental support for the role of play in
children's lives hinges (depends) on the need to
involve them in the economic survival of the family.
• In societies where children must work to help support
the family from an early age, there is less observation
of play than in societies where children are less tied
to the economic well-being of the family.

• Adult beliefs about play have been shown to

influence how likely parents are to become involved
in children's play.
For example,
• When mothers did not consider themselves appropriate
play partners for their children, for example East Indian,
Guatemalan they were much less involved and engaged
in playing with their children than American and Turkish
mothers, who considered play culturally appropriate
behaviour .
• The nature of parent-child interactions during play
differs widely by culture and socialization.
• Not all parents join their children in play.
• Even among the parents who believe that playing with
their child is important, the nature of the parent-child play
differs widely by culture.
• Although many Western parents believe that play is
an important way to teach their children about the
world, not all of them are skilful at combining
teaching and play .
Gender Differences
• The issue of gender differences in socialization has
received extensive treatment in the cross-cultural
literature about gender differences in behavior,
leading to conclude that there are,
- modal gender differences in behavior in every
society, and
- that every society has some division of labor by
gender.
• These two phenomena, besides being universal, are
also probably interrelated in a functional way.
Two basic questions regarding gender
1. Have all societies observed different inborn
behavioral tendencies in males and females and then
shaped their socialization practices to reinforce such
biologically based tendencies?

2. Are societies’ socialization practices merely

influenced by certain physical differences between
males and females, with those practices responsible
for behavioral differences?
• Such gender differences can be summarized as males
to be more self-assertive, achievement oriented, and
dominant and females to be more socially responsive,
passive, and submissive.

• One key to this explanation is the fact that the behavioral

differences are nearly universal and almost never
reversed, range in magnitude from quite large down to
virtually nil.

• A satisfactory explanation, then, will account for both the

universality of direction of difference and the variation in
magnitude of the difference.
• Such an explanation also takes into account economic
facts, including division of labor and socialization
practices.
• Division of labor by sex is universal (or nearly so)
and quite consistent in content.
E.g., food preparation is done predominantly by
females in nearly all societies. Child care is
usually the responsibility of females. Sometimes
it is shared, but in no society is it the modal
practice for males to have the major responsibility.
• These differences are widely viewed as arising from
biologically based physical differences (and not
behavioral ones), especially the female’s lesser overall
physical strength and, most of all, her child bearing
and child caring functions.

• A second argument was to suggest that differential

socialization evolved as a means for preparing
children to assume their sex-linked adult roles. Then,
the behavioral differences could best be viewed
as a product of different socialization emphases, with
those in turn reflective of, and appropriate training for,
different adult activities.
 Unit 4: The Psychology of Morality

Cross-cultural interest in moral development was stimulated by

the work of Kohlberg (1981, 1984). Kohlberg proposed that there
were three major levels of moral reasoning: pre conventional,
conventional, and post-conventional, with each level divided into
two stages.
•At the pre-conventional level, moral conduct is in the interest of
individuals themselves, or in the interest of relatives; reasons for
doing right are the avoidance of punishment and the principle of
fairness in an exchange.
•At the conventional level, concern about loyalty and about the
welfare of other persons and society at large are given as reasons to
justify one’s actions.
•At the post-conventional level, actions are based on ethical
principles to which individuals have committed themselves, and
that serve as absolute standards, even taking priority over the laws
of society that may violate these principles.
• Kohlberg proposed that the development of moral
reasoning would follow the same invariant sequence
in all cultures and lead toward the same ultimate
level of development, representing universal ethical
principles. However, he accepted that the rate of
development and the highest level reached could
show differences. (Different researchers come to
different findings, for this Berry pp 41-43)
 ASSIGNMENT 2 (10%)
1. Discuss what you understand by parental ethnotheories.

2. Discuss the ethnosciences of ethnobotany, ethnogeology,

and ethnopsychology. Give appropriate examples for each
and indicate the sources that you have used.
3. Summarize the view of different authors which are for and
against the view of Kohlburg (However, he accepted that
the rate of development and the highest level reached could
show differences. (refer Berry pp 41-43)
The Psychology of Morality
• No agreed definition for the term “moral” in the
psychological literature.

• The adapted dictionary definition says: morality consists of

the rules of conduct based on conscience or the sense of
right and wrong. Based on the definition, the following
questions will be raised,

1. What kind of “sense” is a moral sense? What does it

consist of?

2. How do we know right and wrong? Where does conscience

come from? That is, where do we get our knowledge of the
rules and our feelings about them?
3. Does our moral sense change over time? If so, how
and why?

4. Do all people have the same “sense” of right and

wrong? If not, how does it differ, both across
individuals and across cultures? What accounts for
the variation?

5. To what extent do individuals behave according to

their sense of morality?
To answer the above mentioned questions of morality,
Psychological theories of morality were formulated.

1. Freud’s psychoanalytic theory;

2. Learning theories, including social learning theory;
3. Cognitive-developmental theory; and
4. Evolutionary psychology.

• The psychoanalytic theory of the superego focuses to a large

extent on the moral feelings of anxiety, shame, and guilt,
generally ignoring cognitive and behavioral aspects. (Freud,
1924a, 1924b).
• The psychoanalytic approach has been a cornerstone for other
types of research, in that the capacity for moral feeling,
particularly guilt, has been regarded as a crucial indicator of
the existence of conscience.

• However, the theoretical basis of conscience in the working

out of the Oedipal conflict has left the theory open to attack by
anthropologists who question the universality of the
Oedipal conflict.

• Learning theorists who see no need to posit unconscious

motivational processes as the basis of moral learning; and
by feminist theorists who reject Freud’s assertion that males
develop a stronger conscience than females because of
differences in the way they experience castration anxiety.
• On the other hand, by grounding conscience in a
specifically sexual conflict, psychoanalytic theory
is closer than other psychological theories to
popular conceptions that focus especially on sexual
morality.

• Social learning and behaviorist approaches place

greatest emphasis on behavior, its consequences
(direct or vicarious), and its stimulus conditions,
to the relative exclusion of thinking and feeling
(e.g., Bandura, 1977).
• Social learning theorists have demonstrated
convincingly that children imitate social models’
prosocial and aggressive behaviors, and there is
abundant evidence for the conditioning of anxiety.
• However, this learning approach has had difficulty in
accounting for other moral feelings (shame and guilt)
or for age-related changes in moral reasoning and
judgment.
• On the other hand, this learning theory postulates
no essential content for moral rules, and is thus
comfortable with the extreme diversity of rules
encountered across cultures.
• Cognitive developmental theory is concerned mainly with
moral reasoning, to the relative neglect of feeling and action
(e.g.,Piaget,1932;Kohlberg,1969).
• Cognitive developmental theories, particularly those of Piaget
have shown that moral reasoning, based on the concepts
of equality and reciprocity, changes in predictable ways
across the years of childhood and youth. Considerable
cross-cultural research indicates that the sequence of stages
proposed by Kohlberg is invariant, although the existence
of all his stages in all cultures is highly questionable
(Snarey, 1985).
• This theory, however, has difficulty explaining moral feelings,
and evidence for a relationship between stages of moral
development and actual moral behavior is weak.
• Evolutionary theories, take into account subjective states
of the person, focus on feelings as cues to action;
however, this approach has so far concentrated on the
adaptive value of prosocial action and the possible
mechanisms by which both prosocial tendencies and
social control tendencies may have been selected through
evolution.

• Evolutionary psychologists can point to evidence from

a variety of sources, from ethological studies to
computer simulations, that reciprocity in prosocial
behavior confers selective advantages in a group-living
species, particularly when combined with a tendency to
punish defections.
• Since evolutionary psychology posits that feelings
are the primary means of inducing adaptive
behavior, it is open to explanations involving
moral emotion and motivation, although to date a
full account has not been offered.

• The modular theory of mind espoused by many

evolutionary psychologists is also potentially
compatible with some of the ideas of cognitive-
developmental theory, but once again, an explicit
connection between these approaches has yet to be
drawn.
The Source of Morality
• Theorists of several persuasions unite in asserting that
conscience originates outside the individual in
societal influences. Thus,
• Psychoanalysis pictures the origin of the superego as
a process of incorporation, almost literally a
“swallowing” of the parent’s morality by the
child.
• Although the child’s motivation for adopting adult
morality is seen to lie in the internal conflicts of the
Oedipal stage, the moral sense itself is thought to
be imported from the outside.
• Learning-based approaches likewise posit environmental
pressures, in the form of models, reinforcements, and
punishments, as elements that govern the acquisition of
conscience.

• Both psychoanalysis and learning theories share the term

“internalization” as a description of the origin of conscience,
and both contrast internalized conscience with control of
behavior by outside agencies, such as parents or police.

• To a large extent this model of internalization is also shared

by most sociologists and anthropologists, whose concept of
socialization includes the acquisition of morality under the
tutelage or pressure of socializing agents such as parents,
teachers and religious leaders.
• Even social constructionist theorists, who
emphasize the uniqueness of cultural meanings,
implicitly assume that the individual’s morality stems
from the culture.
• Cognitive-developmental theory takes exception to
this dominant model, arguing that the child
essentially creates his or her own conscience
on the basis of experience with relationships
and role-taking opportunities. This approach
maintains that, just as the child’s thinking and use
of logic develop through several stages, so moral
reasoning moves through stages that are
progressively more complex and inclusive in scope.
• For developmental theory, the child does not simply take in
or internalize an external morality, but rather produces his/her
own moral understanding by constructing and re-constructing
concepts of reciprocity and equality. Thus, in contrast to
the internalization theorists, Kohlberg is able to posit a
post-conventional or principled morality in some
individuals which may transcend the conventional morality
presented to them by their social surrounding.

• Evolutionary psychologists see morality as an adaptive

facultative trait – or, more likely, a set of such traits –
activated by particular kinds of social conditions and
experiences.
Differences in the Moral Sense
The problem of differences in the moral sense is
actually several different problems–individual differences,
gender differences, and cultural differences, to name only
the most frequently discussed. Not every theoretical
approach tries to account for all of these types of difference,
but each of them is the subject of lively debate.
Individual Differences
Individual differences have been conceptualized in
terms of severity of conscience (Freud), degree of
internalization (Hoffman), stage attainment (Piaget and
Kohlberg) and tendency to violate social rules (Trivers and
other evolutionary psychologists).
• Freud’s somewhat paradoxical proposal was that
severity of conscience is inversely related to the
severity of punishment experienced by the child,
explaining this phenomenon on the basis of greater
motivation to incorporate the rules represented by a
more loving, less punishing parent.
• Cognitive dissonance theorists took up this theme,
suggesting that “insufficient external justification”
for obeying the rules leads the child to produce
his/her own internal justification, i.e., a belief in the
rightness of the rules and his/her obedience
• Learning theory approaches have no need of a
special explanation for individual differences in
morality: each person has a unique learning
history, which in turn will produce variation across
individuals in terms of morality.
• Cognitive-developmental theory attributes most
individual differences in morality to differences in
stage attainment. Such differences could be due to
age or to the (lack of) role-taking opportunities that
have been encountered by the individual.
Gender Differences
• Gender differences are clearly predicted only by
Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, which maintains that
the greater intensity of castration anxiety experienced by
males leads them to develop a stricter conscience and
greater capacity for guilt.

• However, this prediction has not fared well in

empirical research. Using criteria such as obedience,
confession of transgression, apparent guilt, and
atonement for transgression, observations of young
children have typically produced the opposite result:
young girls show more signs of internalization of
conscience than young boys.
• Gender differences in morality was sparked by
findings from some studies using Kohlberg’s
moral reasoning interviews with adolescents and
adults that males tended to be placed in higher stages
than females.

• Gilligan (1982) asserted that this tendency actually

reflected female use of what she called a care
perspective, in contrast to the justice perspective
embodied in Kohlberg’s theory and measurements.

• Later research has shown that both males and females

make use of both perspectives, depending on the
circumstances.
Cultural differences
• Cultural differences in the rules of morality are so large and pervasive
that cross-cultural psychologists debate whether they are differences of
degree or of kind. Shweder and his colleagues have denounced
Kohlberg’s cognitive-developmental theory as applying only to
Western societies with individualistic social forms and liberal values.

• other researchers, have demonstrated that some of the criteria for

moral judgment employed in some collectivistic cultures outside of
western cultural traditions are not anticipated in Kohlberg’s scoring
system and may, they contend, erroneously lead to artificially lower
placements for respondents who use them.

• These criteria bear a close resemblance in some cases to the “care”

ethic proposed by Gilligan, but also may emphasize duty or tradition.
Universal aspects
• The critique offered by social constructionists is more
fundamental than simply a criticism of a particular theory; its
main point is that each culture is unique, with its own
meanings and moral system, so that comparison is in a real
sense impossible.

• Constructionists stand alone on this point, however. All other

theories of morality have at least some universalistic elements.

• Psychoanalytic theory posits little in the way of universal

moral content, other than a prohibition on incest. However,
the mechanism of internalization, rooted in the
fundamental conflict between the desires of the individual and
the requirements of social life, is seen as universal.
• Social learning theory also posits no particular moral
content, but the processes of internalization (learning) are
regarded as essentially the same in all humans.

• Cognitive developmental theory, in contrast, implies that

both the processes of moralization and the bases of moral
judgment, as they reflect basic and universal
psychological processes, should be similar in all cultures.

• The wide cultural differences that are empirically observed

are explained either on the basis of a distinction between
morality and convention or on the basis of restricted
role-taking opportunities in isolated cultural groups.
• Evolutionary psychology also predicts underlying patterns of
cross-cultural similarity, such as the norm of reciprocity which
is found universally. In addition, this approach makes a
number of predictions about the possible forms of rules
governing sexual behavior, in this respect bringing it closer to
psychoanalytic theory than to the other approaches.
 Unit 5
Culture and Healthy Behavior
The concept of social behavior

• Social behaviors are each and every activity which took

place in a given socio cultural context.
• Include all activities, behaviors that took place in certain
group of people.
• Even though the existence of social behaviors is common,
there might be cross cultural variation in the way they
are practiced.
• Obviously this social behaviors are developed, and
manifested in certain socio cultural and ecological contexts.
 Socio cultural context
• For example, greeting procedures (bowing, hand-
shaking, or kissing) vary widely from culture to
culture, and these are clear cut examples of the
influence of cultural context on our social
behavior.

• This indicates that greeting has both relative and

universal aspect. On the other hand, greeting takes
place in all cultures, suggesting the presence of some
fundamental communality in the very essence of
social behavior.
• Therefore one could make the universalist working
assumption that many (perhaps most) kinds of social
behaviors occur in all cultures, but that they get done
in very different ways, depending on local cultural
circumstances.
 Dimensions of social behavior

• Social behaviors are complex and broad in nature

extending from overt (shaking hands) to covert
(attribution).

• Indeed they can have different dimensions among

which conformity, values, social cognition, and
gender behavior are common. So our focuses is on
the variations and similarities of those dimensions
across different cultures.
 Conformity
• Is defined as the degree to which individuals will
characteristically go along with the prevailing group norm.
Factors affecting conformity
- Social cohesiveness (tight-loose)
- Group size(large-small)
- Socialization process( compliance or assertion)
- Ecological factors (hunting societies, agrarian, industrial
society)
- Socio cultural factors
- Social stratification(highly stratified and densely
populated, less stratified and sparsely populated)
• Therefore, based up on the above factors it can be easily
suggest that conformity may vary across cultures.

• There is likely to be relatively more individual

conformity in societies that emphasize compliance
training (i.e., densely populated and highly stratified
societies) than society emphasizes assertion training and
sparsely pouplated).

• Eco cultural index conformity is ranging from -

hunting–loose–assertion to-agriculture–tight–
compliance),
• Studies suggest that in “loose” societies, where there
is child training for assertion, there will be relatively
independent performance on an Asch-type task, while
training for compliance in “tight” societies is

associated with greater conformity.

• Studies found that conformity was present in all
studies, but that the degree of conformity varied with
aspects of culture, and generally was related to
tightness, just as in subsistence societies.

• Bond and Smith (1996) found that conformity was

higher in societies that held values of conservatism,
collectivism, and a preference for status ascription,
while it was lower in societies valuing autonomy,
individualism, and status achievement.
• Values are inferred constructs, whether held
collectively by societies or individually by persons.

• In an early definition, the term “values” refers to a

conception held by an individual, or collectively by
members of a group, of that which is desirable, and
which influences the selection of both means and
ends of action from among available alternatives.
 Individualism vs. collectivism
• Individualism; a primary concern for oneself and, Collectivism
in contrast, is a concern for the group(s) to which one belongs.

Social cognition
- Refers to how individuals perceive and interpret their social
world.
- As with the field of social cognition, generally, most of the cross-
cultural researches focused on the process of attribution, which
refers to the way in which individuals
think about the causes of their own, or other people’s,
behavior.
- In broad outline, attribution studies grew out of research on locus
of control.
• Attribution can- Internal causes (i.e., to their own
actions and dispositions), or -External causes (i.e.,
not to themselves but to situations)

Gender behaviors
• They are socially constructed and culturally
determined behaviors of male and female. There has
been a rapidly developing interest in the relationship
between gender and behavior .
• How boys and girls are socialized differently in
various cultures, and noted that girls generally are
socialized more toward compliance (nurturance,
responsibility, and obedience), while boys are raised
more for assertion (independence, self-reliance, and
achievement).

• These differential socialization patterns are

themselves related to some other cultural factors
(such as social stratification) and ecological factors
(such as subsistence economy and population
density).
• There are various factors that contribute to variation
of male and female’s behavior among societies.
Including;
- Collective social images,
- Socialization process,
- Values,
- Cultural beliefs (stereotypes), and
- Social expectations (ideology).
• Gender stereotypes

Widely shared beliefs within a society about what

males and females are generally like have been
studied for decades in Western societies. A common
finding is that these stereotypes of males and females
are very different from one another.
• Gender role ideology

While gender stereotypes are the consensual beliefs

that are held about the characteristics of males and
females, gender role ideology is a normative belief
about what males and females should be, like, or
should do (Adler, 1993).
THE END