Chapter 13: Culture, Religion, and Ethnicity: Processes and Differences This multimedia product and its contents are protected under copyright law. The following are prohibited by law: (1) Any public performance or display, including transmission of any image over a network; (2) Preparation of any derivative work, including the extraction, in whole or in part, of any images; (3) Any rental, lease, or lending of the program. Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Applications of Personality Psychology Why study culture in a personality class? External influences help shape our personality Who we are, and what makes us unique individuals is in part due to the values, behaviors, and customs we learn from our culture Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Layers of Group Influence “No man is an island” We are influenced by Family Peers Social institutions Cultural traditions Social Class Individuals are best understood in the context of their cultures Individual versus group effects Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Two Approaches to Studying Culture Etic cross-cultural focused on generalities across cultures apply measures/ assessments from outside of the culture to that group Emic Culture-specific focuses on a single culture develops assessments within the group Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Individualism vs. Collectivism Individualistic Typical of Western societies Strive to distinguish self as individual Focus on the individual Collectivist Typically Eastern Focus on fundamental relatedness of all individuals Focus on the group Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

History of Research on Personality and Culture Contributions from cultural anthropology Margaret Mead (1920s) Studied adolescents in Samoa Concluded that adolescence was not stressful in Samoa as it was in the U.S. Whiting and Whiting (1970s) Studied child rearing in different cultures Found a relation between adult personality and child rearing experiences Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

History of Research on Personality and Culture Kurt Lewin’s experiments on political culture Autocratic vs. democratic groups Demonstrated that cultural issues can and should be studied, even in rigorously controlled laboratory research Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Errors of Scientific Inference: The Case of Race Race as an approach to grouping people We often overgeneralize and overattribute personality characteristics based on physical characteristics The influence of race in the United States The American Dilemma Equality versus slavery Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Religion Religious identity as an aspect of personality Spirituality as a core element of human experience Religion can provide norms and expectations about behavior Importance of evaluating a person in the context of institutions that influence behavior Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Socioeconomic Influences on Personality The SES (Socioeconomic status) gradient Those of higher SES are at lower risk of disease and premature death SES effects on personality are not well documented There appears to be a link between class and personality Another source of influence on individuals Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Language and Identity Language is a defining feature of a person’s identity Idiolect—each individual's own unique version of his or her native language Dialect—regional variants in vocabulary and syntactic forms Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Language and Thought Our language influences not only how we say things, but even how we think about and understand the world Linguistic relativity e.g., Orwell’s novel 1984: “Newspeak” Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Personality and Bilingualism Bilingualism and biculturalism Each language/culture is a different context for behavior A bilingual individual’s assessed personality varies with language context Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Language and Social Interactions Language can influence our social interactions We address powerful and important people in certain ways The importance and intricacy of these language rules varies across cultures Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Gender and Language Many languages include distinctions between word forms that are used by or for females versus males Use of masculine pronouns as a generic for all people influences how we see the world, our capabilities, and our roles Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Culture and Testing The item content of some tests may not adequately capture some cultural experiences Culture-free tests Culture-fair tests Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Stereotype Threat The threat that others’ judgments or their own actions will negatively stereotype them People faced with a difficult evaluative challenge such as an SAT test may react poorly if they see themselves as identified with a group that is expected to do poorly Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Incorporating Culture into Personality Theory Culture should be incorporated into personality theories and research e.g., Allport’s study of prejudice Culture influences our roles, goals, cognitions, health, and behavior Culture even influences the theories we create Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Culture and the Eight Aspects of Personality Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Culture and the Eight Aspects of Personality Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Culture and the Eight Aspects of Personality Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Culture and the Eight Aspects of Personality Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Some Current Research Developments The nature of the self Independent vs. cooperative The interactions of people with situations as impacted by culture The cultural composition of a group sometimes has an impact on behavior Ethnic socialization Racial-ethnic identity Prejudice and discrimination Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.