ASISSGMENT SECOND SEMISTER

8/9/2019 ASISSGMENT SECOND SEMISTER

1/14

CONCEPTS AND RESEARCH METHODS IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 5:

CULTURALLY SENSITIVE RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND METHODS IN SOCIAL

PSYCHOLOGY

By:

MUWAGA MUSA

[email protected]

NPM: 190220093001

PROGRAM MAGISTER PSIKOLOGI

UNIVERSITAS PADJADJARAN BANDUNG

2 MEI, 2010


2/14

We use the word culture in many different ways in everyday language and discourse.

Sometimes we use the word culture to mean race, nationality, or ethnicity. For example, we often refer

to people of African American ancestry as coming from African American culture, or Chinese people

as coming from Chinese culture. But we also use the word culture to reflect trends in music and art,

food and clothing, rituals, traditions, and heritage. In short, we use the word culture to refer to many

different things about peoplephysical and biological characteristics, behaviors, music, dance, and

other activities. Kroeber and Kluckholn (1952) and later Berry, Poortinga, Segall, and Dasen (1992)

have described six general categories in which culture is discussed; descriptive, historical, normative,

Psychological and Genetic .

Social psychology is distinguished by its attention to the power of the situation and to

the dynamics of social groups. Not only, but also highly sensitive to the active role of the observer in

making sense of the experience. However, even with this sensitivity to group dynamics and to the

processes of individual constructiveness and making meaning of experience, the field gives little

attention to culture in its theories and methods. This work offers methodological strategies for

enhancing cultural sensitivity of social psychology as strategies are critically increasing the fields

theoretical power and its explanations in depth, as well as its applied relevance. While emphasizing

issues like sampling, choice of procedure, and interpretation of findings.

It must be recalled that psychological experience always occurs in and is, in part, constituted by

sociocultural processes, resulting in a need to take culture into account in all research designs, even in

work conducted by single populations. There are many answers to the questions why cultural values

must be considered in social psychological research?

Chief among them is, there is need to pay attention to culture for methodological control purposes, like

individuals back ground, knowledge, and experiences or out looks that may affect their understanding

of methodological procedures not having equivalent meaning for different subgroups.

The second motive for attending to cultural issues is for theory testing purposes. This type of concern

is guided by assessing the assumed universality of existing psychological theories through sampling

culturally diverse populations, as well as identifying mediating or moderating variables that affect the

manifestation of particular psychological effects.


3/14

Culturally based research is also increasingly guided by theory construction goals. This type of

approach is concerned not merely with identifying diversity in modes of psychological functioning but

also with identifying the previously ignored or unrecognized cultural dependence of existing theories.

Its clear that previous cognitive and experimental interpretations of age changes were incomplete and

that it was critical to recognise cultural processes as contributing to such age changes, and these

developmental changes in social attribution are culturally variable rather than universal as previously

assumed.

In summary, taking cultural considerations into account in social psychological research is needed not

only for the methodological reasons of ensuring the validity of assessment techniques , but also for

theoretical reasons of testing the universality of psychological theories and of formulating new

conceptual models .Extending beyond merely an understanding of diversity in psychological

functioning , such attention can provide new process understanding of the psychological functioning

of widely studied western populations .

Down playing of cultural issues in social psychology; in recent years, there has been increasing

interest in cultural issues in psychological research though with limited emphasis. Whereas increasing

efforts are being made to sample culturally diverse subgroups, most contemporary social

psychological research centers on middle-class, college populations which have constituted social

psychological inquiry.

To give increasing attention to sociocultural considerations in social psychology, its critical to

understand why culture tends to be down played in the field. Its this type of concern that must be

addressed to gain greater understanding of cultural process and their role in psychological

phenomenon as well as adopting a more culturally sensitive methodological strategy.

Cultural-free approach to situation; one of the major contributions of social psychology is its emphasis

of situations affecting behavior. Its this insight that underlies some of the early research documents


4/14

which hold that situational influence can lead to antisocial behavior such as in milgram conformity

experiment (milgram 1963).

As approached with in this dominant perspective, the situation is treated as presenting a veridical

structure that can be known through inductive and deductive information processing. Its assumed that

validity in judgment arises from differences in the information available to individuals or from

differences in their informative processing, resulting in certain judgments being more or less cognitive

adequate or varied than others.

This view of situation gives rise to explanatory frameworks focused on factors in the situation and in

the person. Within such framework, culture is viewed merely as casual factor with impacts on

psychological findings rather than as a factor that its self contributes additional explanatory force.

Equally culture may be treated as an individual difference, an attitude that is seen, as an example

enthusiasm shown for assessing culture through individualism/collectivism. From such perspective,

cultural group membership is viewed as giving rise to individual differences, attitude, understanding,

and consideration that already is taken into account in social psychological explanation, through the

fields present attention to individual differences.

Physical science ideal explanation, the tendency to downplay cultural considerations

stems from the fields embrace of an idealized physical science model of explanation. Higgin and

krunglanski (1996) explained this type of stance involves a view of psychological science as the

search for deep structural explanatory mechanism.

A discovery of lawful principles governing nature of phenomenon is a fundamental objective of

scientific research not only that, but also a useful scientific analysis needs of probe beneath the

surface. In other words, it needs to get away from the phonotypic manifestation and strive to unearth

genotypes that may luck beneath.

In adopting this vision as a dominant research paradigm, social psychology has a tendency to considercultural consideration as mere content effects and thus factors that ideally should be held constant in

order to focus on isolating more fundamental underlying psychological mechanism. (Malpass 1988).


5/14


6/14

disappointing (Hong , morris chiu 2000,2002) much of the work has been associated with stereotypical

stance that gloss over important distinction between and within cultures and that gives insufficient

attention to the impact of context behavior .The same type of sophisticated understanding of

situational influences that is evident in main stream social psychology research is not evident in this

type of social psychological work , which much of is focused on cultural questions. Notably, work in

this tradition is also yielding findings that, in some cases, appear to contradict directly the claims of

the interdependent/independent self-construal paradigm.

Conceptual issues in giving more attention to culture ,before turning directly to these methodological

strategies, there is need to pay attention to conceptual issues that respond to some of the reasons for

the fields downplaying of culture noted, these consideration bear on the nature of culture and its

influence on psychological processes.

Cultural views

From an ecological view, culture is understood as adoptions to the varying requirements

of contrasting physical and social structural environment .Ecological approaches to culture are of

value in highlighting the varied resources and constraints that individual of different social cultural

communities experience and that influence their behaviors. It may be noted, that whereas ecological

approaches to culture extend the dominant social psychology models in their recognition that the

adaptive context for psychological development is culturally variable, rather than universal, these

approaches retain a view of the context as an objective environment. In this respect, such approaches

do not challenge the traditional social psychology explanatory focus on features of the person and the

objective situation.

Its important to compliment ecological approaches to culture with approaches that are symbolically

grounded. Symbolic approaches treat culture as shared meanings that are embodied in artifacts and

practices that form human development (Cole, 1995; R.A.Le Vine, 1984). Its recognised that

cultural meanings and practices not only represent experience but also construct experience in serving

to create social realities (Bartlett 1932). Not do social institutions depend on culture definitions but

even psychological concepts are recognized.


7/14

Challenging the identification of cultural processes exclusively with the situational factors taken into

account in social psychological explanation, a symbolic approach to culture highlights the need to

recognise that cultural meanings do not bear one-to-one relationship to objective aspects of the

situation. Culture then cannot be understood merely by consideration of particular objectives but

instead requires taking into account cultural beliefs, values and practices that are not purely

functionally based.

Integrating cultural considerations with situational and person factors, it must be noted

that cultural considerations complete but do not replace the focus on situational and personal factors in

social psychological explanation. This implies that hypothesis involving cultural influences need to be

formulated in ways that take into account both variations and human differences. Equally, it must be

recognised that in many cases the impact of individual differences and situational factors may

themselves be culturally variable.

The key to enhancing the cultural sensitivity of social psychology is to understand culture

and its role in psychological functioning. Attention must be paid to culture as ecological context and

presents certain objective affordance and constraints, as well as to culture as a symbolic environment

that entails certain meanings and practices that are not entirely functionally based. it must be

recognised that a consideration of culture does not replace an attention to person and situational

factors but contributes an additional dimension to social psychological explanation .

Methodological strategies for enhancing cultural sensitivity, the strategies include

those which are important not only in comparative research but also in research that does not focus on

cultural questions and / or on tapping culturally diverse populations. Given the reality of psychology,

experience always occurring in specific context, sensitivity to cultural issues is needed in all social

psychological investigations.

Cultural understanding,in working to gain an understanding of cultural sensitivity that

differ from the researchers background, its important to seek cultural knowledge that, as far as

feasible and specific to the particular group under consideration. This implies that researchers should

avoid turning to the widely utilized scale measures of individualism/collectivism to provide this kind

of insight, because of the limited cultural sensitivity of such measures (miller, 2002). Fortunately,


8/14

whereas some commitment is required on the part of the researcher to make the necessary effort to

acquire a greater understanding of other cultural view points, many strategies are available for

achieving this goal.

1) One valuable strategy for obtaining knowledge about other cultures involves drawing fromrelevant research literature in related fields, such as anthropology and sociolinguistic. One can

see the same kind of knowledge as having informed perspective adopted by Markus and

Kitayama (1991) in their article on culture and the self. Although they proposed a global

distinction linked to individualism/ collectivism, the references cited in their article are

grounded in interdisciplinary research of Japan.

(2) Collaborating with a member of the comparison cultural community under

consideration. This represents another valuable strategy for gaining cultural knowledge which may

be particularly useful in cases in which there is little or no available research literature on a particular

community, ideally, such collaborations should include researchers who have both insider and outsider

knowledge of the cultures under consideration. (Greenfield, 1979) collaborations of this kind have

been generative in recent cultural research in social psychology , as illustrated by great numbers of

studies being conducted involving researchers drawn from United states and from various East Asian

cultural group( J i and Nisbett 2000; Peng and Nisbett 1999)

(3) A form of organised small-group discussions, focus groups constitute small

groups that investigators assemble and engage in processes of informal group discussions, as a means

of tapping participants personal experience and reactions to particular topics

(Powell and single, 1996 p, 499). The goal of focus groups is to make possible the gathering of

qualitative information regarding the attitudes, beliefs, and feelings of participants as expressed

within a group context. Focus group offer the advantage of being highly flexible and can be

employed effectively both to explore general culture concerns and to tap respondents open-ended

reactions to issues identified as theoretical interest in a particular research program .

Sampling; the growing need to understand cultural implications has influenced different types of

sampling strategy to be employed in the hunt for accurate data about cultures, the need to go beyond


9/14

samples has been emphasised in the national institute of healths recent report to address minority

inclusion as part of all currently submitted grant proposals. The following are the sampling strategies

to be employed.

Noncomparative prototypic sampling, this strategyis intended to manipulation situationsor assessing individual difference, while tapping population that is treated although its homogenous

and can provide grounds for making universal claims. In an effort to increase cultural sensitivity of

this type of sampling practice, its essential not only for researchers to acknowledge potential

limitations on the generality of their findings from this type of design but also to give greater

conceptual attention to the nature of these limitation . Its important for researchers to address what

specific respects a claim may be anticipated to be culturally bound or alternatively, in short, serious

attention needs to be given to the cultural meaning of research findings, even when employing

sampling design that are Noncomparative in nature and not explicitly focused on cultural questions.

Thus, whenever there are sufficiently large numbers of participants in different cultural subgroups to

make this easy, effort should be made to conduct separate analysis of effects within subgroups to

observe empirically whether similar results obtain in all cases. Its recommended that subgroups be

analysed at levels that are linked with cultural traditions and that attend as well to issues of

socioeconomic status. Its that analysis of this type be undertaken in ways that are sensitive to areas of

overlap and intermixing between subgroups.

Noncomparative cultural sampling strategies,this applies to research that focus on cultural questions.

These projects generally are motivated either by a concern with obtaining normative data or by the

methodological requirements of particular research methodologies, such as ethnographic or case study

approaches.

Sampling of single cultural populations is increasingly being adopted in research as a means

of working expanding the normative baseline for psychological theory, with such efforts encouraged

by major U.S funding organisations, such as national science foundation (NSF) and national institute

of health (NIH), in their issuing of specific calls for research with underrepresented minority

populations. It is recognised that psychological theory can effectively be made more culturally


10/14

inclusive only when its descriptive base is broadened to include information about psychological

functioning in diverse cultural samples.

Comparative cultural sampling strategy, this design is employed commonly in research that

tests the universality of particular psychological effects or that examines cultural variations in theories.In such work, its important for sampling decisions to be culturally sensitive.

In utilizing comparative study to examine cultural influence on social psychological phenomenon,

greater consideration must be given to the distinctive nature of cultural orientation. Equally, greater

attention needs to be paid to the overlap of cultural perspectives. Thus the concern with affection and

respect that Robin Harwood (1995) have found to central to the outlooks on attachment as emphasised

by Puerto Rican mothers differs not only in balancing autonomy but also connectedness as emphasised

among Euro-Americans and assumed with in attachment theory.

Representativeness and equivalence in sampling,although its important to address concerns

about the anticipated cultural generality of results , it must also be recognised that representativeness

sampling is not an essential feature of culturally based research designs , and with the exception of

large scale surveys , its rarely achieved in social psychology . This implies that researchers should

not utilize representative sampling as a criterion in evaluating culturally based psychology research

because such standards would lead to that kind of to rendered negative with the exception of large

scale survey designs.

As a way of criterion of samples being representative, however, concern needs to be given

to a achieving equivalence in the population tapped in the comparative studies and in individuals

responses to reach stimuli. To control for possible confounding preexisting groups differences, use of

statistical control is emphasised. The inclusion of control samples in research design is a valuable

strategy that may be employed in efforts to rule out alternative interpretations of particular effects

related to sampling ----a technique that is particularly valuable in two group designs, given the many

uncontrolled sources of variation that may influence any effect.

Culture as a process


11/14

Social psychology has since emphasised the use of scale measure of independent / interdependent as

well as other measures of collectivism/individualism as developed by researchers in the tradition of

cross- culture psychology. However, serious limitation exist in both of these strategies, leaving a need

to adopt more dynamic methodological approaches measures of individualism/collectivism are also

problematic in treating psychological processes as bearing one-one cultural outlook ,as an attitude that

fails to recognise the extent to which behavior is normatively based rather than reflective of individual

attitudes or personality .

Its also problematic to utilize priming approaches to stimulate cultural processes and to

measure individualism/collectivism. Its not possible to interpret a particular behavioral response, such

as dispositional inference, that might be primed as reflective on an individualistic or collectivist

outlook without understanding other cultural meanings to which the response is linked.

In an effort to understand culture, its recommended researchers adopt process oriented approach

cultural (Greenfield, 1997). This includes tapping more directly the psychological processes that are

implicated in particular culturally variable psychological responses as well as assessing the everyday

cultural routines and practices that support such responses.

Methodological approaches that tap the psychological processes underlying particular

effects include such strategies as assessing on line processing as well as identifying culturally variable

patterns of functional relationship (Katayama, 2002). On line processing involves evaluating

information immediately as its encountered and contrasts with the cognitive processing based on

long-term memory.

The use of on line processing, is intended to explore cultural influence illustrated in a recent

comparative study on the correspondence bias, an attribution tendency in which an individual

characters are seen as corresponding to his or her behaviors even when the behavior is socially limited.

This investigation not only demonstrated that Japanese respondents are less vulnerable to this bias than

are the U.S. respondents but also showed that this difference is linked to contrasting types of online

attitudinal inferences. The approach identifies also cultural variable partners of functional relationships

is illustrated in cross-culture research highlighting the contrasting cultural meanings accorded to

shyness, and it was demonstrated that whereas social attitude tend to linked to negative outcomes in an


12/14

American setting, its linked to positive family and school outcomes with china (chen,Rubin, and li,

1995).

Culturally appropriate measures, its important to consider the sensitivity of cultural issues in social

psychological research. This sensitivity is a matter of ensuring that measures are equivalent inmeaning for different populations and that they are culturally informative. In terms of ensuring

equivalence of measuring instruments in different cultural or sub-cultural populations, its important

not merely to adopt such conventional strategies as the use of back translation but also to take into

account the contrasting expectations, social knowledge, values and modes of communication

maintained by individuals of different sub-cultural backgrounds.

Interestingly, this type of differences can lead various populations to experience difficulty

in responding to multiple choice questions. Thus in research among the Zinacantencan maya,

Greenfield and Childs (1977) observed that respondents with limited levels of education treated the

multiple options provided in questionnaire as partners to be put together to create a large meaning ,

rather than as a discreet options whose only function is to test understanding. The social context of

testing situation also may affect the level of comfort that individuals experience in testing situations

and their readiness to respond. Thus, social psychologists must keep in mind that some populations

from different sub-cultural background are more reluctant to answer questions in a standard

interviewing situation. (Delgado Gaitan , 1994; Greenfield 1997b).

In turn, to ensure cultural inclusiveness in research, its critically important to recognise that many

assessment instruments currently in use involve culturally specific assumptions and need to be

broadened conceptually co accommodate the diverse outlooks of contrasting cultural and sub-cultural

populations. Until this is done, the field will continue to yield results that luck sufficient cultural

sensitivity to tap the cultural variability that exists. The present considerations highlight the need for

researchers to be more aware of the extent to which the response options provided in questionnaire

may luck sufficient cultural sensitivity to succeed in tapping the outlooks of diverse cultural

populations. Its also important to utilize assessment instruments that are less constraining of response

options and more accommodating to diverse cultural viewpoints.


13/14

Conclusionin the final analysis, being more culturally in social psychological research is of

much importance. As Matsumoto (2001) recently commented all psychologists are cross cultural in

some way the difference is whether they are aware of the cultures being studied, and weather these

comparison is explicit or implicit in their work. Equally critical, is the need to overcome the

competency of social psychology which has resulted in relegating culture to a peripheral role as a mare

descriptive enterprise with little implication to the basic theories. Taking cultural considerations inti

account in social psychology promises to yield a richer understanding of basic psychological processes

and of diversity of outlooks that characterize human psychological functioning.

References

Adair, J., G., & Diaz Loving, R. (1999). Indigenous psychologies: The meaning of the concepts and its

assessment.

Applied Psychology: An International Review, 48(4), Special IssAllwood, C. M., & Berry, J. W. (inpress). Origins and development of indigenous psychologies: An international analysisInternationalJournal of Psychology, Special Issue.ue.

Berry, J. W., Poortinga, Y. H., Segall, M. H., & Dasen, P. R. (2002). Cross-culturalpsychology:Research and applications, Second Edition. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University.

Hermans, J. M., & Kempen, J. G. (1998). Moving cultures: The perilous problem ofculturaldichotomy in a globalized society.American Psychologist, 53, 1111-1120.

Triandis, H. C. (2000). Dialectics between cultural and cross-cultural psychology.AsianJournal of Social Psychology, 3, 185-196.

Shams, M. & Hwang, K. K. (2005). Responses to Epistemological Challenges toIndigenousPsychologies .Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 8(1), Special Issue.


14/14

Henrich, J. and R. Boyd, The evolution of conformist transmission and the emergence ofbetween-group differences. (1998)Evolution and Human Behavior, 19, 215242

Documents

ASISSGMENT SECOND SEMISTER