Chapter 6

Question 1

Twenty Statements Test

Answer 1

• Asked to come up with 20 statements to respond to the question “I am —”
• Western cultures (Americans, Australians, Brits, Canadians) more likely to use personal characteristics
• People in other places in the world (Asians, Africans, Indians, Masai/Samburu, Native Americans) more likely to use social role/identity statements
• Different brain activity occurs for Western vs. non-western cultural groups when asked to think about personal characteristics (or social roles)

Question 2

ingroups vs. outgroups: differences due to indep vs. interdep view of self

Answer 2

• Ingroups/outgroups more stable and important in interdep
• Interdep less likely to trust people in the outgroup
• Conformity more contingent on ingroups/outgroups for interdep (much more likely to conform to ingroups, less likely to conform to outgroups)

Question 3

individualism vs. collectivism: similarities

Answer 3

• Should be thought of as a continuum, not discrete categories
• Can be influenced by culture (ie. encountering more collectivistic situations on a daily basis, facilitating your collectivistic view)

Question 4

individualism vs. collectivism: definitions

Answer 4

• Individualism: more likely to focus on independent aspects of themselves, feel distinct from others, prioritize being self-sufficient (more common in places like Can, US, Aus, Europe; and in people with high SES)
• • Majority of psychological research done on individualistic people
• Collectivism: more likely to focus on interdependent aspects of their self-concepts, like close relationships and group memberships (more common in Africa, Asia, South America; and in people with low SES)

Question 5

Gender and culture: differences in traits

Answer 5

• tested differences in collectivism, agency, assertiveness, and relatedness (ex. helping people in need because you can almost feel their pain) in men vs. women → wanted to see whether men were more individualistic and women were more collectivistic
• Only difference was in relatedness (women scored higher)

Question 6

culture and gender equality: sex role ideology study

Answer 6

• investigated people’s attitudes towards how men and women should act
• • Egalitarian views in individualistic, northern, urbanized, more Christian places (ie. Netherlands, FInland, Germany)
• • Traditional views in places in collectivistic, southern, less urbanized, more Muslim places (ie. India, Pakistan, Nigeria)
• • In each culture, men and women tended to share the same views, though men were usually slightly more traditional

Question 7

influence of shifting vs. plow cultivation on gender norms

Answer 7

• Shifting: people dig up earth themselves → women participate more in labour sphere
• Plow: people lead animals as they plow earth → women participate less in labour sphere, much more in domestic sphere
• The early method a culture used (shift or plow) has lasting impacts on gender norms

Question 8

essentialization

Answer 8

• If a certain gender is more “essentialized” in a culture, it means that it’s thought to reflect an underlying unchangeable essence; there are less socially acceptable ways to express it
• Generally, the gender associated with power in a culture is more essentialized (male in America, female in India)

Question 9

cognitive dissonance

Answer 9

• The distressing feeling we have when we act inconsistently → 2 options: become more consistent, or change your attitudes to stop appearing inconsistent (dissonance reduction)
• After making a tough decision, we can reduce cognitive dissonance by rationalization (playing up the good aspects of our choice and vice versa)
• Related to self-consistency → assumes we have powerful motivation to be consistent

Question 10

cognitive dissonance CD study

Answer 10

• In Heine’s CD study, Canadians reduced dissonance after a tough choice using rationalization, but Japanese did not (but apparently will be more likely to do it if it’s a decision that involves others)
• More individualistic cultures are more concerned with staying consistent to themselves, whereas more collectivistic cultures are more concerned with staying consistent to others (ex. doing what peers would do)

Question 11

2 types of self-awareness

Answer 11

• Objective self-awareness: viewing yourself through a “me” state/through the POV of others (the way others perceive us); as if we were an object; concerned with ourselves; from the outside-in; “third person imagery”
• • More common with interdependent self-construal
• Subjective self-awareness: viewing yourself through an “I” state/through your own POV (the way we perceive the world); concerned with the world around us; largely unaware of ourselves; from the inside-out; “first-person imagery”
• • More common with independent self-construal

Question 12

self-awareness: Heine’s mirror study

Answer 12

When people with independent self-construals (ie. Americans) are placed in front of a mirror, it puts them in a state of objective self-awareness and they become more self-critical; this effect doesn’t happen for people with interdependent self-construals (ie. Japanese) because they’re pretty much always in a state of objective self-awareness

Question 13

self-views (related to self-awareness)

Answer 13

• people tend to be more accurate in their judgments about the ways others will behave compared to the ways they’ll behave
• People from collectivistic cultures and/or with interdependent self-construal tend to be more accurate when predicting their behaviour

Question 14

how do incremental or entity theories impact education?

Answer 14

• Can influence types of tests students do
• • Ex. American SATs are supposed to evaluate innate ability (entity theory); Japanese university exams are supposed to be based on how much you study (incremental theory)
• Can influence difficulty of tests
• • Ex. American bar exam easier than Japanese → reflects Japanese incremental theory of self (expected that you’ll fail at first, then study harder and improve)

Question 15

Limitations of the Big 5

Answer 15

• May not provide sufficient coverage to capture all variation in the world - would the same 5 factors emerge if questionnaires were developed from trait terms in different languages?
• • Research shows no: additional/different factors occur in Chinese, Filipino, South African, and other languages (openness is least cross-culturally reliable)
• Vast majority of studies that use it have been with WEIRD samples (studies with rural, non-industrialized populations don’t tend to support the Big 5)