Cross-Cultural Psychology

Studies in cross-cultural psychology attempt to expand the compass of research beyond the few highly industrialized nations on which it has traditionally focused.

While definitions of what constitutes a culture vary widely, most experts concur that “culture” involves patterns of behavior, symbols, and values. Prominent American anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1926–2006) described culture as “a historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life.”

Cross-cultural psychology often overlaps with anthropology, which is the study of human cultures throughout history. Both disciplines, however, tend to focus on different aspects of a culture. Anthropologists have many traditional interests, including such topics as kinship, land distribution, and ritual. When they do concentrate on areas of psychology, they focus on activities whereby data can be collected through direct observation, such as the age of children at weaning or child-rearing practices. In contrast, psychologists commonly address more abstract questions, such as common cultural conceptions of intelligence or religion, or universal social values.

Cross-cultural research can yield important information on many topics of interest to psychologists. In a well-known study (Robbins 1957), researchers found evidence that human perceptual processes develop differently depending on what types of shapes and angles people are exposed to daily in their environment. People living in industrialized countries, where many buildings contain 90-degree angles, are susceptible to different optical illusions than those in rural African villages, where such buildings are not the norm. Crosscultural studies have also discovered that the symptoms of most psychological disorders vary from one culture to another. Some of these findings have led to a reconsideration of what constitutes normal human sexuality. For example, while homosexuality was long considered pathological behavior in the United States, other cultures have not only accepted but also approved—and in some cases even encouraged—homosexuality as a normal sexual outlet before marriage.

Cross-cultural studies are wide-ranging, and may delve into many topics. A very small sampling of research in 2013 reveals the following variety:

The questions raised by Malinowski's observation demonstrate just one example of the valuable type of contribution that cross-cultural research can make to psychology. Indeed, psychological research often confounds, or merges, two variables in a situation. A cross-cultural perspective can untangle such confounded variables when it finds them occurring separately in other cultures (e.g., the uncle and father as two separate persons: the disciplinarian and the mother‘s lover, respectively).

Psychologists may also practice cross-cultural psychology within a given society by studying the contrasts between its dominant culture and subcultures. A subculture, which is defined as a group of people whose experiences differ from those of the majority culture, may be constituted in different ways. Often, it is an ethnic, racial, or religious group, but any group that develops its own customs, norms, and jargon may be considered a subculture, including such deviant groups as drug or gang subcultures.

Researchers have focused on a wide range of other topics in the discipline of cross-cultural psychology. They have illuminated similarities and differences among cultures in developed and undeveloped countries, as well as provided insights into the evolution of those similarities and differences within diverse cultures, therefore providing a clearer perception of the dynamic human cultures of the world.