Indigenous,cultural,and cross-cultural psychology:

A theoretical, conceptual, and epistemological analysis

By: Uichol Kim

Presentor: Jingyan Ding

Guideline

• Introduction

• Analysis of culture

• Ecology and cultural adaptation

• Epistemology

• East Asian perspective

• Phenomenology

• Conculsion

Introduction

• Three approaches attempt to explain cultural differences can be identified:– Universalist

• Aims to discover abstract, nomothetic, and general laws of human functioning-----etic approach

– Contextualist• Point out that many theories are ethnocentric, bias

ed, and culture-bound-----emic approach

– Integrationist• Integrate the context and content

• Two types of indigenous psychologies– Indigenization from without

• Involves transporting psychological theories, concepts, and methods and modifying them to fit the local cultural context.-----external imposition

– Indigenization from within• Theories, concepts and methods are developed

internally and indigenous information is considered to be a primary source of knowledge.- a bottom-up

Analysis of culture

• To learn about our own culture or another culture, we typically examine cultural products, and psychological constructs.

• In order to gain deeper understanding of a culture, we can study organized bodies of knowledge such as history, philosophy, language, customs, and folkways.

• Two approaches to understanding culture– In cross-cultural psychology approach

• researchers became interested in examining the influence of culture on behavior.

• Culture is treated as a quasi-independent variable and behavior as a dependent variable.

– In the indigenous psychologies approach• Culture is an emergent property of individuals and

groups interacting with their natural and human environment.

• Culture is defined as a rubric of patterned variables.

• Differences in cultures exist because we have focused on and developed different aspects of our environment and attached different meanings and values to them.

• Understanding a culture from within– Two types of knowledge

• Analytical, semantic, and declarative• Phenomenological, episodic, and procedural

– A transaction model of causality

– Separation of different levels of analysis• Physiological• Psychological• Culture

– Three key aspects to investigate culture, • Context• Epistemology• Phenomenology

bottom

up

Ecology and cultural adaptation

• Ecology refers to the total pattern of relationships between life forms and their environment, and includes the natural environment that humans share with other living organisms.

• Various collective responses appeared in reaction to the differing ecological pressures.

• Berry(1976)found that ecological context has a significant effect on types of cultures that emerge, which in turn affect individual functioning, namely cognitive style.

• Social and cultural change in ecological context – See a table

period Before sixteen century After sixteen century

Economic mode Subsistence economies Market economies

People work for food, and other living materials

wages

labor Serfs and peasants workers

Skill and knowledge

Passed down from one generation to another

Result in production and distribution

Socialization practices

Trust, cooperation, and conservatism

Social intelligence,

technological intelligence

Goal of socialization

Survival , subsistence Development of cognitive and linguistic

skills

relationship Long-standing relationship of trust and obligation

Full of unrelated strangers

Collective action Family, clan, tribe Class, union

Epistemology

• The development and transformation of Western cultures can trace the artwork.

period Medieval Renaissance

Center of the picture

Jesus, the Virgin Mary, some other holy person

commoners

periphery commoners

Expression of emotions

no Yes

Individual Not important or valued Believe their capability

body sinful beautiful

• Religion , culture and science– Descartes concluded that it is through

rationality and reason that this knowledge can be obtained with certainty.

– He found that through rationality and reason he could understand not only himself, but also natural scientific laws and mathematical laws.

I thank therefore I am

– He influenced and modified the Judaeo-Christian worldview.

• separated our bodies from the mind.• Created a duality and dichotomy between mind an

d body, good and bad, light and darkness, justice and deceit, and heaven and earth.

• Modern Western motives ,television dramas, and novels reflect this basic struggle between good and bad

• Western liberalism

East Asian perspective

• Art– Human beings are placed in the context of the

natural and social environment.– Human beings are considered to be part of na

ture in Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoistic and Shamanistic epistemologies.

– Harmony is the most important value since it integrates human beings with nature, spirits, and with other individuals.

• Confucianism

• Limitations on using Confucianism to explain behavior– It can be used as a descriptive model, but it s

hould not be used as an explanatory model.– There are blind spots and biased in all philoso

phical traditions.– the lay public may not be fully aware of basic

Confucian concepts such as ren,yi, li ,zhi, and xin.

– There can be competing philosophies and worldviews within a particular culture. These have influenced each another and have been integrated and blended into a synthetic form.

Phenomenology

• How the ideas contained in native philosophies are understood, used, and modified in everyday life?

• They need to become integrated with the phenomenological lives of individuals.

• The greatest variation across cultures exists in the area of phenomenology.

Summary and conclusion

• Although science can provide the most accurate understanding of the world, it can also blind and limit our understanding.

– Researchers in the field of psychology imposed the natural sciences model to study human beings. But the natural sciences paradigm distorted psychological phenomena.

– Psychological theories were assumed to be universal.

– Expert or professional knowledge have imposed on the lay public.

• The indigenous psychologies approach advocates – liberation from these external impositions and

experience of phenomenon as an insider.

– A linkage of humanities with social science.

Question?