Narratives and Culture: "Thickening" the Self for Cultural Psychotherapy.

The dominant framework for understanding selfhood in contemporary psychology has been one that privileges a highly individualistic conception of self. This is reflected in both the language and approaches of psychotherapy where the influence of contextual factors (factors outside of the individual) are given marginal consideration in order to maintain some type of 'objectivity' or 'neutrality' in counseling. We argue that an understanding of selfhood which does not take into account the 'relational' nature of selfhood as well as the cultural or historical context of the client, will likely alienate clients who do not view their self through the individualized lenses of (North American) psychology. In order to deal with this problem, we adopt an approach to cultural (and cross-cultural) psychology that views the self as a relational narrative. Such a narrative does not imply an unrestricted freedom to construct our self, but understands the limits to selfhood implied in the web of meanings constitutive of our culture and the web of relations from which our self emerges. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toward a new approach to the study of personality in culture.

We review recent developments in the study of culture and personality measurement. Three approaches are described: an etic approach that focuses on establishing measurement equivalence in imported measures of personality, an emic (indigenous) approach that studies personality in specific cultures, and a combined emic–etic approach to personality. We propose the latter approach as a way of combining the methodological rigor of the etic approach and the cultural sensitivity of the emic approach. The combined approach is illustrated by two examples: the first with origins in Chinese culture and the second in South Africa. The article ends with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of the combined emic–etic approach for the study of culture and personality and for psychology as a science. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Many forms of culture.

Psychologists interested in culture have focused primarily on East–West differences in individualism–collectivism, or independent–interdependent self-construal. As important as this dimension is, there are many other forms of culture with many dimensions of cultural variability. Selecting from among the many understudied cultures in psychology, the author considers three kinds of cultures: religion, socioeconomic status, and region within a country. These cultures vary in a number of psychologically interesting ways. By studying more types of culture, psychologists stand to enrich how they define culture, how they think about universality and cultural specificity, their views of multiculturalism, how they do research on culture, and what dimensions of culture they study. Broadening the study of culture will have far-reaching implications for clinical issues, intergroup relations, and applied domains. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality research in a non-Western culture: The Philippines.

Here I review personality research in one non-Western culture, the Philippines. Reports from diverse cultures remind one that personality findings reflect the cultural setting from which they emerge, lead to "cross-indigenous" comparisons between alternative cultural perspectives, and suggest hypotheses about cultural generality versus uniqueness. I illustrate the impact of cultural context on topics studied; on the applicability of concepts, methods, and measures; and on the practice of psychology by using the Philippine case. I also discuss issues regarding the cultural universality versus uniqueness of Filipino personality concepts, current efforts toward developing an indigenous Philippine psychology, and the language issue. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceived cultural importance and actual self-importance of values in cultural identification.

Cross-cultural psychologists assume that core cultural values define to a large extent what a culture is. Typically, core values are identified through an actual self-importance approach, in which core values are those that members of the culture as a group strongly endorse. In this article, the authors propose a perceived cultural importance approach to identifying core values, in which core values are values that members of the culture as a group generally believe to be important in the culture. In 5 studies, the authors examine the utility of the perceived cultural importance approach. Results consistently showed that, compared with values of high actual self-importance, values of high perceived cultural importance play a more important role in cultural identification. These findings have important implications for conceptualizing and measuring cultures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cross-cultural psychology as a scholarly discipline: On the flowering of culture in behavioral research.

A history of cross-cultural psychology shows it to be an increasingly important part of modern psychology. Despite widespread agreement that culture is an indispensable component in the understanding of human behavior, there are noteworthy conceptual differences regarding the ways in which culture and behavior interrelate. Perspectives include absolutism and relativism, each with methodological consequences for such contemporary research concerns as values (including individualism-collectivism), gender differences, cognition, aggression, intergroup relations, and psychological acculturation. Societal concerns relating to these topics are briefly described. When all of psychology finally takes into account the effects of culture on human behavior (and vice versa), terms like cross-cultural and cultural psychology will become unnecessary. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parallels between multiculturalism and disunity in psychology.

Comments on the article on multiculturalism by B. J. Fowers and F. C. Richardson (see record 83-30335). Fowers and Richardson's hermeneutic approach also appears applicable to the problem of disciplinary disunity in psychology and the associated threat of relativism. In both cases, psychologists must deal with increasing diversity in an intellectual atmosphere in which there is no universal foundation for evaluating claims of knowledge or cultural correctness. Particularly helpful in overcoming relativism is an openness to claims of truth and morality. Such claims provide a shared context in which members of a culture can communicate and evaluate their differences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multicultural Considerations in the Delivery of Play Therapy Services.

It is estimated that by the year 2025, the number of minority children will outnumber the number of majority children in the United States. Play therapists have an increasing need to be able to provide culturally sensitive services. This article discusses issues of culture, ethnic identity, and minority status and their relevance to the practice of play therapy. Play therapists can improve their cultural sensitivity through (a) expanding their knowledge of specific cultures of children they serve, (b) increasing their ability to understand the variety of cultural influences on a child and assessing the impact of the various influences, and (c) increasing their understanding of the ways children from minority cultures are taught to cope with minority status. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Salvaging the self in a world without soul: William James's The Principles of Psychology.

This article explores William James's transformation of the religious soul into the secular self in The Principles of Psychology. Although James's views on the self are familiar to many historians of psychology, the article places his treatment of the self within the broader social and cultural context of a secularizing, industrializing society. There were palpable tensions and anxieties that accompanied the cultural shift, and these are particularly transparent in James's Principles. James attempted the project of secularizing the soul in order to promote a natural science of the mind but with marked ambivalence for the project, because it left out some of the moral and metaphysical questions of great interest to him. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychology's two cultures.

100 undergraduates without previous psychology training, 81 officers of divisions of the American Psychological Association (APA), and 164 APA members who belonged to only 1 division were administered an epistemic differential scale. Results demonstrate the existence of scientific and humanistic cultures within psychology and identify 6 dimensions that define the conflicting values of these cultures. The value dimensions are (a) most important scholarly values (scientific vs humanistic), (b) lawfulness of behavior (determinism vs indeterminism), (c) basic source of knowledge (observation vs intuition), (d) appropriate setting for discovery (laboratory vs field study/case history), (e) generality of laws (nomothetic vs idiographic), and (f) appropriate level of analysis (elementism vs holism). Psychologists associated with institutions and programs devoted to the natural science aspects of the field occupied the positions identified by the first-mentioned terms in the 6 polarities. With 1 exception (determinism), other psychologists clustered toward the position identified by the 2nd terms. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Measuring individual and cultural differences in implicit trait theories.

A new measure of implicit theories or beliefs regarding the traitedness versus contextuality of behavior was developed and tested across cultures. In Studies 1 (N = 266) and 2 (N = 266), these implicit beliefs dimensions were reliably measured and replicated across U.S. college student samples and validity evidence was provided. In Study 3, their structure replicated well across an individualistic culture (the United States; N = 249) and a collectivistic culture (Mexico, N = 268). Implicit trait and contextual beliefs overlapped only modestly with implicit entity theory beliefs and were predicted by self-construals in ways that generally supported cultural psychology hypotheses. Implicit trait beliefs were fairly strongly endorsed in both cultures, suggesting that such beliefs may be university held. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Jerome Bruner: Language, culture, self.

Reviews the book, Jerome Bruner: Language, culture, self edited by David Bakhurst and Stuart G. Shanker (2001). Ten papers bounded by an editors' "Introduction" and Jerome Bruner's commentary, "In Response," constitute a volume that is probably as complete a presentation of the seminal issues in "cultural psychology" available anywhere. It is a joy to read and a tribute to Bruner's breadth of influence in all major areas of the discipline. What is remarkable about this volume is that the reader actually lives through Bruner's influence during the past five decades and comes to an appreciation of just how much of the theoretical course of the discipline is reflected in and can be understood through Bruner's writings. However, the papers collected here are not, as the editors note, a celebration of Bruner's legacy, but rather "a lens through which to see contemporary debates in psychology and cognate disciplines, debates about mind and culture, language and communication, identity and development." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pancultural self-enhancement.

The culture movement challenged the universality of the self-enhancement motive by proposing that the motive is pervasive in individualistic cultures (the West) but absent in collectivistic cultures (the East). The present research posited that Westerners and Easterners use different tactics to achieve the same goal: positive self-regard. Study 1 tested participants from differing cultural backgrounds (the United States vs. Japan), and Study 2 tested participants of differing self-construals (independent vs. interdependent). Americans and independents self-enhanced on individualistic attributes, whereas Japanese and interdependents self-enhanced on collectivistic attributes. Independents regarded individualistic attributes, whereas interdependents regarded collectivistic attributes, as personally important. Attribute importance mediated self-enhancement. Regardless of cultural background or self-construal, people self-enhance on personally important dimensions. Self-enhancement is a universal human motive. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A cultural task analysis of implicit independence: Comparing North America, Western Europe, and East Asia.

Informed by a new theoretical framework that assigns a key role to cultural tasks (culturally prescribed means to achieve cultural mandates such as independence and interdependence) in mediating the mutual influences between culture and psychological processes, the authors predicted and found that North Americans are more likely than Western Europeans (British and Germans) to (a) exhibit focused (vs. holistic) attention, (b) experience emotions associated with independence (vs. interdependence), (c) associate happiness with personal achievement (vs. communal harmony), and (d) show an inflated symbolic self. In no cases were the 2 Western European groups significantly different from one another. All Western groups showed (e) an equally strong dispositional bias in attribution. Across all of the implicit indicators of independence, Japanese were substantially less independent (or more interdependent) than the three Western groups. An explicit self-belief measure of independence and interdependence showed an anomalous pattern. These data were interpreted to suggest that the contemporary American ethos has a significant root in both Western cultural heritage and a history of voluntary settlement. Further analysis offered unique support for the cultural task analysis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Educating and training the next generations of traumatologists: Development of cultural competencies.

Cultural competence in trauma training, education and research has become a necessity given the changes in the U.S. population and the forces of globalization. With few exceptions little attention has been paid to the cultural training of traumatologists and the development of cultural competencies in this field. This paper will focus exclusively on examining the case for cultural competence in trauma psychology. The author reviews three factors that are key in the education and training of culturally informed trauma therapists, including best practices for educating mental health professionals in this field. These include: 1) The development of a trauma psychology curricula and training practices which give a thorough account of cultural factors; 2) The meaningful inclusion of cultural context in trauma psychology research and; 3) The promotion of organizational structures and culture within psychology that support cultural competence. The author offers future practice recommendations that are based on well established cultural competencies in the field of psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Role of selfobject experiences in affective development during latency.

A review of the self psychology literature yields 10 selfobject experiences as being significant for affective development in latency: twinship, efficacy, cultural, phantasy, evoked, affective attunement, self-delineating, idealizing, mirroring, and protective prohibitory experiences. The contemporary psychoanalytic, developmental, and psychosocial bodies of literature identify 5 significant developmental tasks in the affective domain: the creation and sensation of a sense of self as distinct from others, affect tolerance, the capacity to manage internal urges, the development of an internal locus-of-control orientation, and the capacity to enter into and sustain a state of latency. Cognitive and physiological development are noted as important factors in the child's ability to attain these capacities, and the division of latency into an early and late period is deemed to be important. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The cultural psychology of the self.

Reviews the book, The cultural psychology of the self by Ciaran Benson (see record 2001-00374-000). This is a book rich in insight, deep in significance and, inevitably, marked by assumptions and interpretations subject to gentle disagreement. It is precisely because of its manifest assets that points of disagreement need to be highlighted. In this review I will address criticism only to the first half of the book, the criticism being more by way of an introduction to the issue than the suggestion of a settled position on it. I confine criticism to the first half not because of limited space. Rather, the foundational chapters on which the balance of the book's arguments depend are given in Part I. Part II then stands as an elevated and elevating "applied psychology of the self" resting on these very substantive and theoretical foundations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Executive coaching in a cross-cultural context.

Many executive coaches today find themselves working with leaders from a variety of cultural backgrounds, as well as coaching leaders who work with culturally diverse teams. It is therefore increasingly important that coaches understand the role of culture in their work. This article begins with an overview of several ways that culture plays a role in coaching, including an exploration of how assumptions about culture can positively or negatively impact a coach's approach and their ultimate success with a given individual. A second section provides three general principles for coaching across cultures, emphasizing the importance of using cross-cultural knowledge as a way to customize coaching to each person. The third section focuses on five essential conditions for learning--insight, motivating, capabilities, real-world practice, and accountability--and how cultural differences can influence various steps in the coaching process. A variety of examples for each condition highlight specific tools and techniques that coaches can use. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The jury and abjury of my peers: The self in face and dignity cultures.

The self is defined and judged differently by people from face and dignity cultures (in this case, Hong Kong and the United States, respectively). Across 3 experiments, people from a face culture absorbed the judgments of other people into their private self-definitions. Particularly important for people from a face culture are public representations—knowledge that is shared and known to be shared about someone. In contrast, people from a dignity culture try to preserve the sovereign self by not letting others define them. In the 3 experiments, dignity culture participants showed a studied indifference to the judgments of their peers, ignoring peers' assessments—whether those assessments were public or private, were positive or negative, or were made by qualified peers or unqualified peers. Ways that the self is “knotted” up with social judgments and cultural imperatives are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)