Understanding social psychology across cultures : living and working in a changing world

334 Pages·2006·166.73 MB·English

by  Peter Bevington Smith

Understanding Social Psychology
Across Cultures
SAGE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY PROGRAM
Senior Consultant Editor
Michael A. Hogg (University of Queensland, Australia)
Consultant Editors
Richard E. Petty (Ohio State University, USA)
Marilynn B. Brewer (Ohio State University, USA)
John M. Levine (University of Pittsburgh, USA)
Stephen Reicher (St. Andrews University, UK)
Vincent Yzerbyt (Universite Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium)
SAGE Publications is pleased to announce the launch of a new program of titles in social
psychology - both text and reference books - brought together by a team of consultant
editors led by Michael Hogg: the Sage Social Psychology Program. Written or edited by
leading scholars and infused with the latest research in the field, the program is intended
to be a self-contained and comprehensive resource that meets all the educational needs of
a social psychology program beyond introductory level.
The Sage Social Psychology Program's remit has breadth and depth. Student textbooks are
written by leading and experienced scholars in a style that is carefully crafted to be stimu­
lating, engaging and accessible. They are scholarly, comprehensive and up-to-date, and are
furnished with the appropriate pedagogical devices and supplements - thus making them
appropriate to build courses around at a variety of levels. Reference works, including
Handbooks and Encyclopaedias, survey the landscape with an even broader sweep and
should become benchmark volumes for many years to come.
Forthcoming titles:
Work & Organisations - Robin Martin (University of Queensland, Australia)
The Social Psychology of Groups: Processes and Performance - Scott Tindale (Loyola University
Chicago) & Christine Smith (Grand Valley State University, Michigan)
Applying Social Psychology - Bram Buunk (University of Groningen, the Netherlands) &
Mark Van Vugt (University of Kent, UK)
Communication, Language and Society - Scott A. Reid and Howard Giles (both University of
California, Santa Barbara)
Understanding Social Psychology
Across Cultures
Living and Working in a Changing World
Peter B. Smith, Michael Harris Bond and Qigdem Kagitgibasi
USAGE
Los Angeles | London | New Delhi
Singapore | Washington DC
© Peter B. Smith, Michael Harris Bond and
Cigdem Kagitqibasi 2006
First published 2006
Reprinted 2006, 2007, 2011
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-4129-0365-3
ISBN 978-1-4129-0366-0 (pbk)
Library of Congress Control Number available
Typeset by C&M Digitals (P) Ltd., Chennai, India
Printed on paper from sustainable resources
Printed in Great Britain by TJI Digital, Padstow, Cornwall
Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Part One: Establishing the Framework 1
1 Some Pressing Questions for Cross-cultural Psychology 1
Summary 1Ί
Further Reading 1Ί
Study Questions 11
2 Improving the Validity of Cross-cultural Psychology 12
A Social-anthropological Perspective Based on Fieldwork 13
The Psychometric Perspective 14
The Experimental Perspective 19
Summary 28
Further Reading 29
Study Questions 29
3 Defining the Way Forward: Theories and Frameworks 30
Culture, Nations and Societies 30
Values, Beliefs and Behaviours 32
The Hofstede Project 33
Studying Individuals and Studying Cultures 38
Cultures as Systems of Shared Beliefs 47
Cultures as Patterns of Behaviour 49
Putting the Picture Together 49
Summary 54
Further Reading 54
Study Questions 54
4 Nations as Cultures and their Consequences
for Social Psychology 56
Psychological Characterization of National Culture 58
The Eco-politico-socio-economic Context of Nations 63
An Integrative Model 73
Summary 77
Further Reading 77
Study Questions 78
vi Understanding Social Psychology Across Cultures
Part Two: Core Issues 79
5 The Making and Remaking of Cultures:
A Developmental Perspective 79
Why Do We Need a Developmental Perspective? 79
Life Stages and Culture 81
The Value of Children and Family Change 85
Three Models of the Family 87
Autonomous-relational Self-construal 91
Family Control 94
The Immigration Context 96
Self-construal, Autonomy and Developmental Pathways 98
Summary 100
Further Reading 101
Study Questions 101
6 Making Sense of One's World 102
Individual-level Self-representations 104
Slowing Down the Runaway Horse 108
Interdependence and Cognition 112
Interdependence and Emotion 116
Interdependence and Motivation 121
Culture as a Set of Persistent Primes 124
Summary 126
Further Reading 126
Study Questions 126
7 Personality in Cross-cultural Perspective 127
Mapping the Personality of Individuals and
their Cultural Groups 128
Pan-cultural Similarity in the Organization of Personality? 130
Summary 147
Further Reading 148
Study Questions 149
8 Communicating and Relating with Others 150
Styles of Communication 150
Relating to Others 161
Summary 170
Further Reading 171
Study Questions 171
9 Working Together 172
Work Motivation 172
Theories of Justice 179
Conflict and Negotiation 183
Working in Teams 189
Leaders and Leadership 192
Organizations as Cultures 197
Contents vii
Summary 199
Further Reading 199
Study Questions 199
Part Three: The World in Flux 201
10 Coping with Difference 201
Language Issues 205
Understanding Cross-cultural Interactions 209
Types of Contact 216
Summary 220
Further Reading 221
Study Questions 221
11 Cultural Aspects of Intergroup Relations 222
Social Identity Processes 222
National Stereotypes 224
Ethnic Stereotyping 229
Individualistic Groups versus Collectivistic Groups 233
Migration 236
Assessing Acculturation 237
Acculturation Processes 243
The Contact Hypothesis 245
Summary 246
Further Reading 246
Study Questions 247
12 Global Change 248
Convergence and Modernity 248
The Inglehart Project 252
Alternative Sources of Data on Cultural Change 257
Summary 263
Further Reading 264
Study Questions 264
13 The Unfinished Agenda 265
Topics for Discussion 265
Glossary of Key Constructs 275
References 280
Name Index 313
Subject Index 319
Acknowledgements
This book supersedes our two earlier volumes, entitled, Social Psychology Across Cultures.
Thirteen years have passed since the publication of its first edition, and during that time
the study of cross-cultural aspects of psychology has been transformed. Consequently, the
text of this book is almost entirely new. The overall structure remains, but our breadth of
coverage is increased and we have endeavoured to include a clear account of those growth
points in the field that are most relevant to the challenges posed by our ever-changing con­
temporary world. Just as the span of cross-cultural investigation has broadened, so has the
cross-national collaboration involved in the production of this book. As a team of three,
we have benefited from the diversity of our perspectives, and been stimulated to bring
together aspects of the field that are too often considered in isolation. In discussing with
others the content of this book, we are confident that you will have no difficulty in pro­
nouncing the names of Smith and Bond. You may appreciate a little help in pronouncing
Cigdem Kagit9iba§i's name in a way that gives respect to the distinctive Turkish charac­
ters within it. Try saying it as chee-dam kut-cha-ba-sha.
We appreciate the permission granted to us by Dianne van Hemert to reproduce
unpublished material in Boxes 3.7 and 4.3, and by Michele Gelfand for Box 4.7.
We are grateful to Pawel Boski, Joris de Bres, Mary Jiang Bresnahan, Rolando Diaz
Loving, Ronald Fischer, Marta Fulop, Michele Gelfand, Gert Jan Hofstede, Heidi Keller,
Mansur Lalljee, Elias Mpofu, Ype Poortinga, Floyd Rudmin, Shalom Schwartz, Andy
Tamas, Nathalie van Meurs, Patricia Rodriguez Mosquera, Jim Nelson, Peter K. Smith,
Evert Van de Vliert, Vivian Vignoles and Susumu Yamaguchi for their insightful com­
ments and generous contributions, and to Anne Cathcart for her patience and support.
The enthusiasm of many colleagues who read and adopted the first two editions of this
text has confirmed and sustained us in our effort to improve our own understanding of
social psychology across cultures. Thank you one and all.
Peter B. Smith
Michael Harris Bond
£igdem Κ3^ιίς^3§ι
June, 2005
Part
One Establishing the Framework
Some Pressing Questions for
Cross-cultural Psychology
The only true exploration, the only true fountain of delight, would not be to visit
foreign lands, but to possess others' eyes, to look at the world through the eyes of
others (Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past)
In this book we seek to show how psychology can help us to understand and cope with
the unparalleled processes of social change that are occurring in the world at the present
time. This will not be an easy task, as it requires us to focus equally on two issues that
are most often kept quite separate. Firstly, we shall need to show how psychologists can
best address the diversity of the reality confronting the world's population. Psychology
has most frequently been conducted by focusing on standardized and simplified set
tings. This type of focus can yield a sharply delineated understanding of what occurs
within the few types of setting that are sampled, but raises problems if one wishes to
apply those understandings to settings that are located in different cultural contexts.
Secondly, we shall need to focus on change as much as on stability. Research methods
that sample events at a single point in time, as most do, can give us an illusion of
stability, even though our individual experiences tell us that things are in flux.
In this chapter, we commence our work by defining the problems with which we are
concerned. The rest of the book will then develop a perspective on how cross-cultural
psychology can best contribute to addressing these problems. Our focus can be defined
in the following few sentences. Over the past 10,000 years, human evolution has
differentiated a series of relatively small and relatively separate groups that we can
describe as societies or cultures. These cultures were adapted to sustaining life in a wide
variety of differing and hostile environments. Depending on how we might choose to
define 'culture', several thousand cultures may be considered to have evolved. In the
early part of the twentieth century, social anthropologists made detailed ethnographic
studies of many of these groups. Their observations have been documented and