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Chapter 17

Culture and Personality

Copyright ©2021 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
 Introduction

Reasons why personality psychologists believe it is useful to explore

personality across cultures.
• To discover whether concepts of personality that are prevalent in one
culture are also applicable in other cultures.
• To discover whether cultures differ in the levels of particular
personality traits.
• To discover whether the factor structure of personality traits varies
across cultures.
• To discover whether certain features of personality are universal.

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 Cultural Violations: An Illustration

Some aspects of personality are highly variable across cultures.

• Other aspects are universal.
• Universal features: Features shared by people everywhere.

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 What Is Cultural Personality Psychology? 1

Cultural variations.
• Local within-group similarities and between-group differences of any
sort.
• Physical.
• Psychological.
• Behavioral.
• Attitudinal.

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 What Is Cultural Personality Psychology? 2

Cultural personality psychology has three goals.

• Discover principles underlying cultural diversity.
• Discover how human psychology shapes culture.
• Discover how cultural understandings shape psychology.

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 Three Major Approaches to Culture

• Evoked culture.
• Transmitted culture.
• Cultural universals.

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 Evoked Culture

Evoked culture is defined as cultural differences created by differing

environmental conditions activating a predictable set of responses.

Ingredients needed to explain evoked culture.

• A universal underlying mechanism.
• Environmental differences in the degree to which the underlying
mechanism is activated.

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 Evoked Cooperation (Food Sharing)

Cultural differences in degree to which groups share food depend, in

part, on external environmental conditions, notably the variance in the
food supply.
• When variance in food supply is high, more food is shared.

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 Early Experience and Evoked Mating Strategies 1

• According to Belsky and his colleagues, harsh, rejecting, and

inconsistent child-rearing practices, erratically provided resources,
and marital discord evoke impulsivity and a mating strategy marked by
early reproduction.
• Sensitivity of personality and mating strategies to early experiences
may explain cultural differences in the value placed on chastity across
cultures.

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 Early Experience and Evoked Mating Strategies 2

In China, high value is placed on chastity.

• Marriages are lasting, divorces are rare, and parents invest heavily in
their children.

In Sweden, low value is placed on chastity.

• Divorce is more common, more children are born outside of marriage,
and fathers are less invested in their children.

Mating strategies might be differentially evoked in different cultures,

resulting in enduring cultural differences in mating strategies.

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 Honors, Insults, and Evoked Aggression

In cultures of honor, insults are viewed as highly offensive public

challenges, which must be met with direct confrontation and physical
aggression.

One theory attributes the development of culture of honor to the history of

herding economy, in which resources could be stolen by thieves.
• It can be assumed that all humans have the capacity to develop high
sensitivity to public insults and the capacity to respond with violence.
• These capacities are evoked only in certain cultures and lie
dormant in others (non-herding economies).

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 Cultural Differences in Conformity

Studies found that:

• People in cultures with a high prevalence of pathogens tended to be

substantially more conformist than those with a lower pathogen
prevalence.
• In cultures with low pathogen prevalence, there was substantially
greater tolerance for nonconformity.

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 Transmitted Culture

Representations (ideas, values, beliefs, and attitudes) that exist originally

in at least one person’s mind that are transmitted to other people’s minds
through their interaction with the original person.

Cultural differences in moral values.

• Many moral values are specific to particular cultures and are likely to
be examples of transmitted culture.

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 Reaching across the Great Divide: The Psychology of
Cross-Cultural Marriages

Two lines of inquiry that interest personality psychologists about cross-

cultural marriages.
• Who is most likely to marry outside of his or her own culture?
• What happens in cross-cultural marriages that might make them
different from monocultural marriages?

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 Cultural Differences in Self-Concept 1

According to Markus and Kitayama, each person has two fundamental

“cultural tasks,” which have to be confronted.
• Communion, collectivism, or interdependence.
• Concerns how you are affiliated with, attached to, or engaged in
the large group of which you are a member.
• Agency, individualism, or independence.
• How one differentiates oneself from the larger group.

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 Cultural Differences in Self-Concept 2

Cultures appear to differ in how they balance these two tasks.

• Asian cultures focus more on interdependence.
• Western cultures focus more on independence.

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 Criticisms of the Interdependence–Independence and
Collectivist–Individualist Concepts

• Evidence for the theory comes almost exclusively from North America
and East Asia and may not generalize to other cultures.
• Far more overlap in the self-concepts of people from different cultures
exists than Markus and Kitayama imply.

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 Cultural Differences in Self-Enhancement 1

Self-enhancement.
• Tendency to describe and present oneself using positive or socially
valued attributes.

Research indicates that North Americans, as compared to Asians,

maintain positive evaluations of themselves.

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 Cultural Differences in Self-Enhancement 2

Two explanations offered for cultural differences in self-enhancement.

• Asians are engaging in impression management (difference is not
real).
• Cultural differences accurately reflect people’s deep experiences.
• This explanation has received some support.

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 Religion—An Example of Transmitted Culture

Religion is a collection of diverse phenomena, possibly byproducts of

many evolved psychological adaptations.

Religious beliefs are passed down from cultural institutions such as:

• Churches or mosques to individuals.

• From parents to children.
• From religious leaders to their followers.
• From one person’s mind to the minds of others.

Personality traits play a key role in receptivity to culturally transmitted

religious beliefs.

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 Personality Variations within Culture

Within culture variations can arise from differences in:

• Growing up in various social class.

• Historical era.
• Local evoked or transmitted culture.

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 Cultural Universals

This approach to culture and personality attempts to identify features of

personality that appear to be universal, or present in most or all cultures
Culturally Universal Practices and Attitudes
Incest avoidance
Facial expressions of basic emotions
Favoritism toward in-group members
Favoritism toward kin over non-kin
Collective identities
Division of labor by sex
Revenge and retaliation
Self distinguished from others
Sanctions for crimes against the collectivity
Reciprocity in relationships
Envy, sexual jealousy, and love
Source: Brown (1991) and Pinker (1997).

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 Beliefs about the Personality Characteristics of Men and
Women

• Worldwide, people tend to regard men as having personalities that are

more active, loud, adventurous, obnoxious, aggressive, opinionated,
arrogant, coarse, and conceited
• Women, in contrast, are regarded as having personalities that are
more affectionate, modest, nervous, appreciative, patient,
changeable, charming, fearful, and forgiving.

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 Emotion

• Cultural universal appears to be the experience and recognition of

specific emotional states, such as fear, anger, happiness, sadness,
disgust, and surprise.
• People across the world can recognize and describe these emotions
when presented photographs of others expressing them even if the
photographs are of people from other cultures.

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 Personality Evaluation

Dimensions used for personality evaluation show some cultural

universality.

Evidence that structure of personality traits, as represented by the five-

factor model of personality, may be universal for four of five traits.
• Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Emotional
Stability.

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 Summary and Evaluation

Reasons why psychologists find it useful to explore personality across

cultures.
• To discover whether concepts of personality that are prevalent in one
culture also are applicable in other cultures.
• To discover whether cultures differ in levels of particular personality
traits.
• To discover whether factor structure of personality traits varies across
cultures.
• To discover whether certain features of personality are universal.

Three key approaches to the interface of culture and personality are

evoked culture, transmitted culture, and cultural universals.

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