As psychologists, counselors, and therapists, we must never lose sight of the fact that humans are members of a cultural species.
Therefore, we must consider the effect of cultural learning on how we live, our drives, and our goals (Heine, 2010).
As Steven Heine (2010) writes, “on no occasions do we cast aside our cultural dressings to reveal the naked universal human mind.”
Culture should be taken into account when working with clients. According to cross-cultural psychology, it has broad impacts, including on our motivation, self-esteem, social behavior, and communication (Triandis, 2002).
This article explores the background of cross-cultural psychology’s search for possible behavioral and psychological universals.
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Cross-cultural psychology is not only fascinating, but insightful, shedding vital light on how and why we behave as we do. This offshoot of psychology involves the scientific study of variations in human behavior under the influence of a “shared way of life of a group of people,” known as cultural context (Berry, 2013).
The American Psychological Association describes cross-cultural psychology as being interested in the “similarities and variances in human behavior across different cultures” to identify “the different psychological constructs and explanatory models used by these cultures” (APA Dictionary of Psychology, 2020).
Cross-cultural psychology became a sub-discipline of general psychology in the 1960s to prevent psychology from “becoming an entirely Western project” and “sought to test the universality of psychological laws via cultural comparative studies” (Ellis & Stam, 2015).
This cross-cultural approach to psychology involved recognizing culture as an external variable and exploring its impact on individual behavior. Over the decades that followed, the focus remained on identifying and testing the generalizability of using mainstream psychology approaches (Ellis & Stam, 2015).
It differs from cultural psychology, which aims to organize psychological processes by culture, because rather than looking for differences, cross-cultural psychology is ultimately searching for psychological universals. It seeks psychological patterns that we all share (Ellis & Stam, 2015; Berry, 2013).
Cross-cultural psychology borrows ideas, theories, and approaches from anthropology; it also recognizes the importance of analyzing international differences identified through social-psychological mechanisms.
And it’s important. We often assume that, psychologically speaking, all cultures are the same. Yet this is simply not the case (Berry, 2013).
When anthropologist turned psychologist Joseph Henrich began his research into cultural diversity, he became aware that Western populations were often unusual compared to others.
He also warns us of the risks of psychological bias toward WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) populations. We could be ignoring the psychological differences between peoples and wrongly assuming psychological patterns hold cross-culturally (Henrich, 2020).
As Henrich (2020) says, we should celebrate human diversity (psychological or otherwise), while noting that none of the psychological differences identified between cultures suggest one is better than the other or is immutable. Instead, human “psychology has changed over history and will continue to evolve” (Henrich, 2020).
An early textbook on cross-cultural psychology, authored by John Berry, professor of psychology at Queen’s University, Canada, set out three goals that cross-cultural psychologists should address (Berry, Poortinga, Marshall, & Dasen, 1992; Ellis & Stam, 2015):
Several psychological theories, models, and approaches have emerged from the ongoing research into cross-cultural psychology. They are often not distinct, but complementary, and include:
It treats culture as a series of variables, existing at both individual and population levels, that interact to influence diversity in individual behavior (Berry, 2004, 2013; Ellis & Stam, 2015).
Cultural differences are identified, measured, and described as cultural syndromes (defined by their complexity, tightness, individualism, and collectivism) that can be used to group and organize cultures.
Individualistic cultures recognize the individual’s needs (over the group’s), including individual goals and rights. By contrast, collectivist cultures are motivated by group goals, where individuals sacrifice their own needs for the group (Triandis, 2002).
Evolutionary theory provides further information regarding the evolutionary factors that influence human experience and behavior, laying the foundation for human culture (Shiraev & Levy, 2020).
One of the overarching aims of cross-cultural research is to use statistical analysis to understand what each type of culture means to the individual in terms of their psychological similarities and differences (Ellis & Stam, 2015).
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