Talk:Cultural psychology

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This article is within the scope of WikiProject Psychology, which collaborates on Psychology and related subjects on Wikipedia. To participate, help improve this article or visit the project page for details on the project. Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale. Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale. Article Grading: The following comments were left by the quality and importance raters: (edit comments - comment history - watch comments · refresh this page) I do not see how the entry could purport to cover cultural psychology without including the vast literature from Vygotsky to various figures like Cole and Rogoff.

[edit] Science:- Inquiry or Prejudice?

I feel there is a problem with the entry here in that it appears to be based within the self-definition of a particular grouping within the sphere of Cultural Psychology rather than being an objective appraisal of it. In a recent email conversation with Professor Triandis, he defined the differences between Cultural Psychology and Cross-cultural Psychology as follows:

 A better way to distinguish the two is that cross-cultural psychology looks at data across 
 many cultures (e.g., 50), while cultural psychology looks at data across two at a time. 

and then, in answer to my confusion:

 In anthropology the scientist studies one culture and compares it with his own. 

There is a very big problem in defining Cultural Psychology in the way this article does. Psychology is a science. As such, it progresses from data, gathered through clear methodologies, to analysis and then hypothesis. To define Cultural Psychology in terms such as:

". . .a cultural psychologist would be interested in how the social practices of a particular set of cultures shape the development of cognitive processes in different ways."

is that it predefines the existence of something called culture and assumes that this supposition is in some way proved by the apparent fact that "social practices" appear to be held in common by national groupings. This is the process of a non-science. To then go further and extend this hotchpotch of assumptions into the search for their proof is no more scientific than the search for the Philosopher's Stone was!

While it's not new to charge psychology or branches of psychology as unscientific, the mere presence of assumptions does not exclude a discipline from being a scientific one. Cognitive Psychology, for instance, involves extensive data-gathering, methodologies, analysis, and data, but the (until recently) dominant approach in cog psych, the information-processing approach, is based on several assumptions (I quote from Cognitive Psychology: A student's handbook (2005) by Eysenck, M. W. & Keane, M. T.):

I'm not sure exactly what distinguishes a science from a non-science, but the presence of assumptions does not automatically disqualify a discipline from being classified a science instead of, say, an art or pursuit of faith (cultural psychology may well be disqualified from the latter as faith is not simply an inferior form of science)

Therefore, you need to give some justifications as to why you believe assumptions given in above definitions social psychology are not scientific assumptions.

--NZUlysses 10:07, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

If the definition that this article puts forward is to stand, it must then be qualified with a statement that Cultural Psychology is not a psychology in the sense of a science but as the pursuit of a faith. However reasonable the assumptions of that faith might appear to be, to proceed in such a way is fundamentally non-scientific. It would therefore not a part of the field of modern psychology any more than phrenology is.

The definition put forward by Triandis on the other hand, allows a valid scientific formulation for a discrete avenue of inquiry within the branch of science referred to as psychology.

It should also be remembered that popularity and progress through academia cannot be a sole arbiter of valid scientific hypothesis. Consider the key paper of Einstein's that was dismissed by Planck (see: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/21818) Hypothesis must stand or fall on merit proved by assessment against first principles.

However, this is not to say or imply in any way whatsoever that the phenomena referred to as "culture" is not a vital sphere and resource for scientific inquiry. It is almost indisputable that the centrality of work in this arena is greater to our future now than it has been at any time. It is because of this fact and not despite it that I make these comments. I hope they will be understood in this light.

LookingGlass 18:28, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

You criticize cultural psychology for presupposing the existence of culture, which it then goes on to demonstrate. However, much important progress in psychology has come from investigating lay concepts and determining what empirical reality, if any, lays behind them. Researchers like Nisbett, Kitayama, and Norenzayan have demonstrated clear, reliable differences in cognition, emotion, and behavior between different groups of people. Their major argument is not about the epistemological reality of the concept of "culture," but rather that these differences exist, that they map onto the lay concept of culture, and that they have important effects. This point does not seem assailable on broad philosophical or methodological grounds. Inhumandecency 00:12, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

see also: http://www.iaccp.org/bulletin/V34.12_2000/lonner.html Triandis, H. C. (1980). ) (Ed.), Handbook of cross-cultural psychology. New York: Allyn and Bacon.

It seems like we should try and get rid of the NPOV dispute tag on the front page. I have three possibilities that strike me as ways that could happen.

1. Honestly, it strikes me as if the complaint is based on misguided philosophy of science. All fields assume that certain concepts have some validity as a basis for explanation. Biologists doesn't start with an open mind about whether there are animals, they just take it for granted that they're there, and then go about telling us interesting things about them. Also, even if the concept of culture has been problematized in other fields, that doesn't mean the cultural psychologists haven't found a way to operationalize it and do good work with it. The real issue would be whether the cultural psychologists proceed in a way that's open to evidence, etc. So perhaps there isn't a real NPOV issue here.

2 (Probably better). We're not really here at wikipedia to decide what is a science and what isn't. So if there's real, published, credible claims that the foundations of cultural psychology are messed up, we should rewrite the article to reflect the fact that those criticisms are out there, instead of trying to adjudicate it ourselves. If those views are a consensus (which I suspect is unlikely, based on my minimal knowledge), we should write that into the article as well. JustinBlank (talk) 03:23, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I know the whole concept of studying culture in this way may seem ridiculous, but this is exactly the way my Cultural Psych teacher is teaching it. Personally, I'm confused. To solve a problem or test a hypothesis you always start with basic assumptions so that your problem is simplified. This branch of Psychology seems to forego the whole scientific method by never assuming anything and never concluding anything. - Nolan, Feb. 19th 2008

Firstly thank you for your responses and I am really sorry I dodn't realise that you had given them. I can't find a way to monitor wiki that is sustainable for me. Secondly I feel there is considerable confusion over the point I was making. Entirely my fault. Thirdly I don't think I have time to do a better job right now (you really would forgive me for this if you knew) but I can say something at least if anyone's interested:

1. I really don't think I'm misguided about what is or isn't science. It is a truism that any investigation has to begin and therefroe that it must begin somewhere and that data cannot in any meaningful way be collected if there is not some idea of what is being collected that itself rests necessarily on a prejudgement or classification of it. So I accept entirely that assumption and supposition even can never be eliminated from any inquiry scientific or otherwise.

2. I accept entirely the assumption or concept of groupings of perceptions within an individual and across groups of individuals and that the word "culture" is as good as any to stand as a label for this. I didn't even really think of this as being an issue because I assumed it was another truism. The bottom line I would argue is that it is a statistical certainty that any natural distribution will not be even and therefroe that groupings will be evident. It is also a mathematical truism that there is a self defining and increasing force that acts on such groupings. I'll find the ref if I can, it's somewhere on my hard drive. It's a mathematical investigation into the "creation" of racial etc ghettoes. Of course I can see, and have the bruises to show, for very real experience of cultural difference gained from experience of "similar" cultures not classically different ones.

3. I must try harder! Perhaps we should use some more examples in this discussion or perhaps that would confuse things further. Hofstede is a prime example of poor science or even non-science.

4. What I was trying to say with regard to "culture" is that it is assumed to be coincident with "nation" and that it is also seen as being something fundamentally big. I think that both of these assumptions have no grounding in reality and that this can be shown very easily. However that does not mean to say that the study of large groupings should not be made. What it does say is that such investigations should accept and respect the boundaries they are fdreating and not be blinded by th attraction of the simplistic and obvious. As a Granny Weatherwax remarked: "Just because it's obvious doesn't mean it's true.".

5. Perhaps the only thing that will cut through all this clutter is an alternative model. perhaps fractal geometry, chaos theory and systems thinking (that phrase MUST be replaced!!) offer useful conceptual structures for investigations.

6. Can I have another go at explaining the problem with the article? If so I can't do ity right now.

Apologies also if anyone's tried to contact me via email. Footard.com seems to have disappeared without trace :( And could we continue this discussion as a thread rather than inserting comments? I find it a lot easier if sentences and comments don't become separated. Thanks.

LookingGlass (talk) 08:04, 26 May 2008 (UTC)