Cross Cultural Differences In Perspectives On The Self

Cross-Cultural Difference in Perspectives on the Self features the latest research in a dynamic area of inquiry and practice. Considered in these pages are cross-cultural differences in the idea of the person and in models of balancing obligations to the self, family, and community. ø Revisiting and questioning the concepts of self and self-worth, the authors investigate the extent to which factors traditionally associated with psychological effectiveness (intrinsic motivation; assuming personal responsibility for one?s actions; and feeling in control, unique, hopeful, and optimistic) are culturally bound. Hazel Markus and Shinobu Kitayama consider cultural differences in models of psychological agency; Joan Miller critiques the meaning of the term agency, analyzing the extent to which many popular theories in psychology rest on rather narrow Western models of behavior and effective functioning; Steven Heine calls into question the presumed universality of some forms of cognitive processing; Sheena Iyengar and Sanford DeVoe apply a cross-cultural perspective to better understand intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and the value of choice; Kuo-shu Yang questions the universality of the pervasive and popular ?theory of self-actualization? formulated by Abraham Maslow; and finally, Ype Poortinga reexamines not only the cultural boundaries of theory but also the very meaning of the concept of culture itself.

This volume contains contributions from 24 internationally known scholars covering a broad spectrum of interests in cross-cultural theory and research. This breadth is reflected in the diversity of the topics covered in the volume, which include theoretical approaches to cross-cultural research, the dimensions of national cultures and their measurement, ecological and economic foundations of culture, cognitive, perceptual and emotional manifestations of culture, and bicultural and intercultural processes. In addition to the individual chapters, the volume contains a dialog among 14 experts in the field on a number of issues of concern in cross-cultural research, including the relation of psychological studies of culture to national development and national policies, the relationship between macro structures of a society and shared cognitions, the integration of structural and process models into a coherent theory of culture, how personal experiences and cultural traditions give rise to intra-cultural variation, whether culture can be validly measured by self-reports, the new challenges that confront cultural psychology, and whether psychology should strive to eliminate culture as an explanatory variable.

This long-awaited new textbook will be of enormous value to students and teachers in cross-cultural and social psychology. The key strength of Understanding Social Psychology Across Cultures: Living and Working in a Changing World is how it illustrates the ways in which culture shapes psychological process across a wide range of social contexts. It also effectively examines the strengths and limitations of the key theories, methods and instruments used in cross-cultural research.

The broad concept of the self is fundamental to psychology, serving as an anchor by which we perceive and make sense of the world as well as how we relate to and think about others. This book develops creative points of view of the self which have not previously been reviewed, creating a web of interconnected concepts under the umbrella of the self. The various contributions to this book discuss these concepts, such as self-regulation, self-concept, self-esteem, self-awareness, social comparison, and self-reference. All of them are related to the self, and all would justify a review of their own, yet none of them have up to this point. As a whole, the book develops these new, creative points of view of the self—the integral (primary) component of our experience as social beings. Offering numerous perspectives on various aspects of the self which can foster new thinking and research, this timely and important book makes suggestions for future research that will spur additional lines of work by readers. This book was originally published as a special issue of Self and Identity.

A collection of essays on human development in different cultural contexts honouring the work of eminent cross-cultural psychologist, Çiğdem Kağitçibaşi.

Cross-Cultural Analysis is the sequel to Culture's Consequences, the classic work published by Geert Hofstede, one of the most influential management thinkers in today's times. Hofstede's original work introduced a new research paradigm in cross-cultural analysis: studying cultural differences through nation-level dimensions (complex variables defined by intercorrelated items). This paradigm has been subsequently used by hundreds of prominent scholars all over the world and has produced solid results. This new text takes the next step: It critically examines in one comprehensive volume the current, prevalent approaches to cross-cultural analysis at the level of nations that have been developed since Hofstede's work, offering students and researchers the theoretical and practical advantages and potential pitfalls of each method. The book is structured into four distinct parts. Parts I and II focus on the main theoretical and statistical issues in cross-cultural analysis using Hofstede's approach and the different research methods now associated with it. Part II consists of presentations of all well-known (and some lesser known) large-scale cross-cultural studies since Hofstede's work that have explained cross-cultural variation in terms of dimensional models. Part III summarizes the main conclusions to be drawn from the presentations in Part II and l explains how the proposed models have contributed to our practical understanding of cross-cultural diversity.

This book explores the 'self-concept', its cultural, psychopathological and philosophical implications.