Handbook of Psychology, Volume 5, Personality and Social Psychology

CHAPTER 2

Cultural Perspectives on Personality and Social Psychology

JOAN G. MILLER AND LYNNE SCHABERG

31

APPROACHES TO CULTURE IN MAINSTREAM
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY AND IN EARLY
CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY 31
Downplaying of Culture in Mainstream
Social Psychology 32
Early Research in Cross-Cultural Psychology 35
INSIGHTS AND CHALLENGES OF CULTURAL
PSYCHOLOGY 41

Key Conceptual Premises 41

Select Overview of Empirical Research

in Cultural Psychology 43

Challenges 48

CONCLUSION 50

REFERENCES 50

During much of its past, psychology represented a culturally
grounded enterprise that took into account the constitutive
role of cultural meanings and practices in human develop-
ment. Yet, as recent historical accounts make clear (Jahoda,
1993), this attention to culture was muted during the twentieth
century, with psychology dominated by an idealized physical-
science model of explanation. This has given rise to the
enigma that psychologists find it “difficult to keep culture in
mind,” noted by Cole (1996):

On the one hand, it is generally agreed that the need and ability to

live in the human medium of culture is one of the central charac-

teristics of human beings. On the other hand, it is difficult for many

academic psychologists to assign culture more than a secondary,

often superficial role in the constitution of our mental life. (p. 1)

From this type of perspective, which dominates the field, cul-
ture is seen as at most affecting the display of individual psy-
chological processes, but not as impacting qualitatively on
their form.
However, although culture thus remains in a peripheral
role in the contemporary discipline, recent years have seen a
reemergence of interest in cultural approaches and an in-
creased recognition of their importance to psychological the-
ory. As reflected in the interdisciplinary perspective of
cultural psychology (e.g., Cole, 1990; Greenfield, 1997; J. G.
Miller, 1997; Shweder, 1990), culture and psychology are
coming to be understood as mutually constitutive processes. It
is recognized that human development occurs in historically
grounded social environments that are structured by cultural

meanings and practices. Cultural meanings and practices are

themselves understood to be dependent on the subjectivity of

communities of intentional agents. By affecting individuals’

understandings and intentions, cultural meanings and prac-

tices, in turn, are recognized to have a qualitative impact on

the development of psychological phenomena and to be inte-

gral to the formulation of basic psychological theory.

The goal of the present chapter is to highlight some of the

insights for understanding personality and social psychology

that emerge from a consideration of the cultural grounding of

psychological processes. The first section of the chapter con-

siders factors that have contributed to the downplaying of

culture in mainstream social psychology and the assumptions

that guided some of the earliest research in the traditions of

cross-cultural psychology. In the second section, considera-

tion is given to key conceptual developments underlying cul-

tural psychology, recent empirical findings that illustrate the

existence of cultural variation in basic social psychological

processes, and challenges for future theory and research. In

conclusion, consideration is given to the multiple contribu-

tions of a cultural perspective in psychology.

APPROACHES TO CULTURE IN MAINSTREAM

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY AND IN EARLY

CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY

The present section provides an overview of shifts in the role

accorded to culture in psychological theory over time, and it

outlines some of the changing conceptual understandings and