48 Cultural Perspectives on Personality and Social Psychology
Challenges
Whereas there has been a dramatic increase in interest in cul-
tural research in recent years, there nonetheless remains a
sense in which cultural perspectives remain in a marginal
position in the discipline. This may be seen in the stance
adopted for cultural considerations most frequently—to be
treated in a diversity sense, as relevant in explaining excep-
tions from what are assumed to be the general or default
patterns—and for psychological theory and psychological
generalizations commonly to be formulated without refer-
ence to cultural considerations. Concerns have also been
raised about the quality of existing cultural research. In this
regard, for example, criticisms have been made of the predic-
tive power of recent work in social psychology based on the
individualism-collectivism paradigm (e.g., Oyserman et al.,
2002; Matsumoto, 1999). Charges have also been made that
at least some contemporary cultural research is somewhat
simplistic, if not stereotypical, and fails to capture the sub-
tlety of particular cultural outlooks or to forward sophisti-
cated contextually sensitive accounts of psychological
functioning (J. G. Miller, 2002). Consideration here is given
to ways to overcome some of these limitations and of how to
further the promise and potential of cultural psychology to
broaden and enrich basic psychological theory.
Process-Oriented Views of Culture
Social psychological traditions of cultural research in particu-
lar have been influenced by the views of culture held in the tra-
dition of individualism-collectivism. This link has occurred
largely because of the tremendous influence of the distinction
introduced by Markus and Kitayama (1991) between interde-
pendent versus independent self-construals. As introduced,
this distinction embodied a set of dichotomous contrasts that
were presented as characterizing a wide range of cultures,
with the independent view of self characteristic of North
American as well as many Western European cultural popula-
tions and the interdependent view of self characteristic of
many Asian and African cultures. Thus, for example, whereas
the independent self was defined as “separate from social con-
text, bounded, unitary, stable, and focused on internal private
features (abilities, thoughts, feelings)”, the interdependent
self was defined in polar opposite ways as “connected with so-
cial context, flexible, variable, and focused on external public
features (status, roles, relationships)” (Markus & Kitayama,
1991, p. 230).
When presenting this global dichotomy, Markus and
Kitayama (1991) cautioned about drawing direct links be-
tween the type of general cultural schemas that they were
identifying and individual self-representations. In this regard,
for example, they noted respects in which individual self-
concepts reflect a range of factors, including “gender, race,
religion, social class, and one’s particular social and devel-
opmental history” (p. 230). They also stressed that both
independent and interdependent orientations toward self are
found in all societies, although these orientations take some-
what culturally specific forms. However, many social psycho-
logical investigators adopted the independent-interdependent
selfdistinction in a nonnuanced manner that has ended up
being somewhat stereotypical and simplistic in its characteri-
zation of culture and overly global in its views of how culture
influences psychological phenomena.Variation Between and Within Cultural CommunitiesIn future research, it is critical to attend to the variation
within different collectivist and individualist cultures and to
the frequent overlap between cultural groups. Also, greater
attention needs to be given to variation within culture that
may be linked to social class, ethnicity, and experiences of
discrimination or oppression.
In this regard, recent cultural research that has focused on
varieties of individualism and collectivism has been valuable
in that it points to psychological consequences linked to such
variation. For example, research has suggested that Japanese
individuals tend to approach social relations by focusing on
the peer group, whereas Chinese individuals tend to adopt
more of an authority-directed stance (Dien, 1999). It has also
been documented that regional variation occurs in forms of
individualism within the United States, such as the concerns
with a culture of honor found in southern and western parts of
the United States (Nisbett & Cohen, 1996). Notably, socio-
linguistic and ethnographic research has also documented
that within lower-class and working-class communities
within the United States, there tends to be what has been
characterized as a “hard defensive” type of individualism,
which stresses adoption of abilities to cope in harsh everyday
environments, in contrast with the “soft” individualism,
which stresses the cultivation of individual uniqueness and
gratification within middle-class contexts (Kusserow, 1999).Attention to Cultural PracticesA limitation of current work on culture has also been the
tendency to conceptualize culture purely in ideational terms.
This type of stance is reflected in the reliance on scale
measures of individualism-collectivism that have tended to
portray cultures as systems of value orientations. Current
conceptualizations have also been problematic in treating