A Look into Cross-Cultural Psychology
Amy Stoffel
Psych 450/Diversity and Cultural Factors in Psychology
December 6, 2011
Cheri Meadowlark

A Look into Cross-Cultural Psychology
Culture is a significant factor for any psychologist to consider when interacting with a client. However, for those psychologists in the field of cross-cultural psychology understanding culture is essential. Understanding the basis of cultural psychology and cross-cultural psychology as well as the relationship between the two psychologies is necessary in this field. Additionally, key concepts such as multiculturalism, the methodology connected with the research, and the role of critical thinking are important in understanding cross-cultural psychology as a discipline.
Cross-Cultural Psychology versus Cultural Psychology
Cross-cultural psychology is a relatively new field of psychology rooted in Europe but developed primarily in the United States. This branch of psychology is an international discipline that includes other disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, history, physiology, and political science. The main focus of cross-cultural psychology is how cultural factors influence people’s behaviors, emotions, thoughts, and motivations. Cross-cultural psychology is considered the critical and comparative study of cultural effects on human psychology. In cross-cultural psychology both the similarities and differences of people in various cultures are compared [ (Levy & Shiraev, 2010) ].
Like psychologists who study the mind and behavior of people in relation to their environment, cross-cultural psychologists and cultural psychologists study individuals in connection with cultures. The difference, though, is that cross-cultural psychology studies and compares individuals across various cultures and cultural psychology focuses on finding links between a culture and the psychology of individuals living in that culture. In fact, the basis of cultural psychology is that a person’s background is connected to the way he or she thinks as if mind and culture are inseparable. Cultural psychology also believes there are no universal laws for how the mind works. In contrast, cross-cultural psychology works to establish psychological universals [ (Matsumoto, 2000) ].
Multiculturalism
Culture refers to the characteristics of a group of people, including behaviors, attitudes, values, and customs transferred from one generation to the next. Among the planet Earth there are more cultures than one can count therefore, multiculturalism is an increasingly important and necessary movement. Multiculturalism is the acceptance and appreciation of many cultures and is meant to encourage equality for all cultural groups (Matsumoto, 2000). Cross-cultural psychology can use multiculturalism to strengthen psychology by providing evidence about behavior, motivation, and emotion of people who live in other national, ethnic, and cultural contexts (Levy & Shiraev, 2010).
The Quantitative and Qualitative Methods In order to conduct research for cross-cultural psychology the kind of research or experimentation to perform, methods of research, and how to calculate such research must be chosen. Cross-cultural psychology uses both the quantitative and qualitative methods. The quantitative method is done through observations and is largely mathematical and statistics based. This research method, because it utilizes a comparative perspective, is employed in cross-cultural psychology for comparing and measuring human behavior among various cultures [ (Levy & Shiraev, 2010) ]. Despite the worth of the quantitative method, the qualitative method is also important to cross-cultural research and is used when research is difficult to measure. Qualitative research is performed in natural settings where the people studied carry out normal daily activities. In this type of research, psychologists try to detect some illicit or unspoken aspects of culture, hidden rules, or innuendo. When conducting research using the qualitative method psychologists utilize research procedures such as sample groups, observations, experimental studies, surveys, focus groups, psychobiography, content-analysis, and meta-analysis. Factors important for psychologists to remember when conducting research using any method or procedure is to make sure all information is translated accurately and as close to the original as possible as well as to try to avoid biases of generalizations [ (Levy & Shiraev, 2010) ]. Included as part of researching culture is analyzing the data and with this are two approaches: the absolutist approach and the relativist approach. Psychologists who support the absolutists approach, also known as the universalist approach, believe that psychological phenomena are essentially the same in all cultures. In other words, the norms and psychological processes of one culture are the same of another or at least are compared to the same standard. However, there are process and behaviors that vary from culture to culture. This approach is in contrast from the relativist approach in which psychologists believe that the intricacy of human behavior can only be understood in the culture in which the individual is a part of and the individual’s psychology should be studied only within that particular culture [ (Levy & Shiraev, 2010) ].
Critical Thinking Critical thinking is defined as “an active and systematic cognitive strategy to examine, evaluate, and understand events, solve problems, and make decisions on the basis of sound reasoning and valid evidence” (Levy & Shiraev, 2010, p. 91). For cross-cultural psychology metathoughts are specialized cognitive tools and techniques useful for approaching critical thinking and forms of inquiry, study, and problem solving. Metathoughts benefit critical thinking in cross-cultural psychology by reducing biases, errors, and mistakes related to cultural phenomena while clearing thinking and providing accuracy of solutions. Metathoughts also allow alternative points of view and promote more creativity in problem solving. Metathoughts serve as antidotes to an original thought process providing an opposite way of thinking or approaching a thought process, problem, or solution (Levy, 2010). A few examples of the several metathoughts are evaluative bias of language, the similarity-uniqueness paradox, the representative bias, and the assimilation bias. The metathought known as the barnum effect considers how people give general descriptions about others in a specific culture when it basically can fit just about anyone in any culture and instead these individuals should try to avoid this kind of generalizing and learn to differentiate people. Another metathought, differentiating dichotomous variables and continuous variables, covers the notion that some concepts are black and white and some are not, there are shades of gray. As an antidote, individuals should know the difference between the gray and the black and white as well as remember that person-related phenomena lie along a continuum (Levy, 2010).
Conclusion
To some extent, personal satisfaction, emotional growth, and what make a person self-actualized depends on one's culture and its values. Cross-cultural and cultural psychologies examine the extent of this. In addition, the aim of cross-cultural psychology is to examine both universal behaviors and distinctive behaviors to recognize the ways in which culture affects family life, behavior, social experiences, education, and other fields. Through research using both the quantitative and qualitative methods and the use of critical thinking and metathoughts, cross-cultural psychology will continue to thrive as a productive addition to psychology.

References
Levy, D. A. (2010). Tools of critical thinking: Metathoughts for psychology (2nd ed.). Prospect Heights: Waveland Press.
Levy, D. A., & Shiraev, E. B. (2010). Cross-Cultural Psychology: Critical Thinking and Contemporary Applications. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Matsumoto, D. R. (2000). Culture and psychology (2nd ed.). Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole.