Discussion
Discuss about the Cultural Psychology for Marketing Science.
Many psychology-related literatures reveals cognitive psychology, plotting of cognitive structures and associations between the manner and languages where individuals categorize the entire world. Nevertheless, the studies with social interactions are viewed from the different point of views based on different classes, cultures, which also enabled to understand the barriers and their intensities to what the barriers affect these intercultural-cultural communication (Rapport, 2014). As stated by Thompson (2013) culture and communication are interlinked as they are overlapping in all possible ways. Culture is usually defined by the features that a certain group of the population possesses, referring to religion, language, social habits, interests and customs. It can be rightfully stated that social interaction, that is communication, forms to be the building block of all societies. The systems and rules of our country are dependent on the interaction taking place across the society. Heine (2015) opines that cultural psychology studies how behavioral and psychological tendencies are embedded and rooted in culture. The chief theory underlying cultural psychology is that culture and mind are inseparable and they can be referred to being mutually constitutive. There lies a simple relation between people and their culture; culture is shaped by people and vice versa. Cultural psychology explores the process by which cultural traditions and social practices does the regulation, expression, and transformation of the human psyche. Shiraev & Levy (2015) highlight that cultural psychologists put in tremendous efforts that yield a multitude of interesting and usually controversial cultural differences in the psychological processes, encompassing motivation, time and space perception, reasoning styles, relational styles, and emotional expression.
This essay explores whether it is possible to have an insight of personality, social behavior and individual characteristics without having any experience of socialization while being in a culture and learn the implicit assumptions and rules of the culture. It will also check if it is possible to have an insight into rules, causes, behavior and determinants of social experience while be a complete outsider.
Culture is defined as the possession of comparable features and traits, like feelings, attitudes, thought processes, personalities, beliefs, opinions, and behaviours, found in a certain cluster of populace. The characteristics ar epredominantly conceded from one generation to another. Although some of the traits have an overlapping between cultures, some significant differences are present too. Cultural psychology is referred to as a promising discipline that reveals the methods of cultural regulations and traditions of societal practices, which could alter human psyche and transform expression (Vaughn, 2015). Thereby, an approach where subject and object, figure, and ground, psyche and culture are composed together (Moran, Abramson & Moran, 2014). In psychology, culture made a brief appearance considering both the methods and the theories. The best part is that individuals past and present are taken into consideration in order to build knowledge of social and biological sciences. Thus, it could be stated that the functions of social psychologists are limited to individual’s behavior that is affected by existing forces of actions, choices, and thoughts, where psychologists are separated from their personal area and make good choices.
Statement in favor
Simons & Hughes (2012) stated that social behavior of any culture involves an insight of individual’s perceptions associated with their social concerns. It is sometimes debated that ideas associated with social illustrations and attitudes are illuminated as definite factors associated with social behavior. There are set of guidelines, which are introduced in regard to ‘Code of Ethics’, which further enable the psychologists to carry out their practices. For instance, while psychometric analyses are used, the experiments are carried out by the psychologists so that they can measure and predict emotional behavioural and cognitive functioning that would support individual or group evaluation. It also helps to compare behaviours with culture, so, provides a signal of the individual’s abilities, behaviours, weaknesses and strength (Staub, 2013). In certain cases, social psychologists check the attribution effects in order to understand people’s behaviour that does not include external traits. For example, in order to obtain ideas of various different cultural affairs, the major task is to be well equipped with the theories and concepts of psychology across cultures. A psychologist may deal with cultures other than his own culture and thereby, deals with different personal beliefs and experiences (Neuliep, 2012). This shows that the psychologists, who are learning social behaviour from other cultures, are not necessarily a part of it. They need to acquire a thorough understanding of multiple cultures, consider social recognition and also need to be competent enough to accept ideas from different other cultures.
In order to distinguish cultures of two different countries, the social psychologists need to look at universal as well as unique traits. Thus, the psychologists being from diverse ethnic backgrounds could obtain adequate knowledge of social traits and behaviours and also segregate their perceptions and personal beliefs (Sherif, 2015). The social psychologists need to understand the significance of cultural values to act sensitive and be aware, which would further help them to develop adaptability and flexibility (Myers, 2015). Valsiner (2014) discusses that two elementary factors prevail in the relationship of cognitive and social phenomena; thinking and culture. Culture is a section of the collection memeory we have and our perceptions and thoughts of ourselves, which needs deep analysis. For exploring this, psychologists can take the help of Cognitive Mapping that assists in drawing a mental picture of the representations of an individual and aid in gaining insights into the process an individual saves and recalls the information in his environment. A primary peculiratity to gain knowledge while studying psychology and its relation with culture lies in the dissimilaritiesbetween collective and individualistic cultures. People who come from individualistic culture have an independent conception of the self, while focusing on the personal achievments. Members belonging to the collectivistic society usually have the focus on the interdependent conception of self while focusing on the aspects that bring benefit to the group.
Eysenck & Wilson (2012) pinpoints that there lie distinct points of difference between humans and other animals. Humans can be called as inherent social animals as they coherently survive through taking advantage of power of the group. Within this biological group, the tendency is to make up solutions for issues that are address both social and biological requirements. Evolution is responsible for this inheritance in humans and adaptation to ecological aspects enhances the chances of survival of the humans. Nature has been endowing humans with a comprehensive set of psychological processes for addressing the needs they have in social and biological contexts. These take into consideration both cognitive and emotional abilities, dispositions and preferences. Heine (2015) highlight that personal and cognitive biases have a strong impact on the decision making process and all judgments made are based on these biases. It is often argued that judgement itself may not be undesirable in all cases, and that the process of judgement is what all must analyse in order to understand its appropriateness. Making judgments is an integral element of life as they are responsible for producing decisions for suitable results. Implicit biases have a strong presence throughout, and the aim of developing such biases is to help in solving all arising issues. This forms an efficient tool that psychologists can use for solving problems.
Human interactions comprise associations between traits, personality along with situational variables that play a crucial role in individual’s responses and reactions, which are consistent with the original traits. This supports the idea that it is possible to be an outsider and yet have an insight into the rules, social determinants, and related causes in terms of behaviour and social experience.
Contrary to cultural relativism, ethnocentrism is a crucial factor, which is repeatedly used by the cultural psychologists as a prudence criterion for analysing various cultures, where norms lead to biases that further generate an inclination towards cultural difference (Rubin & Brown, 2013). Being ethnocentric might allow an individual to think limited focusing only on own cultural aspect, which would further make an individual culturally incompetent. To avoid ethnocentrism, social psychologists need to go through the articles that inform the readers about intercultural communication. This would further enable individuals to adopt ideas from other cultures, practice among groups with diverse ethnic background, analyse major influences that the cultures have on thought processes, style of speaking, listening and behaving. A most fundamental practice in this context would be eliminating communication barriers (Roese & Olson, 2014). Ethnocentrism could act as a challenge to think beyond individual’s cultural ethics and norms and thereby designing a conclusion, which is limited to the host culture. This further gives rise to irrational and biased judgements. Reluctance to trying cuisine from other cultures is ethnocentric. The social scientists are trying to treat such differences among various cultures as neither superior nor inferior (Rubin & Brown, 2013).
While dealing with differences, judging and analysing against a set standard would be a typical reaction. According to some social psychologists, trying to deviate one from his/her own set of beliefs might make them feel inferior or misconstrued and thereby, not favourable (Rapport, 2014). Certain implicit cognitions might also be present, in terms of stereotyping or attitudes, which could further affect personal understandings. These could be spontaneous and without any control and sometimes are concealed for the aim of social precision. This could give rise to attitudes and feelings that are based on certain characteristics like ethnicity and race. These associations could lead to a revelation to indirect or direct messages as these are not in line with the stated beliefs. While such perceptions are thought to be valid, individuals tend to justify unreasonable actions that might cause an enduring negative impact.
Communication can be of two forms, verbal and non-verbal, and both of these methods are equally important to hold a position in the society. Behaviours regarding learning to speak and provide nonverbal messages are reflected by these. Differences, however, lie in how different people communicate, as factors like individuality, personality, context and mood have an impact on communication styles. The building of relationships among individuals and the effectiveness of these relationships are influenced by communication, and there lie some basic points of dissimilarities in the way different individuals view the world around. This can venture intrusion with the interactions between individuals and may show the way to redundant conflicts. One aspect seeming to be true in one context may not be so in another context., depending on the place and the relationships under that circumstance (Broadbent, 2013). Eysenck & Wilson (2012) states that acceptable human behaviour may differ from one culture to another and time period is also a constraint. One has to have a deep-rooted knowledge of culture and behaviour of a certain section of the society in order to adapt to it and implement it in own lifestyle. Each social clan has a certain standard for the population it comprises of. Remarkable behaviors are measured to be either amusing, or distasteful. A behaviour considered normal in one culture may not be considered acceptable in another. On the contrary, in certain subcultures prevalent in the exceedingly spirited society, the absence of attention focused onto competition is out of step in certain instances. Valsiner (2014) believes that cultural identities are to be discovered layer by layer in order to understand the concept in a clear manner. Self-reflection and interpersonal reflection are the two means by which this discovery can be done. Some identities can be readily identified as they are noticeable, however strong interaction is required for penetrating deep into the inner layers of culture. Ability to self-reflect determines the success in understanding newencounters in culture.
Hence, from this discussion, it could be mentioned that without being from a particular cultural background, it is difficult for an individual to learn about typical characteristics, personality and social behaviour of the people from other cultural setting.
Conclusion
Drawing conclusion from the above discussion it can bestated that understanding of culture and communication is a matter ofdebate owing to the multi-dimensional characteristic. Culture and communication are being studied for centuries, and people have tried to embrace changes in culture and communication through out the eras. Studies have showed that people immersed in a social context could communicate effectively with individuals from the same culture or different cultures. It can be therefore stated that a person, considered to be unfamiliar with a culture can be a social psychologist. Tests and theories would form the basis for making judgments from a psychologist’s point of view. With the help of these aids, the psychologist can adapt to and learn different cultures and understand social behaviours. Cultural uniqueness could be revealed step by step, which may take place through either interpersonal communication or self-reflection. Certain identities are promptly noticeable. However, it majorly requires in-depth interaction to elicit the core meaning. While people from cross-cultural background meet, one may quickly judge by external factors, however, it actually takes the time to relate and share some profound experiences. It must be taken into consideration that culture bears a strong relationship with constantly evolving social phenomena and ideology. Culture is a learned process that all individuals possess from birth and modifies throughout life span. By providing supporting and contradictory factors, this essay suitably explored whether one can be a social psychologist and learn about others’ cultures while being from other cultural background.
References
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Myers, M. B. (2015). Ethnocentrism: a literature overview and directions for future research. In Proceedings of the 1995 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 202-207). Springer International Publishing.
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Simons, R. C., & Hughes, C. C. (Eds.). (2012). The culture-bound syndromes: Folk illnesses of psychiatric and anthropological interest (Vol. 7). Springer Science & Business Media.
Staub, E. (2013). Positive social behavior and morality: Social and personal influences. Elsevier.
Thompson, J. B. (2013). Ideology and modern culture: Critical social theory in the era of mass communication. John Wiley & Sons.
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