Cultural Perspectives on Personality and Social Psychology

Abstract

AbstractThe chapter highlights insights for understanding personality and social psychology that emerge from a consideration of the cultural grounding of basic psychological processes. In the first section, reasons are identified for why culture has been downplayed in mainstream social psychology, including the field's adoption of culture‐free approaches to situations, natural science ideals of explanation, and its default assumptions of cultural homogeneity. Through a brief review of early research in cross‐cultural psychology, it is also shown that work in this tradition lay important foundations for contemporary theory and research in cultural psychology. In the second section, consideration is given to key conceptual premises that have contributed to the emergence of cultural psychology, including the recognition of the role played by culture in the constitution of higher‐order psychological processes. Also, a select review is offered of findings from cultural psychological research on cognition, the self, emotions, and motivation and challenges are identified for future research, including those of developing more process‐oriented views of culture and more contextually sensitive models of cultural influences on basic psychological phenomena. In conclusion, implications are drawn regarding the importance of cultural research in contributing new constructs, research questions, and theoretical insights to enrich basic psychological theory.