Mapping Cross-Cultural Psychology Models and Methods Onto Societal Challenges

Abstract

In response to Kashima’s article, this commentary uses the levels of analysis (LOAs) perspective to discuss how we may map cross-cultural psychology models and methods onto societal challenges. In our own LOA within psychology, it is pointed out that we have our own deficiencies such as the problem of WEIRD science where much of our so-called universal laws of human behavior have been built on a restricted sample from Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democracies. Besides the caveats regarding the challenges of using multiple levels of analyses, it is also argued that we should use the individual of analysis as our primary focus given our training as psychologists. This means focusing on psychological mechanisms to link them to societal problems. Several models for doing this mapping are presented such as Triandis’ recent work on self-deception as psychological mechanisms underlying extremism. Other examples include Leong and Kalibatseva’s disentangling approach, which seeks to resolve the “Black box problem” when we conflate demography with psychology. Demography is a poor proxy for psychology. Finally, it was proposed that we attend to the new emerging science of complexity, which focuses on large adaptive systems such as star systems, organizations, or even economies. However, we should apply this complexity model at the individual level and examine each person as a unique complex adaptive system (with the universal, the group, and the individual components).