《认知心理学教学课件》Culture and Personality.docVIP

Culture and Personality One of the most important and widely studied areas in cross-cultural psychology is personality. Anthropologists, psychologists, and other social scientists have long been interested in the “national character” of people of different cultures, and the extent to which personality as we know it in North American psychology is similar or different in other cultures. Indeed, the search for the underlying bases of individual differences, which serve as the backbone connection with culture in any cultural milieu. In this section, we first discuss the various approaches that scholars have used to understand the relationship between culture and personality. Then , we review major cross-cultural research on personality over the past few decades, highlighting important similarities and differences in those findings. In particular, we will review research on the Five Factor Model, which suggests that five personality dimensions are universal to all humans. We discuss the measurement of personality across cultures, as well an the use of some personality scales to assess psychopathology across cultures. We also discuss indigenous approaches to personality, and some of the research that has been conducted in this area. Although culture-specific aspects of personality and universal notions of personality may seem contradictory, we will seek ways of understanding their mutual coexistence and conceptualizing and studying their duality. Defining Personality The first thing we need to do in define what we mean by personality. In psychology, personality is generally considered to be a set of relatively enduring behavioral and cognitive characteristics, traits, or predispositions that people take with them to different situations, contexts, and interactions with others, and that contribute to differences among individuals. In North American psychology, personality is generally based on stability and consistency across contexts, situations, and interactions. This