What Is Psychological About the Social Psychology of Culture?
- Bakker, J. I. (Hans)
Reviews the book, Social Psychology of Culture by Chi-yue Chiu and Ying-yi Hong (see record 2006-12384-000). The book under review does not always attempt to be truly interdisciplinary. It is clearly a contribution to a limited scientific network of researchers in psychology interested in culture (; ). There is nothing wrong with that. But it should be clear to potential readers that this is strictly a “social psychology of culture” from a psychological disciplinary perspective. Not only are anthropological notions of culture de-emphasized, concepts of “sociological structure” and “historical change” are also largely left implicit. Instead of a clear flow and a readily apparent structure, what we get is 12 somewhat random chapters titled: “What Is Culture?” (Chapter 1); “Strategies for Describing Culture” (Chapter 2); “Psychological Foundations of Human Culture” (Chapter 3); “What Is Culture For?” (Chapter 4); “Culture as Mental Habits” (Chapter 5); “Culture, Self, and Others” (Chapter 6); “Events and Norms” (Chapter 7); “Cultural Knowledge” (Chapter 8); “Culture Change” (Chapter 9); “Intercultural Contacts” (Chapter 10); “Globalization and Multicultural Identities” (Chapter 11); and “Scientific Study of Culture” (Chapter 12). The logic of the organizational structure is not entirely clear. Chiu and Hong want to provide an approach that helps us to understand the more dynamic aspects of the ways in which cultural meanings are important for social psychological variables. They discuss problems of comparability of cultures (construct, measurement, and sampling equivalence) and then go on (in Chapter 12) to discuss cross-cultural research as a kind of quasiexperimental design and also introduce statistical “mediation analysis.” But their real focus is on the importance within any scientific domain of moving from a study of hypothesized “structures” (like phlogisten, caloric, or vital fluid) to “processes” (combustion, thermal motion, equilibrium). One of the strengths of this book is the empirical material concerning differences in perceptions between East Asians and North Americans. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved)