Example: marketing

Culture, Context, and Behavior

Culture, context , and BehaviorDavid MatsumotoSan Francisco State UniversityABSTRACTIn this article I propose a model that posits three majorsources of influence on Behavior basic human nature (via universal psy-chological processes), culture (via social roles), and personality (via indi-vidual role identities) and argue that individual behaviors are theproducts of the interaction between the three. I discuss how cultureemerges from the interaction of basic human nature and the ecologicalcontexts in which groups exist, and how social roles are determined byculture-specific psychological meanings attributed to situational model further suggests that situational context moderates the relativecontributions of the three sources in influencing Behavior .

Culture, Context, and Behavior David Matsumoto San Francisco State University ABSTRACT In this article I propose a model that posits three major

Tags:

  Context, Behavior

Information

Domain:

Source:

Link to this page:

Please notify us if you found a problem with this document:

Other abuse

Transcription of Culture, Context, and Behavior

1 Culture, context , and BehaviorDavid MatsumotoSan Francisco State UniversityABSTRACTIn this article I propose a model that posits three majorsources of influence on Behavior basic human nature (via universal psy-chological processes), culture (via social roles), and personality (via indi-vidual role identities) and argue that individual behaviors are theproducts of the interaction between the three. I discuss how cultureemerges from the interaction of basic human nature and the ecologicalcontexts in which groups exist, and how social roles are determined byculture-specific psychological meanings attributed to situational model further suggests that situational context moderates the relativecontributions of the three sources in influencing Behavior .

2 I provide ex-amples of apparent contradictory findings in the study of emotion thatcan be explained by the model the widespread acceptance of the idea that context exertspowerful influences on Behavior , psychology has yet to develop ad-equate models to explain how this influence occurs and especiallywhy Behavior is influenced in some contexts but not others. Inthe cross-cultural literature on emotion, for instance, some studiesdemonstrate pancultural universality in some aspects of emotion;others demonstrate strong and reliable cultural and work elucidating the nature and function of situationalspecificity in personality processes (Roberts, 2006; Wood &I thank Michael Bond, Walt Lonner, Noriko Nakagawa, Maureen O Sullivan,Susumu Yamaguchi, Seung Hee Yoo, Brent Roberts, and Ken Sheldon for theirvaluable comments on a previous draft of this article.)

3 I also thank Shannon Pacaoa,Dustin Cantrell, Victoriya Tebeleva, Aaron Estrada, Janice Cheng, and Phuong Thaifor their assistance in the general laboratory concerning this article should be addressed to David Matsumoto,Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue,San Francisco, CA, 94132. E-mail: of Personality75:6, December 2007r2007, Copyright the AuthorsJournal compilationr2007, Blackwell Publishing, : , 2006) has advanced our theoretical understanding of howdifferent levels of personality can interact with situation-specific so-cial roles to produce situationally driven differences in Behavior ,above and beyond the existence of underlying dispositional purpose of this article is to elucidate further on the nature ofsocial roles.

4 I suggest that individual Behavior is the product of theinteraction between culturally dependent social roles and individu-ally different role identities. Social roles are comprised of expecta-tions and normative behaviors that emerge from the psychologicalmeanings attributed to situational contexts; these meanings are cul-tural. Culture, in turn, emerges from the interaction of basic humannature with specific ecological contexts in which groups existthrough a process of environmental adaptation. This model sug-gests that individual Behavior can be explained by three majorsources basic human nature (via universal psychological pro-cesses), culture (via social roles), and personality (via individualrole identities).

5 The model further suggests that situational contextmoderates the relative contributions of each of these three sources ininfluencing Behavior . Below I describe the theoretical assumptionsunderlying these three sources of Behavior , describe the role of sit-uational context in moderating the influence of these three sources,and provide examples from the area of research I know best emotion to demonstrate how this model can integrate and synthesizeseemingly disparate findings in the NATUREU niversal Biological Needs and Social MotivesMy understanding of the origins, meaning, and characteristics ofculture starts with some assumptions about what may be consideredbasic human nature and how it may have evolved (see McAdamsand Pals [2006] for a similar discussion with regard to the relation-ship between human nature and personality).

6 My views on this topicare essentially based in evolutionary psychology (Buss, 2001) andborrow from the concept of the environment of evolutionary adap-tiveness (Bowlby, 1969). This view begins with the premise that allhumans have universal biological needs that need to be met in orderto survive and that survival is the ultimate goal of evolutionary (2004) called these basic physical needs, and they includeeating, drinking, breathing, sleeping, eliminating, having sex, seekingshelter, and otherwise staying healthy. Each of these needs is ulti-mately related to reproductive success and helps ensure survival be-cause reproductive success is a biological imperative if people are history, people must have solved a host of distinctsocial problems in order to meet their basic physical needs andachieve reproductive success.

7 These social problems include negoti-ating complex status hierarchies, forming successful work and socialgroups, attracting mates, fighting off potential rivals for food andsexual partners, giving birth and raising children, and battling nature(Buss, 1988, 2001). In fact these problems exist in our everyday livestoday as well. To aid in our resolving these social problems, natureendowed us with a small set of universal social motives. Sheldon(2004) proposed that these social motives can be organized aroundthree major themes autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Sim-ilarly, Hogan (1982) posited the importance of the needs to get alongand get ahead. Presumably, these needs provide humans with themotivation and ability to negotiate and solve complex social prob-lems in order to meet their basic physical needs and Psychological ProcessesI further assume that human nature endowed us with a small set ofuniversal psychological processes that aids in addressing our univer-sal social motives and physical needs.

8 These psychological processesinclude both cognitive and emotional abilities, dispositions, andpreferences. They are akin to a basic set of tools with instructions,which humans can tap into when addressing the problems of search for psychological universals begs the question of whataspect of Behavior is being considered in the first place. Over two-and-a-half decades ago, Lonner (1980) developed a taxonomy ofuniversals, suggesting the existence of seven different types: simpleuniversals, referring to the existence of similar behaviors ( , eating,sleeping) across cultures; variform universals, which are simple uni-versals that vary in form across cultures; functional universals, whichrefer to cross-culturally similar patterns of relationships among be-haviors that serve the same function ( , child rearing); diachronicuniversals, which are temporally invariant laws that can explainCulture, context , and Behavior1287behaviors within and across cultures; ethologically oriented univer-sals, which refer to Behavior with a phylogenetic link.

9 Systematicbehavioral universals, which refer to theories of Behavior that can beapplied panculturally; and cocktail party universals, which refer topsychological processes that are assumed to be universal throughspeculation and philosophical discourse, but without empirical recently, Norenzayan and Heine (2005) offered a differentview of universals. They defined universals as core mental attributesthat are shared at some conceptual level by all or nearly all non-brain-damaged adult human beings across cultures (p. 763). Giventhis definition, Norenzayan and Heine (2005) argued for the exis-tence of three types of universals: existential universals, referring tosimilar mental attributes that exist across cultures but have differentfunctions; functional universals, referring to similar attributes andsimilar functions that are used differently; and accessibility univer-sals, which refer to similar attributes with similar functions that areused similarly across perspective is slightly different.

10 I assume that humans are en-dowed with some number of genetically encoded programs for cer-tain types of mental processes, physiological reactions, and overtbehaviors that probably have phylogenetic origins. I further assumethat these mental programs are associated, at least initially, withsomewhat fixed action patterns of thoughts, behaviors, or physio-logical responding. None of Lonner s (1980) categories of universalsmakes this assumption, although my assumption of universal psy-chological processes is related to his delineations of variform, func-tional, and ethologically oriented universals. My views are alsodifferent than Norenzayan and Heine s (2005) since theirs was lim-ited to cognition. I believe these programs exist not only for sometypes of cognition, but for emotion, motivation, and behaviors example, humans appear to have a natural proclivity to fearobjects such as spiders, snakes, heights, and darkness (Buss, 2001).


Related search queries