Complex Numbers

Psychology Today

Psychology has come a long way since Freud and Jung. But it's still not what I'd call an exact science. This article takes a global point of view on the subject.

https://theconversation.com/how-knowledge-about-different-cultures-is-shaking-th...

How knowledge about different cultures is shaking the foundations of psychology

Granted I'm no expert on psychology (my experience being limited to a biological psychology class in college and a few sessions of getting my head shrunk), but I'd say the "foundations" were on fairly shaky ground to begin with.

The academic discipline of psychology was developed largely in North America and Europe. Some would argue it’s been remarkably successful in understanding what drives human behaviour and mental processes, which have long been thought to be universal. But in recent decades some researchers have started questioning this approach, arguing that many psychological phenomena are shaped by the culture we live in.

You'd think they'd have taken that into account...

Psychologists have long disproportionately relied on undergraduate students to carry out their studies, simply because they are readily available to researchers at universities.

Science 101: choose your samples to be as free of selection bias as possible. Fail.

More dramatically still, more than 90% of participants in psychological studies come from countries that are Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic (W.E.I.R.D).

I wonder what a psychologist would make of how much I snickered at this.

Consider which two of these objects go together: a panda, a monkey and a banana. Respondents from Western countries routinely select the monkey and the panda, because both objects are animals.

My first thought was "monkey, banana." Because monkeys eat bananas. Like, kids know this. But apparently that makes me an outlier. Well, I've always known I was WEIRD.

This is a holistic thinking style, in which object and context are perceived to be interrelated.

I really wish they'd either stop using the word "holistic," or at least define it more precisely. To me, it's encrusted with connotations of new-age shenanigans. A quick Google lookup provided the definition: "characterized by comprehension of the parts of something as intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole."

Individuals in the western world are indeed more likely to view themselves as free, autonomous and unique individuals, possessing a set of fixed characteristics. But in many other parts of the world, people describe themselves primarily as a part of different social relationships and strongly connected with others.

Seems like a great big thing to miss, psychology.

Another domain that was originally dominated by studies on W.E.I.R.D. samples is mental health. However, culture can affect our understanding of mental health in different ways. Because of the existence of cultural differences in behaviour, the framework – based on detecting deviant or non-normative behaviours – isn’t complete. What may be seen as normal in one culture (modesty) could be seen as deviating from the norm in another (social phobia).

Again, I think anthropologists have known about this sort of thing for a long time. Don't they ever speak with shrinks? I guess they're all too well-adjusted.

In addition, a number of culture-specific syndromes have been identified. Koro sufferers (mostly in Asia), are men which have the mistaken belief that their genitalia are retracting and will disappear. Hikikomori (mostly Japan) is a condition that describes reclusive individuals who withdraw from social life.

Can I call myself hikikomori, or would that be cultural appropriation? Would it help if I also ate sushi (ordered for delivery) with chopsticks? Or does that actually make it worse?

The question is to what extent it will inform psychology as a discipline going forward – some see it as an extra dimension of it while others view it as an integral and central part of theory making.

And let me guess: these differences in perception are correlated to culture? No? Not going to tell me? Fine.