Cross-cultural psychology

Cross-cultural psychology is a branch of psychology that explores the similarities and differences in thinking and behavior between individuals from different cultures.

Scientists using a cross-cultural approach focus on and compare participants from diverse cultural groups to examine ways in which cognitive styles, perception, emotional expression, personality, and other psychological features relate to cultural contexts. They also compare cultural groups on broad dimensions such as individualism and collectivism — roughly, how much a culture emphasizes its members’ individuality versus their roles in a larger group.

Psychologists who are interested in expanding psychology’s focus on diverse cultures have pointed out that the majority of research participants are, to use a popular term, WEIRD: they are from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies. Cross-cultural research has made it clear that what psychologists conclude about this slice of the world’s population does not always extend to people with other cultural backgrounds. What Is Cross-Cultural Psychology?
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Psychology’s mission to understand how humans think and behave requires studying humanity as broadly as possible — not just the humans to which researchers tend to be nearest. Psychologists who conduct cross-cultural research investigate the richness of human psychological…