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Cultural differences
In both her research and classroom activities, psychology's Susan
Cross stresses how other cultures differ from the United States.
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A series of events that began when she was an undergraduate student has
led Susan Cross, associate professor of psychology, to her current research
path and the development of an undergraduate course in cultural psychology.
Cross was a senior majoring in horticulture when her parents moved to
Saudi Arabia. A few years later, her father, who worked for the oil industry,
was transferred to Japan.
"Both experiences really opened my eyes to cultural variations, assumptions
and how people live and behave in those countries and as a result, the
U.S. culture," she said.
Later she married an individual from a different culture.
But it was a series of academic papers from a social psychologist that
really got Cross to thinking about how culture shapes how people define
themselves.
"For many years, social psychologists assumed that everyone constructed
a very individualistic, independent self-construal, and many theories
in social psychology are based on this assumption," she said. "Recent
research, however, has revealed that there is substantial variability
in the self."
An early study of cultural differences revealed how people in different
situations from different cultures describe themselves.
"From a general viewpoint, Americans tend to describe themselves
consistently across situations," Cross said. "For the Japanese
how they view themselves depends much more on the situation."
One of her studies showed that American students saw themselves similarly
in very different sutations (such as with a peer or with a faculty member),
but the Japanese students described themselves differently in different
situations. The Japanese typically were more negative than the Americans
in their views of themselves.
"Their assessment of themselves tended to get more negative especially
if we had the student alone with a faculty member," Cross said. "There
the Japanese students would describe themselves as lazy, shy - that they
didn't work hard enough.
"But that's what expected in the Japanese culture."
Cross and a Japanese colleague, Chie Kanagawa, are currently collaborating
on research that will examine cultural differences in the self and their
consequences for motivation and achievement.
"We're looking at how relationships are important to who you are
and how it is a motivating factor in other tasks," Cross said.
She says that it is typically thought that Americans believe they have
to do everything by themselves.
"In my classes few of my students want to work together in groups,"
she said. "In Japan students work hard not only for themselves, but
for others in the group. They are all working towards the same goal."
She hopes to continue this line of research with a future collaboration
with three Turkish social psychologists.
Cross has interwoven much of her research into her classes - in particular
a 400 level undergraduate course in cultural psychology, which is open
to graduate students outside of psychology and undergraduate students
in psychology. The course helps students understand the scientific literature
in cross cultural psychology that has demonstrated that psychological
processes once assumed to be universal are actually quite culture-bound.
That course and other activities have led to Cross being named a LAS Master
Teacher in multicultural classroom instruction for 2003-04.
"She structured the course so as to not only educate students about
psychological processes that appear to be culture bound, like the self
and relationships, but she also developed curriculum to encourage students
at a deeper level to alter how they think about all psychological processes,"
said Craig Anderson, chair of the Department of Psychology. "Moreover,
she has students integrate their own cultural background into the material
to better understand who they are."
Around LAS
December 1-21, 2003
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