Are the sociocultural and the cross-cultural approaches incompatible?

Culture is something that all societies and people are immersed in, often without realising just how much it influences their ideas and behaviour. It plays an important part in defining who they are, how they behave, how they see the world, and how they treat others. Therefore it should come as no surprise to anyone wishing to study social psychology, or psychology in general, that understanding the role that culture plays in human development to human psychology is important. Two major branches of social psychology that are concerned with studying the impact that culture plays in human development and behaviour are cross-cultural psychology and sociocultural psychology. These two branches approach the idea of culture in various, with the goal of understanding how culture impacts the individual, and in the case of sociocultural psychology how the individual impacts culture.

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The purpose of this essay is to explore the question of whether these two approaches to cultural psychology are compatible with each other. In order to explore this question fully the essay will investigate the methods used by both of these paradigms, and draw on sources that explore both in a critical fashion, as well as drawing on information about the history of cultural psychology and various experiments. The essay will begin with an examination of an early cross-cultural psychology experiment, hereby referred to as ‘The Torres Straits experiment’.

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The Torres Straits experiment was an expedition led by British anthropologist A. C. Haddon in 1898. The expedition involved an interdisciplinary team, and included in the team was psychiatrist W. H. R. Rivers. One of his key interests was to determined whether ‘savage and semi-civilised races [manifest] a higher degree of acuteness of sense than [...] among Europeans’ (Glaveanu and Johvchelovitch, 2017, p. 118). The results found by Haddon (1898) were that the native populations sense were by no means exceptional (Glaveanu and Johvchelovitch, 2017). However, another result from the Torres Strait was to help us understand the cultural biases inherent in research such as this, a criticism often levelled at cross-cultural psychology through the years. The cultural bias involved in the experiment gives some indication of problems inherent in this approach. A term often employed when discussing this approach is the anacronym WEIRD, which stands for Western, Educated, Intellectual, Rich, and Democratic (Glaveanu and Johvchelovitch, 2017, p.115). A lot of this type of research generally tends to be situated in Western culture, with Western culture often being the baseline for comparison. Those cultures studied in comparison are often seen to be ‘weaker’ or ‘inferior’ due to this baseline. However, is this baseline a fair one to begin comparisons with?

This baseline and criticism is one that can be understood and appreciated through the approach used by Michael Cole in his work with the Kpelle people (Cole, 1996 cited in Glaveanu and Johvchelovitch, 2017, p. 120)). Cole went to Liberia to help students who were systematically underperforming in mathematics. The problem as presented to Cole was that the Kpelle people had difficulties because of severe perceptual anomalies. However, adopting a sociocultural stance, that is looking at the problem through the lens of the local culture, Cole was able to see that the Kpelle people had a penchant for barter and trade (Cole, 1996 cited in Glaveanu and Johvchelovitch, 2017, p. 121). This was due to their culture being influenced by their long history as a farming community. Looking at the problem through this lens, Cole was able to determine that the judgements about the Kpelle people was one that was culturally biased, and adopting a sociocultural approach enabled him to create a syllabus that adapted to the Kpelle people’s innate abilities developed through a long cultural history.

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These two studies give some indication of the different approaches used by both cross-cultural and sociocultural psychology. In cross-cultural psychology what is seen is an approach where those performing the studies situate themselves within the culture they are from, studying the outgroup culture through comparison to their own. Whereas in the sociocultural approach, the outgroup is studied from within the outgroup’s culture being studied. An attempt is made to study the cultural impact from within, rather than from without. The question asked by this essay is whether or not these two approaches are incompatible, and from this quick assessment of how the study is situated it may be judged that they are not. However, that assessment would be one that is far too hasty based on the information provided so far. It is first necessary to delve deeper into the cross-cultural approach before making any kind of assessment of that nature.

Ype H. Poortinga’s 2016 paper titled Integration of Basic Controversies in Cross-cultural Psychology delves into many of the problems in the field of cross-cultural psychology. One of those mentioned previously in the essay was the Western centric positioning of those involved in the investigations. In the paper, Poortinga discusses four levels of ethnocentrism mentioned by Sinha inherent within cross-cultural psychology studies (Sinha, 1997 cited in Poortinga, 2016). These four levels of ethnocentrism offer some idea of how cross-cultural and sociocultural psychology could be compatible, and how sociocultural psychology could contribute to cross-cultural psychology. The first level of ethnocentrism discussed is the selection of items for tests. The second is the choice of instruments and administration procedures. Both of these levels tend to be biased towards Western culture, and may not necessarily have the same cultural meaning, or use, in the culture being studied (Poortinga, 2016).

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Here can be seen a way in which sociocultural psychology could be complimentary to cross-cultural psychology. Taking into account the work of Cole previously mentioned in the essay, where the method of teaching was altered in order to suit the embedded culture, so too could the selection of items for tests, as well as instruments and administrations be adopted to suit the embedded culture. Through the use of sociocultural psychology, the subject culture could be understood to a greater degree, allowing more meaningful and accurate cross-cultural studies.

However, while some semblance of complimentary nature, and even some semblance of compatibility, can be seen here, there is still an incompatibility in the nature of what is being studied by the two approaches. While cross-cultural psychology intends to study ‘local behaviour manifestations found somewhere that differ from manifestations found elsewhere’, sociocultural psychology intends to study the situatedness of the individual within that culture, and how the culture impacts upon the individual as well as how the individual impacts upon the culture (Poortinga, 2016). The excellent 2017 article Piecing Together Ideas on Sociocultural Psychology and Methodological Approaches by Anne Carolina Ramos gives some indication of the differing nature between the two approaches.

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Ramos (2017) discusses the dialogical nature of culture, and the qualitative nature of the methodological approach used within sociocultural psychology. The qualitative nature of the sociocultural approach differs from the quantitative nature of the cross-cultural approach. Where cross-cultural psychology sees culture as a variable to be studied and manipulated, the sociocultural approach sees both culture and the individual as mutually constitutive (Ramos, 2017). Drawing on several sources Ramos (2017) shows the tight knitted nature of culture and individual, and how both are involved in an ongoing exchange of information and impact. Here is seen another way in which the cross-cultural and sociological approaches are incompatible with each other. Unlike how Poortinga’s examples of ethnocentrism show how sociocultural psychology can contribute to cross-cultural psychology, there is no such reversal of roles here. In this manner, cross-cultural is neither compatible nor complimentary to sociocultural psychology.

The question asked at the beginning of this essay was whether or not cross-cultural and sociocultural psychology were compatible with each other. In examining this question the essay explored two different studies, that of the Torres Strait expedition, and that of the Kpelle people. The Kpelle people study shows that the methodology of cross-cultural psychology would be incompatible with the situated nature necessary in order to achieve the desired result in Cole’s (1996) study and research. The essay also drew on sources from Poortinga (2016) and Ramos (2017). While Poortinga’s (2016) work gives indication of how the sociocultural approach can contribute to the cross-cultural approach, Ramos (2017) shows that the reverse is not true. The aims of what is to be studied by both approaches, and the methodologies used, are also very different. With these points in mind the only conclusion that can be drawn is that they are incompatible in that each approach attempts to study something very different, and looks at culture in very different ways. However, sociocultural psychology is complimentary to, and may even help to refine, cross-cultural psychology. This means that they are incompatible with each other in what they intend to study, but complimentary to each other in the case of sociocultural psychology contributing to cross-cultural psychology.

References
Glaveanu, V. P. and Johvchelovitch, S. (2017) ‘Social psychology and culture’, in Andreouli, E. and Taylor, S. (eds) Advancing Social Psychology Book 1, Milton Keynes, pp. 27-57.

Poortinga, Y. H. (2016) 'Integration of Basic Controversies in Cross-cultural Psychology', Psychology and Developing Societies, Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 161-182.

Ramos, A. C. (2017) 'Piecing Together Ideas on Sociocultural Psychology and Methodological Approaches', Integrative Psychological and Behavioural Science, Vol. 51, No. 2, pp. 279-284.

Interesting. This plays out alot within communities (or societies or cultures) and I used it a lot when I was teaching in community education. The people who came to the sessions had mainly 'failed' in the school system, in the sense they had not achieved qualifications (nor had they enjoyed school), however, they were in interested in learning, and wanted their lives to be different.

One week, we ran a session called "Dealing with Difficult People". I thought the man focus would be about neighbour and community relationships. However, without exception, it was about relationships with schools and teachers. The session was packed, we didn't have enough chairs, and the supporting playcentre (this was an after school session) was also over-subscribed.

For many people, the value of this session was that they were listened to, they found that they were not alone in their experience and they started to share ideas about how they could do things differently.

There's a lot of work now about cultural competence in public services.

I'm quite interested in anthropology and ethnography, although I was hard-pressed yesterday to explain the difference between those subjects and sociology and social psychology. Could you help?