psychology dissertation cultural

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• HHS Author Manuscripts

Why Should We All Be Cultural Psychologists? Lessons from the Study of Social Cognition

Cornell University

I call the attention of psychologists to the pivotal role of cultural psychology in extending and enriching research programs. I argue that it is not enough to simply acknowledge the importance of culture, and urge psychologists to practice cultural psychology in their research. I deconstruct five assumptions about cultural psychology that seriously undermine its contribution to the building of a true psychological science, including that cultural psychology 1) is only about finding group differences; 2) does not care about group similarities; 3) only concerns group-level analysis; 4) is irrelevant to basic psychological processes; and 5) is only to confirm the generalizability of theories. I discuss how cultural psychology can provide unique insights into psychological processes and further equip researchers with additional tools to understand human behavior. Drawing lessons from the 20 years of cultural research that my colleagues and I have done on the development of social cognition, including autobiographical memory, future thinking, self, and emotion knowledge, I demonstrate that incorporating cultural psychology into a research program is not only necessary but also feasible.

Should we all be cultural psychologists? Why? And how? I’d like to start the discussion with two personal stories.

Story 1: Not long ago, I submitted a paper to a journal specialized in my area of research. Within days, I heard back from the action editor, an eminent cognitive psychologist whose work I admire: “I regret to say that I have decided not to send the manuscript out for review. I just don’t think that it fits well enough with the goals of the journal in that cross-cultural research is not typically published …” Really? I couldn’t believe my eyes. I took another look at the journal’s Aims and Scope, which clearly states that the journal covers “ human memory and learning, conceptual processes, psycholinguistics, problem solving, thinking, decision making, and skilled performance [italics added].” Ironically, all these aspects of cognition have been shown to be susceptible to cultural influences. If the journal indeed tries to exclude cross-cultural research, then “ WEIRD human ” 1 should be a more accurate description in its Aims and Scope. I wrote back and copied my email to the Editor, hoping to engage them in a constructive discussion, but never heard back from either. Story 2: A few months ago, I met with a new colleague of mine at Cornell for coffee. She does brilliant work on perception. We talked about how we came to do what we do. Hearing about my interest in culture, she admitted that she never looked at culture or gender in her research because she studies basic perceptual processes that are not supposed to differ across human groups. I told her about the many exciting findings of perception in cross-cultural research (e.g., work by Richard Nisbett and colleagues), and that we found cultural differences in the very perceptual phenomenon she studies. She was stunned and intrigued, and we had a wonderful conversation that excited us both. A few days later, I received an email from her: She was submitting an amendment to our IRB to collect information of participants’ ethnicity and gender in her studies. Then two months later, I heard from her again: She asked me if I’d be interested in collaborating on a project to examine the influence of culture on perception and memory. We subsequently submitted a grant application together.

In both stories, we hear a voice, “Culture shouldn’t matter for basic human psychological processes.” Whereas the first story is depressing and hopeless, the second story is what inspired this article.

Theorists have long emphasized the important role of culture in shaping human cognition and behavior (e.g., Apfelbaum, Phillips, & Richeson, 2014 ; Cheung, 2012 ; Cohen A., 2009 ; Coll & Marks, 2009 ; Greenfield, 2013 ; Hardin, Robitschek, Flores, Navarro, & Ashton, 2014 ; Hermans, 2001 ; Hong, Morris, Chiu, & Benet-Martínez, 2000 ; Kitayama, Conway, Pietromonaco, Park, & Plaut, 2010 ; Markus, 2008 ; Markus & Kitayama, 1991 ; Shweder, 2000 ; Shweder, Goodnow, Hatano, LeVine, Markus, & Miller, 1998 ; Sternberg, 2004 ; Triandis, 1994 ). They have forcefully argued that culture emerges and transforms in response to the changing physical and social environments, which in turn guide the production of adaptive practices, beliefs, and behaviors ( Kitayama et al., 2010 ). Culture operates from not only outside but also within the individual to guide meaning-construction and behavior ( Hong et al., 2000 ). They have warned the field that the dominant models of American psychology impede the complete understanding of psychological experiences ( Markus, 2008 ), and that work that seeks to study a psychological construct outside its cultural context risks the imposition of one’s own worldview on the rest of the world and risks drawing false and hasty conclusions ( Sternberg, 2004 ). They have further cautioned psychologists about the use of WEIRD samples as the “baseline” for comparison as such samples are often outliers rather than norms ( Apfelbaum et al., 2014 ; Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010 ). The researchers have urged psychologists to mainstream culture in psychological science and practice ( Cheung, 2012 ), and to consider cultural validity as a critical measure when evaluating psychological theories ( Hardin et al., 2014 ). They have outlined the mission of cultural psychology as to study different mentalities that originate from differences in salient community-based goals, values and worldviews ( Shweder, 2000 ; Shweder et al., 1998 ), and have emphasized the importance of examining the dynamic processes underlying individual cultural attitudes and identification ( Coll & Marks, 2009 ; Hermans, 2001 ). They have further highlighted the far-reaching practical implications of broadening the study of culture in psychology ( Cohen A., 2009 ).

In spite of all those strong calls, there remain confusions and misunderstandings of what cultural psychology can do. Although true believers of “Culture doesn’t matter” may be rare in front of the mounting theoretical insights and empirical findings, there are those who choose not to care about culture because of the fear to venture into the unknown or the desire to maintain status quo. The hope rests on the researchers like my colleague in the second story, who are curious about culture and yet unsure of how to make it matter for their research. They sense the urgency when facing an increasingly diverse world around them and when working with an increasingly diverse participant pool. For those researchers, the important question is how to incorporate culture into research so that they are not continuing to ignore the cultural backgrounds of their participants – taking an attitude of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” – or to control for the variation in analysis as if it imposes “noises.”

I here discuss some of the ways that cultural psychology can help. To do so, I analyze five assumptions about cultural psychology that often get in way or cut short the effort when researchers consider the integration of culture into their work. Some of the assumptions are mythical, some incomplete, and some outright false. Together, they seriously undermine the importance of culture and cultural psychology in the study of human cognition and behavior.

Assumption 1: Cultural psychology is only about finding group differences. Assumption 2: Cultural psychology does not care about group similarities. Assumption 3: Cultural psychology only concerns group-level analysis. Assumption 4: Cultural psychology is irrelevant to basic psychological processes. Assumption 5: Cultural psychology is only to confirm the generalizability of theories.

Notably, these assumptions may seem obviously false to cultural psychologists – “who would think this way?” – and therefore be quickly dismissed. This may contribute to their persistence in researchers like the journal editor and the colleague in my stories. I hope that by deconstructing these assumptions, it will become clear to general psychologists that cultural psychology is necessary for the building of a true psychological science. Without cultural psychology, we cannot understand adequately any psychological phenomena, including basic processes that are commonly assumed to be immune to cultural influences. I draw lessons from the 20 years of cultural research that my colleagues and I have done on the development of social cognition, including autobiographical memory, future thinking, self, and emotion knowledge, to discuss how cultural psychology can provide unique insights into psychological processes and further equip researchers with additional tools to understand human behavior. Although this suite of research is constrained by the methodological scope of the subject matters and the range of cultural groups involved, it serves as an example to demonstrate that incorporating cultural psychology into a research program is not only necessary but also feasible. For reviews of exciting developments in cultural psychology, readers may refer to Kitayama and Cohen D. (2007) , Gelfand and Diener (2010) , and Heine (2016) , among others. These volumes have broad coverage of work by researchers from diverse fields of psychology and related disciplines.

Assumption 1: Cultural psychology is only about finding group differences

What is cultural psychology about? The most frequent answer to this question is that cultural psychology is about finding cultural differences. This is not an entirely false assumption, although identifying differences between cultural groups is only the important first step that leads to further investigations. To the present day, cultural psychology has developed into a sophisticated field of research with well established theories and methodologies (for a review, see Kitayama & Cohen D., 2007 ). Some of the particularly notable developments include cultural neuroscience ( Chiao, Cheon, Pornpattananangkul, Mrazek, & Blizinsky, 2013 ; Park & Huang, 2010 ), investigations of the causes of cultural change ( Greenfield, 2013 ; Trzesniewski & Donnellan, 2010 ; Twenge, Campbell, & Freeman, 2012 ; also see Freeman, 2002 , and Putnam, 2000 ), the study of Gene × Culture interaction ( Kim & Sasaki, 2012 ; Kitayama, King, Yoon, Tompson, Huff, & Liberzon, 2014 ; Luo, Ma, Liu, Li, Wang, Shi, & … Han, 2015 ), the use of social network analysis to study cultural experience and behavior ( Mao & Shen, 2015 ; Qiu, Lin, & Leung, 2013 ), and the integration of ecological perspectives to understand origins of cultural variability ( Kitayama et al., 2010 ; Talhelm, Zhang, Oishi, Shimin, Duan, Lan, & Kitayama, 2014 ). These theoretical and methodological advances have allowed investigators not only to identify but, more importantly, explain and predict group differences.

In the study of autobiographical memory, we have consistently observed that when recalling personal experiences, European American adults ( Wang, 2001a , 2006a ; Wang & Conway, 2004 ) and children ( Han, Leichtman, and Wang, 1998 ; Peterson, Wang, and Hou, 2009 ; Wang, 2004 ) focus more on their own roles and perspectives than do Asians and Asian Americans, who recall more information about social interactions and group activities. Had we stopped here and been satisfied with the cultural differences we observed, we would have missed the more important question of why . In subsequent investigations, we found that one important contributing factor is the culturally prioritized self-goals that guide the remembering process ( Wang, 2001a , 2008a ; Wang & Ross, 2005 ; Wang, Shao, & Li, 2010 ). Fundamental self-goals like autonomy and relatedness, although universally exist ( Damon, 1983 , Deci & Ryan, 2000 ), are variably emphasized in different cultures ( Mascolo & Li, 2004 ; Wang, 2013 ). Autonomous self-goals, prioritized in Western, particularly European American cultures ( Markus & Kitayama, 1991 ; Shweder et al., 1998 ), motivate individuals to focus on idiosyncratic details and subjective experiences that accentuate the uniqueness and agency of the individual. Such information is likely to be well represented in memory and highly accessible during recall. In contrast, relational self-goals, prioritized in cultures such as East Asia ( Markus & Kitayama, 1991 ; Shweder et al., 1998 ), motivate individuals to attend to and remember information about collective activities and significant others.

By experimentally manipulating self-goals of autonomy and relatedness, we are able to make European Americans recall socially orientated memories as East Asians usually do, and make East Asians recall self-focused memories as European Americans usually do ( Wang, 2008a ; Wang & Ross, 2005 ; Wang, Shao, & Li, 2010 ). In one study ( Wang & Ross, 2005 ), for instance, we asked European American and Asian college students to describe themselves as either unique individuals (i.e., autonomous-self prime) or as members of social groups (i.e., relational-self prime). We then asked them to recall their earliest childhood memories. In both cultural groups, those whose autonomous self-goals were activated prior to the recall reported more self-focused memories, whereas those whose relational self-goals were made salient recalled more socially oriented memories. Priming self-goals within individuals thus resulted in the recall of memory content consistent with the self-goals being primed. In our everyday life, self-goals prioritized by our culture tend to be constantly activated given the surrounding cultural artifacts, the language we speak, the people we interact with, and even the food we eat ( Hong et al., 2000 ). In turn, these self-goals modulate how we remember our experiences. These findings have made critical contributions to general cognitive theories of the remembering process ( Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000 ; Wang & Conway, 2006 ).

As this line of work illustrates, cultural psychology does not stop at finding cultural differences. It examines and reveals the mechanisms in culturally endorsed goals, values, and practices that give rise to the differences. Cultural psychology is not just about What , but, more importantly, Why and How . It not only uncovers the diversity of human cognition and behavior, but also provides theoretical and empirical insights into such diversity and in so doing greatly advances our general understanding of human cognition and behavior. Thus, a researcher who happens to observe group variations in a psychological construct of interest within her multicultural samples, dismissing the variations, partialling them out in analysis as meaningless noises, or simply accepting them as is, may lose potentially groundbreaking findings. Abandoning the assumption that cultural psychology is only about finding group differences will result in a more productive approach and allow the researcher to go ahead and investigate further. A coherent, systematic new research program may be born as a result.

Assumption 2: Cultural psychology does not care about group similarities

This assumption may be held by not only non-cultural psychologists but even by researchers who conduct studies across cultures. For people with this assumption, a cross-cultural study that has failed to find cultural differences is considered to be a failure. But group similarities are just as important as group differences to our understanding of a psychological construct in the cultural context. Whereas group differences may suggest that a psychological construct or process is sensitive to cultural-ecological variables, group similarities often tell us that this construct or process may be closely tied to biological constraints or shared cultural experiences. In developmental research, identifying cultural similarities in addition to differences is particularly valuable for understanding the interplay between biological-cognitive constraints and sociocultural scaffolding in determining developmental outcomes. Our research on the development of future thinking can serve as an example here.

Children’s ability to travel mentally in time to anticipate future happenings develops rapidly over the preschool years and beyond (e.g., Atance, 2008 ; Suddendorf, 2010 ). Whereas 3-year-olds often fail to imagine specific future events such as what they may do the next day or what they plan for going to the beach, by age 5, children are quite successful in doing so. Yet children’s future thinking is still heavily dependent on semantic or general knowledge that guides future event construction. Consequently, when they imagine future events, they often include much general information such as “What we always do at birthday parties,” in addition to event details specific in a future time and place, such as “What we are going to do at my next birthday party.” We suspect that children’s reliance on general knowledge in mental time travel may reflect their inchoate neurocognitive processes independent of cultural influence. The reliance on general knowledge in mental time travel has also been found to be associated with aging, whereby, as a result of decline in cognitive functioning and neural processing, older adults represent future events in more general terms than do younger adults ( Addis, Wong, & Schacter, 2008 ; Levine, Svoboda, Hay, Winocur & Moscovitch, 2002 ). Accordingly, children, regardless of culture, should include more general information in their representations of future events, when compared with adults.

At the same time, culture may influence the provision of specific details in the construction of future events. Given that European American culture places a greater emphasis on autonomy and individuality, idiosyncratic details of personal experiences may highlight one’s uniqueness and thus facilitate the development of a unique personal identity ( Wang, 2013 ). Family socialization practices further encourage children to dwell on and articulate details of their personal experiences and plans, which directly facilitates children’s ability to represent event-specific details ( Hudson, 2006 ; Nelson & Fivush, 2004 ). In contrast, in Chinese culture, where a greater emphasis is placed on interrelatedness, attending to details of one’s own experiences may signal an excessive focus on the self, incongruent with cultural norms ( Wang, 2013 ). When discussing personal experiences with their young children, Chinese parents tend not to focus on details of the event but rather to emphasize general rules and expectations ( Wang, Leichtman, & Davies, 2000 ; Wang & Fivush, 2005 ). In line with the differing practices, we have observed that European American children often produce more specific details than do Chinese children when recalling past experiences ( Wang, 2006b , 2007 ). Given the intimate connection between remembering the past and imagining the future - the two complementary components of mental time travel ( Addis et al., 2008 ), this cultural difference should be paralleled in children’s representations of future events.

Our studies confirmed these predictions ( Wang, Capous, Koh & Hou, 2014 ; Wang, Hou, Tang, & Wiprovnick, 2011 ). We asked 7- to 10-year-old children and college students from European American and Chinese cultural backgrounds to imagine and describe future personal events that would occur at a particular time and place. We then coded the protocols using a standard scoring procedure ( Levine et al., 2002 ) that distinguishes between specific details (e.g., actions, people, and locations) and general references (e.g., facts and metacognition). We found that children of the two cultures relied similarly on general knowledge in their future thinking – being equally likely to include general references relative to specific details in their event representations, and yet they did so to a greater extent when compared with adults. Furthermore, European American children and adults generated more specific details than did Chinese in their representations of future events. These cultural similarities and differences together suggest that the development of future thinking reflects the interaction between cognitive-neurological growth and sociocultural influences, a process contributing to both universality and cultural diversity.

Conducting theory-driven, hypothesis-based research is critical to identifying and understanding cultural similarities and differences. In particular, making informed hypotheses about cultural similarities will help researchers make decisions on research design, sample selection, and statistical strategies for effective testing for equivalence and subsequently obtain interpretable findings ( Lalonde, Cila, Lou, & Cribbie, 2015 ). Cultural similarities may suggest universality in the underlying biological-cognitive mechanisms, on the one hand, and shared human conditions and life circumstances, on the other. Whereas cultural similarities are celebrated by researchers who are interested in universal laws of human behavior, they should not deter students of culture because the similarities may convey critical messages about how culture interacts with other factors in shaping psychological functioning. Abandoning the assumption that cultural psychology does not care about group similarities will help researchers avoid the mistake of viewing to find cultural differences as the sole motivation for a cross-cultural study, and stay cognizant of theories and empirical evidence to make informed hypotheses of cultural similarities and differences.

Assumption 3: Cultural psychology only concerns group-level analysis

The next common belief about cultural psychology is that it only approaches a topic at the level of the group and does not care about individual differences. This assumption seems on its face to make sense as research in cultural psychology often involves comparing groups or cultures. To some extent, group-level analysis is inherent both in theory and by design when two or more groups are involved in an empirical study in cultural psychology. For researchers who truly value multiple levels of analysis, this is obviously an important limitation. Yet cultural psychology by no means downplays the importance of individual differences. On the contrary, examining individual differences is not only important but also often necessary to uncover the factors that account for the observed cultural differences. With theoretical insights and appropriate research designs, cultural psychology may allow us to examine a psychological construct simultaneously across groups (group-level analysis), across individuals (individual-level analysis), and within individuals (situational analysis, as demonstrated in the self-priming study by Wang & Ross, 2005 described earlier; also see Hong et al., 2000 ). Sometimes, the initial group-level analysis of a research program may motivate subsequent individual-level analysis to reveal the mechanisms that give rise to the group differences. Our research on emotion knowledge and the development of autobiographical memory can serve as an example.

One important component of emotion cognition concerns the semantic knowledge of situational antecedents of emotions (e.g., holidays and birthday parties are happy and joyful situations, whereas separation and the loss of a loved one are situations of sadness and grief), often referred to as emotion situation knowledge or emotion knowledge ( Frijda, 1986 ). Important from the current perspective, emotion knowledge is culturally construed and children form their theory of emotions through participating in everyday sociocultural practices. Our research has suggested that the great emphasis on the personal importance of emotion and the associated family practices for raising an “emotionally intelligent” child in European American culture ( Chao, 1995 ; Gottman, 1998 ; Wang & Fivush, 2005 ) directly facilitate children’s developing emotion knowledge ( Doan & Wang, 2010 ). In contrast, emotion knowledge is not highly valued nor actively facilitated in the Chinese cultural context, where a greater emphasis is placed on external behavior than inner psychological states ( Chao, 1995 ; Halberstadt & Lozada, 2011 ; Wang, 2006c ). Consequently, when asked to judge the emotional nature of story situations or to describe situations likely to provoke various emotions, European American preschoolers outperform their Chinese peers regardless of age, and they make more rapid progress in emotion knowledge over time ( Wang, 2003 ; Wang, Hutt, Kulkofsky, McDermott, & Wei, 2006 ).

Paralleling this cultural difference in emotion knowledge, our studies have consistently shown that when asked to recount autobiographical events (e.g., one thing the child did recently that was special and fun), European American preschoolers often recall more specific episodes (e.g., “getting a new toy”) as well as more specific details from the episodes than do Chinese children, who tend to report more general routine events (e.g., “playing with a toy every day”) and fewer event-specific details ( Han, Leichtman & Wang, 1998 ; Wang, 2004 , 2006b ; Wang, Capous, Koh, & Hou, 2014 ). Thus, there appears to be a connection between emotion knowledge and autobiographical memory at the group level: European American preschoolers exhibit greater emotion knowledge and remember more event details than do Chinese children.

This connection makes sense from a cognitive perspective: Emotion knowledge may provide an organizational structure for individuals to appraise, process, and represent significant personal event information, allowing the information to be well integrated into an existing autobiographical knowledge base and be effectively stored and retrieved ( Conway & Bekerian, 1987 ; McGaugh, 2003 ). As a result, an autobiographical memory with event-specific details may be formed. During development, the acquisition of emotion knowledge may help children understand the personal meaning of specific events, experience appropriate emotions during the events, and organize the event information in a structured fashion, thereby facilitating the retention of and access to the event memories over the long term ( Wang, 2001b , 2013 ). Conceivably, the greater emotion knowledge in European American children may help them better understand, evaluate, and thus remember autobiographical event details for long-term retention, when compared with Chinese children.

Following the theoretical analysis, we conducted a longitudinal study to examine the developmental connection between emotion knowledge and autobiographical memory at both group and individual levels ( Wang, 2008b ). Confirming previous observations ( Wang, 2003 ; Wang et al., 2006 ), we found that, at the group level, European American children showed overall greater understanding of emotion situations and also recalled more detailed autobiographical memories than did mainland Chinese and Chinese American children across the preschool years. More important, at the individual level, children who exhibited greater emotion knowledge early on recalled memories with more specific details both concurrently and longitudinally, regardless of culture. Furthermore, emotion knowledge functioned as a potent mediator that accounted for cultural differences in memory recall.

Thus, by following up on our initial group-level analysis, we are able to identify an individual-level mechanism responsible for early memory development. Had we neglected the parallel cultural differences in emotion knowledge and autobiographical memory in the first place, we might not have considered emotion knowledge to be a candidate mechanism for autobiographical memory and might not have made the subsequent investigation. Thus, abandoning the assumption that cultural psychology only concerns group-level analysis will allow researchers to recognize and further examine the influence of culture on psychological functioning across individuals. It will further help researchers appreciate and engage in research of multi-level analysis. With the initial group-level analysis casting critical light on a psychological construct or process, researchers can examine the construct or process from a new perspective and uncover individual-level mechanisms that might otherwise be obscured in general psychology.

Furthermore, attending to individual-level analysis facilitates the study of culture as a dynamic, internalized meaning system that can vary within groups, across individuals, and even within an individual. Between-group differences, even with a large effect size, do not diminish individual variations that can be traced to differences in internalized goals, values, and worldviews (Masamoto, Grissom, & Dinnel, 2001). Individuals play an active role in cultural learning and thus exhibit variations in their cultural attitudes and identification. This, in turn, can result in individual differences in thinking and behavior ( Hermans, 2001 ; Mascolo & Li, 2004 ). For example, we have found that, regardless of cultural background, adults and children who exhibit heightened autonomous self-goals tend to recall more detailed and self-focused memories, compared with those who exhibit heightened relational self-goals ( Wang, 2001a , 2004 , 2006b ). Mothers who endorse more autonomous relative to relational self-goals more frequently engage their young children in elaborate memory conversations to encourage autonomy and detailed remembering of the personal past ( Wang, 2007 ).

The dynamic, multi-level influences of culture are especially salient among individuals living in multicultural worlds. Racial and ethnic minority individuals, in particular, tend to grow up in environments with mixed and often contrasting cultural norms, values, and practices. Their cultural experiences are not likely to be the same as those of people in their heritage culture or those of people from the mainstream culture, but are influenced by an array of interacting social and individual factors ( Chao & Tseng, 2002 ; Coll & Marks, 2009 ; Phinney & Ong, 2007 ; Syed & Azmitia, 2010 ). Apart from individual differences in cultural identification, situational factors can further influence the manifestation of culture within an individual ( Hong et al., 2000 ). For instance, when Asian American college students thought of themselves as being American, they recalled more self-focused memories, whereas when they thought of themselves as being Asian, they recalled more socially oriented memories ( Wang, 2008a ). Similarly, when bilingual Hong Kong Chinese children spoke in Chinese, they endorsed more strongly interdependent values, exhibited greater relational self-goals, and recalled more socially oriented memories, than they did when speaking in English ( Wang et al., 2010 ). These within-group and within-individual processes highlight psychological functioning as a joint product of the individual and the cultural agenda of the community.

Taken together, cultural psychology is more than the typical between-group comparisons. To study cultural influences at multiple levels of analysis and further examine the interaction between the individual, community, and culture will significantly enrich our understanding of the overarching and dynamic role of culture in human behavior.

Assumption 4: Cultural psychology is irrelevant to basic psychological processes

As my stories at the beginning showed, even some seasoned researchers still hold the assumption that culture should not matter for basic psychological processes. I do not intend to spend much space to argue against this erroneous assumption, as numerous theories and abundant studies have shown that human behavior unfolds as a dynamic transaction between an active individual and his changing environment (e.g., Coll & Marks, 2009 ; Hermans, 2001 ; Hong et al., 2000 ; Kitayama & Cohen D., 2007 ; Shweder et al., 1998 ; Sternberg, 2014 ). Many “basic” psychological processes and constructs for which culture is typically assumed to be irrelevant, such as neuronal functioning ( Chiao et al., 2013 ; Park & Huang, 2010 ), sensation ( Levitan, Ren, Woods, Boesveldt, Chan, McKenzie et al., 2014 ; Yeshurun & Sobel, 2010 ), visual illusions ( Kitayama, Duffy, Kawamura, & Larsen, 2003 ; McCauley & Henrich, 2006 ), face processing ( Kelly, Liu, Rodger, Miellet, Ge, & Caldara, 2011 ), and color perception ( Roberson, Davidoff, Davies, & Shapiro, 2005 ; Taylor, Clifford, & Franklin, 2013 ), have been shown to be sensitive to cultural influences. Even simple taste preferences are subject to local community practices rather than being part of human genetic composition as commonly assumed. Whereas Indian medical students show the same pattern of preferences as Westerners do, favoring sweetness and finding concentrated sourness and bitterness to be unpleasant, Indian laborers from the Karnataka region have high preferences for sour and bitter tastes ( Moskowitz, Kumaraiah, Sharma, Jacobs, & Sharma, 1975 ). Another example may further help to put this false assumption to rest.

One of the most important findings in perceptual psychology, as relevant to autobiographical memory, is the phenomenon of event segmentation, an automatic perceptual process that separates “what is happening now” from “what just happened.” Cognitive psychologists Jeffery Zacks, Khena Swallow and colleagues, in extending the early work by Newtson (1976) , have conducted extensive research on this phenomenon ( Swallow, Barch, Head, Maley, Holder, & Zacks, 2011 ; Zacks, Speer, Vettel, & Jacoby, 2006 ; Zacks & Swallow, 2007 ). Data from their behavioral and neuroimaging studies have shown that when presented with a continuous stream of information, just as when one is experiencing an ongoing activity in daily life (e.g., doing laundry), people spontaneously segment the information into discrete meaningful events. These event segments subsequently form the units of encoding and determine what people remember. Event segmentation is therefore a naturally occurring human perceptual mechanism that makes memory for everyday events possible. Because event segmentation is closely related to basic perceptual and conceptual features of the observed activity (e.g., changes in motion) and is relatively unaffected by familiarity and perceived intentionality ( Hard, Tversky & Lang, 2006 ; Kurby & Zacks, 2008 ), it has been generally assumed (albeit implicitly) to be insusceptible to cultural influences.

Yet findings from cultural psychology have suggested otherwise. Research by Nisbett and colleagues has shown that Asians often engage in holistic perceptual processing, attending to relationships and similarities among diverse objects and events, whereas Westerners tend to engage in analytic perceptual processing, focusing on salient features of individual objects and events ( Nisbett & Miyamoto, 2005 ; Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001 ). These distinctive perceptual styles reflect cultural differences in the basic allocation of attention during stimulus processing ( Kitayama & Murata, 2013 ). They are further supported by the characteristics (e.g., complexity, ambiguity) of the physical environments in respective cultures ( Miyamoto, Nisbett, & Masuda, 2006 ) and are sustained by neural mechanisms ( Goh, Hebrank, Sutton, Chee, Sim, & Park, 2013 ; Hedden, Ketay, Aron, Markus, & Gabrieli, 2008 ). Conceivably, the holistic processing of information in Asians may lead them to view different objects and events as interrelated. As a result, they may perceive fewer discrete episodes in a continuous flux of information and thus segment the information into smaller number of meaningful units. In comparison, European Americans, attending to salient properties of individual objects and events, may analytically segment the information into a greater number of units.

This is indeed what we found ( Wang, 2009a ). In one study, Asian and European American college students were presented with a narrative text and were asked to segment the text into discrete events by indicating wherever, in their judgment, one meaningful event ended and another event began. As expected, Asians parsed the text into a smaller number of units than did European Americans. Furthermore, the cultural difference in event segmentation had direct consequences for memory, whereby at an immediate memory test following the reading, Asians recalled fewer event episodes from the text than did European Americans. These findings are significant by suggesting that event segmentation is not a mere product of neural reactions to the perceptual environment, but is shaped by cultural experiences deeply embedded in the environment. They further reveal a perceptual-cognitive mechanism underlying cultural influences on episodic event memory ( Wang, 2009b ).

Thus, just like other attentional and perceptual processes that can be influenced by culture ( Goh et al., 2013 ; Kelly et al., 2011 ; Kitayama & Murata, 2013 ), event segmentation as an automatic perceptual mechanism is also subject to cultural influences. Culturally characteristic environments, beliefs, symbols, artifacts, metaphors, and practices structure the micro and macro contexts of everyday life and further offer varied affordances, requirements, and preferences for distinctive patterns of psychological functioning to unfold (e.g., Coll & Marks, 2009 ; Hermans, 2001 ; Hong et al., 2000 ; Kitayama & Cohen D., 2007 ; Shweder et al., 1998 ; Sternberg, 2014 ). It would be premature to assume any basic psychological processes to be immune to experience and culture. Setting aside the assumption that cultural psychology is irrelevant to basic psychological processes can open the door for researchers to examine human psychological processes and constructs in new perspectives.

Assumption 5: Cultural psychology is only to confirm the generalizability of theories

Cultural psychology is indispensable in confirming the generalizability of theories. Indeed, one of the major contributions of cultural psychology is to allow researchers to test their theories and hypotheses outside of their usual WEIRD participant pool, namely, participants from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic societies ( Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010 ). Needless to say, a participant pool that represents 16% of world’s population and yet constitutes 96% of the samples in psychological research can hardly yield data and theories about human behavior without further verification ( Hardin et al., 2014 ). Thus, when developing and testing theories, researchers should consider including multiple cultural groups in their studies to examine the expected mechanism within each group and independent of culture. This is “an extremely useful corrective” for the tendency to over-generalize their findings among Western psychologists ( Shweder, 2000 , p. 212). The research I described earlier about the relation of emotion knowledge to autobiographical memory ( Wang, 2008b , Wang et al., 2006 ) is an example in which we tested our theory simultaneously across different cultural groups and found the expected effect regardless of culture. Furthermore, including diverse cultural groups when developing and testing theories can help researchers avoid the mistake of treating WEIRD samples as the default or baseline when their response patterns are in fact often extreme and in need of explanation ( Apfelbaum et al., 2014 ). Not only can studies exclusively focus on non-WEIRD samples, but also should treat WEIRD samples, if included, as one of the conditions rather than a “control” group.

Yet to assume that confirming the generalizability of theories is the only purpose of cultural psychology can seriously curtail research efforts and result in the loss of potentially great discoveries. To cultural psychologists, the goal is not just to confirm an existing theory so that the researcher can claim that his theory holds for all human beings across cultures ( Shweder, 2000 ). When that happens, it is great and one can celebrate. However, not all theories developed based on WEIRD populations can prove valid across cultures. When one fails to confirm a theory in non-WEIRD populations, that is when things get more interesting, to cultural psychologists at least. Let me use an example to put this into perspective.

In the general developmental literature, it has been consistently shown that, among middle-class Western children, emotion knowledge is closely associated with a wide range of positive outcomes, including social competence, academic performance, and psychological adjustment (for a review, see Trentacosta & Fine, 2010 ). Children with higher levels of emotion knowledge are more socially competent and exhibit lower levels of internalizing problems (e.g., Denham, Blair, DeMulder, Levitas, Sawyer, Auerbach-Major, & Queenan, 2003 ; Fine, Izard, Mostow, Trentacosta, & Ackerman, 2003 ). These findings are consistent with the notion in Western psychology: Emotion is a critical component of personal experience, an indication of one’s true self, and a determinant of behavior. Consequently, being able to anticipate and understand emotional signals and their causes and consequences is necessary for maintaining smooth social transactions and achieving emotion regulation competencies ( Halberstadt, & Lozada, 2011 ; Markus & Kitayama, 1991 ; Wang, 2006c ). However, for people from interdependently oriented societies, norms, roles, and obligations are often more important determinants of behavior than one’s psychological states and emotions ( Halberstadt, & Lozada, 2011 ; Markus & Kitayama, 1991 ). Emotion knowledge is not critical for one’s understanding of the self, others, or social situations and therefore may be irrelevant to social adjustment. In fact, advanced emotion knowledge in this cultural context may suggest an excessive focus on inner psychological states, which makes one at odds with cultural norms and expectations and may further result in negative outcomes.

In two longitudinal studies of European American and Chinese immigrant children in the US, we have obtained just these results ( Doan & Wang, under review ; Yang & Wang, 2015 ). In one study, for example, we assessed children’s emotion knowledge at 3.5 years of age, using a task to elicit their understanding of situational antecedents of discrete emotions ( Doan & Wang, under review ). Children’s mothers reported on the children’s internalizing problems (including anxiety, depression, somatization) using the Behavior Assessment System Children (BASC; Reynolds & Kamphaus, 2002 ) when children were 7 years of age. After taking into account all group and individual variables (e.g., gender, verbal skills), there was a significant interaction between emotion knowledge and culture in predicting children’s internalizing problems. Consistent with the general findings with Western children ( Trentacosta & Fine, 2010 ), advanced emotion knowledge at the preschool age was associated with decreased internalizing problems for European American children more than 3 years later. However, advanced emotion knowledge was associated with increased internalizing problems for Chinese immigrant children.

Thus, the theory about the positive effects of emotion knowledge on social adjustment and well-being is not confirmed in our Chinese samples. Instead, culture plays a moderating role by shaping the meaning and importance of emotion knowledge and in turn, its implications for well-being. Emotional intelligence is construed differently and therefore serves varied functions in different cultures ( Chen, Liu, Ellis, & Zarbatany, 2016 ). These findings challenge the current theory by showing that it is the interaction between individual social-cognitive skills and cultural expectations that ultimately determines developmental outcomes. The lack of generalizability of a theory across cultures can provide researchers with unique opportunities to revise and extend the theory and further contribute to the general understanding of human behavior. Cultural psychology plays a critical role in not only the confirmation but also, equally if not more important, the modification and enrichment of existing theories.

Yet, in an even more exciting situation, cultural psychology allows us to uncover mechanisms that are unique to non-Western populations, mechanisms that would be difficult, if not impossible, to detect in research with WEIRD samples. An example is called for here. It has been a well-established finding in middle-class Western families that parental discussion of mental states with young children and children’s own references to mental states in their independent narratives are associated with advanced theory of mind (e.g., Ruffman, Slade, & Crowe, 2002 ; Symons, 2004 ; Symons, Fossum, & Collins, 2006 ). Yet we have observed in our research with Chinese and Chinese Americans samples that, in line with their cultural emphasis on being reticent about subjective experiences ( Wang, 2013 ), Chinese mothers do not frequently discuss mental states with their preschoolers ( Wang, 2001b ; Wang & Fivush, 2005 ), and that Chinese youngsters themselves do not frequently talk about mental states when recounting their experiences ( Han, Leichtman, & Wang, 1998 ; Wang, 2004 ). On the other hand, compared with their Western counterparts, Chinese mothers and children more frequently talk about other people, discussing their behaviors, actions and roles or merely referring to their presence ( Han et al., 1998 ; Wang, 2001b , 2004 ). Given the importance of significant others and social relations in defining the personhood in Chinese culture ( Markus & Kitayama, 1991 ; Shweder et al., 1998 ; Wang, 2013 ), would such talk about others, not necessarily about their mental states but mere references to them, constitute a unique pathway for Chinese children’s development of theory of mind? If so, this practice would seem to be an adaptive strategy that facilities children’s sociocognitive skills on the one hand and conforms cultural expectations for reticence about subjective states on the other.

We set out to test this hypothesis ( Lu, Su, & Wang, 2008 , study 1). First, we followed a group of 3- to 4-year-old Chinese children for a year. We tested their theory of mind using false-belief tasks and interviewed them for their autobiographical memory. The preschool age is a critical time when children come to pass false-belief tasks (e.g., Hogrefe, Wimmer, & Perner, 1986 ; Ruffman et al., 2002 ) and rapidly develop autobiographical memory skills ( Nelson & Fivush, 2004 ). Understandably, some children failed the false-belief tasks at the initial time point. One year later, we tested the children again on their theory of mind and autobiographical memory to examine whether the increase in talking about others in autobiographical memory would contribute to children’s understanding of false beliefs. We found that among the children who initially failed the false-belief tasks, only those who increased references to others in their memories between the two time points were able to succeed in the tasks a year later. Those who did not increase other-references in their memories continued to fail the tasks. Interestingly, whether the children were able to pass the false-belief tasks was unrelated to their references to mental states in their memories, in contrast to the general findings with Western children (e.g., Ruffman et al., 2002 ; Symons, 2004 ; Symons et al., 2006 ).

In a follow-up study, we used a training paradigm directly to examine whether attending to others facilitates the development of theory of mind in Chinese children ( Lu et al., 2008 , study 2). Preschool children received four short story-telling sessions within a period of two weeks. In each session, a researcher first told children a story and then asked children questions that embedded the experimental manipulation. For children in the experimental group, the researcher asked questions that directed the children’s attention to the characters in the story, such as who were present in the story and what they did. For children in the control group, the researcher asked questions about the physical features and objects in the story, such as where the story took place and what colors the objects were. Children’s theory of mind was tested before and after the sessions. We found that after merely 2 weeks’ training, children in the experimental group performed substantially better in the posttest than in the pretest, whereas children in the control group showed no improvement in their theory-of-mind performance. Training children to attend to story characters’ roles and behaviors thus facilitated the children’s theory of mind. This training procedure closely resembles the children’s everyday experience in a cultural context that emphasizes attending to others while devaluing explicit talk about inner thoughts and desires.

Thus, we are able to identify an important pathway to the development of theory of mind in Children preschoolers. Had we mindlessly committed ourselves to the “common wisdom” that talking about the mind facilitates the understanding of mind, had we not wondered how Chinese children develop theory of mind given their limited exposure to explicit discussion about internal states, had we not considered the cultural conditions that shape the form, content, and function of communication, and had we not worked with Chinese children and families in the first place, we would not have found that talking about others constitutes a mechanism for the development of theory of mind. Setting aside the assumption that cultural psychology is only to confirm the generalizability of theories will allow researchers to look beyond exiting paradigms and uncover new mechanisms.

Integrating Cultural Psychology in Research

“Cultural psychology is not just nice,” as Robert Sternberg puts it ( 2014 , p. 208). It is necessary for a true psychological science that can self-reflect and reduce and eliminate culture-bound biases and preconceptions, a true psychological science that constructs a universal system of knowledge about human behavior not on a local set of laws and principles but diverse cultural experiences. Without cultural psychology, we would be blindfolded to think that we are seeking the truth about human nature but in fact we are failing to fully understand even basic processes like perceptual analysis and basic constructs like emotional intelligence. In many ways, cultural psychology functions as a mirror that compels psychologists to reflect on their work and critically evaluate their theories and findings, to go beyond the surface and convenience to question what truly matters, and to embrace the complexity of human experiences with an open mind and open heart.

Our 20 years of research on social cognition and development, although with its limits in the methodological scope of the subject matters and the range of cultural groups involved, has highlighted five important lessons. These lessons allow us to see through some of the most condescending assumptions and myths about cultural psychology, and to appreciate the pivotal role of cultural psychology in building a true psychological science.

Lesson 1: Cultural psychology is not just about finding group differences; it goes beyond “Different cultures are different” and explains, predicts, and even eliminates group differences.

Lesson 2: Cultural psychology cares about not only group differences but also group similarities and, in so doing, allows researchers to examine the interplay between cultural variables and biological-cognitive constraints in determining behavioral outcomes.

Lesson 3: Cultural psychology simultaneously involves multiple levels of analysis, in which it uncovers underlying individual-level mechanisms that give rise to group differences and highlights the active role of individuals in shaping their cultural experiences.

Lesson 4: Cultural psychology is relevant to basic psychological processes and can provide critical information about experiential correlates underlying the processes.

Lesson 5: Cultural psychology is not only to confirm the generalizability of theories across cultural groups, but also to examine the variability of commonly assumed “universal” laws and principles in non-Western cultural contexts and to further discover unique psychological mechanisms in these contexts.

Yet simply acknowledging the importance of culture and cultural psychology is not enough. Neither is it enough to simply acknowledge the limitations of one’s findings due to a focus on WEIRD samples. In our increasingly multicultural world, it is a pressing, necessary and pragmatic task for us all to actively incorporate cultural psychology into our research programs. For seasoned researchers and students in training alike, there are some important steps to take:

• Keep an open mind . No matter whether we are studying basic neural-cognitive processes or complex social behaviors, stay open to the idea that these processes and behaviors may be subject to cultural influences.
• Do our homework . Familiarize ourselves with existing cultural theories and empirical data relevant to the psychological process or construct of our interest. There are many excellent accessible resources (e.g., Heine, 2016 ) for us to learn basic principles and methods of cultural psychology.
• Embrace our multicultural samples . Multicultural, multiethnic samples have become increasingly common in our typical Psych 101 participant pools. Welcome them with open arms. Encourage and actively recruit participants from non-Western cultures in our research and ensure sufficient sample sizes.
• Take culture into account . Systematically collect participants’ demographic information, including their cultural and ethnic backgrounds, as well as gender, social-economic status, religion, geographical region and other information pertinent to our research questions.
• Appreciate “incidental” findings . Remain sensitive and attuned to group variations that may unexpectedly emerge in our multicultural samples. Do not discard them but stay intellectually curious. Follow up on the earlier observations with high-powered studies.
• Conduct hypothesis-based research . Using our knowledge in cultural psychology, develop hypothesis-based research to systematically investigate, confirm, and further explain the observed group variations.
• Do not settle . Do not stop at just finding differences between cultural groups. If we suspect that certain cultural variables may play a role, find or develop appropriate measures for these variables and include them in the research design.
• Consider nature X nurture . Reflect on cultural differences and similarities in earlier observations. Examine the interaction between culturally variant and invariant factors in shaping human cognition and behavior.
• Be a cultural methodologist . Take advantage of the unique methodological tools of cultural psychology. Examine the psychological construct of our interest at both group and individual levels and understand the dynamic relations across different levels of analysis.
• Study culture within the person . Understand culture as not only shared norms, values, and practices within a group, but also internalized norms, values, and practices within an individual. Measure individuals’ cultural attitudes and identification and test the effects on psychological processes and functions.
• Build theories . Test our theories in diverse cultural groups. Continue our pursuit even when the generalizability is not confirmed, so as to enrich our research programs and guide them to previously unthought-of new directions.

When we set aside any presumptions, we can better see that cultural psychology represents a unique theoretical perspective equipped with unique methods. It provides us with additional tools to understand human behavior and psychological processes. It helps us recognize, reduce, and eliminate biases, uncover new mechanisms and develop new theories, and understand human cognition and behavior as a constructive process that takes place in the interaction between a person and her residing environment. And when we set aside any presumptions, we can come to strategically evaluate and plan the integration of cultural psychology into our research programs.

We all should and can be cultural psychologists.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Robert Sternberg, Moin Syed, and anonymous reviewers for helpful critiques and suggestions on earlier versions of this article. This article is partly based upon work supported by Grant BCS-0721171 from the National Science Foundation, Grant R01-MH64661 from the National Institute of Mental Health, and Hatch Grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to the author.

1 Western-Educated-Industrialized-Rich-Democratic ( Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010 ).

• Addis DR, Wong AT, Schacter DL. Age-related changes in the episodic simulation of future events. Psychological Science. 2008; 19 :33–41. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02043.x. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Apfelbaum EP, Phillips KW, Richeson JA. Rethinking the baseline in diversity research: Should we be explaining the effects of homogeneity? Perspectives on Psychological Science. 2014; 9 :235–244. doi: 10.1177/1745691614527466. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Atance CM. Future thinking in young children. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 2008; 17 :295–298. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8721.2008.00593.x. [ Google Scholar ]
• Chiao JY, Cheon BK, Pornpattananangkul N, Mrazek AJ, Blizinsky KD. Cultural Neuroscience: Progress and Promise. Psychological Inquiry. 2013; 24 (1):1–19. doi:10.1080/1047840X.2013.752715. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Chao RK. Chinese and European American cultural models of the self reflected in mothers’ childrearing beliefs. Ethos. 1995; 23 (3):328–354. [ Google Scholar ]
• Chao RK, Tseng V. Parenting of Asians. In: Bornstein MH, editor. Handbook of parenting: Vol. 4, Social conditions and applied parenting. 2nd ed. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; Mahwah, NJ: 2002. pp. 59–93. [ Google Scholar ]
• Chen X, Liu J, Ellis W, Zarbatany L. Social sensitivity and adjustment in Chinese and Canadian children. Child Development. 2016 doi: 10.1111/cdev.12514. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Cheung FM. Mainstreaming culture in psychology. American Psychologist. 2012; 67 (8):721–730. doi:10.1037/a0029876. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Cohen AB. Many forms of culture. American Psychologist. 2009; 64 (3):194–204. doi:10.1037/a0015308. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Coll CG, Marks AK. Immigrant stories: Ethnicity and academics in middle childhood. Oxford University Press; Oxford: 2009. [ Google Scholar ]
• Conway MA, Bekerian DA. Situational knowledge and emotions. Cognition and Emotion. 1987; 1 (2):145–191. [ Google Scholar ]
• Conway MA, Pleydell-Pearce CW. The construction of autobiographical memories in the self-memory system. Psychological Review. 2000; 107 (2):261–288. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Damon W. Social and personality development. Norton; New York: 1983. [ Google Scholar ]
• Deci EL, Ryan RM. The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry. 2000; 11 (4):227–268. [ Google Scholar ]
• Denham SA, Blair KA, DeMulder E, Levitas J, Sawyer K, Auerbach-Major S, Queenan P. Preschool emotional competence: Pathway to social competence. Child Development. 2003; 74 (1):238–256. doi:10.1111/1467-8624.00533. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Doan SN, Wang Q. Maternal discussions of mental states and behaviors: Relations to emotion situation knowledge in European American and immigrant Chinese children. Child Development. 2010; 81 :1490–1503. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01487.x. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Doan SN, Wang Q. Children’s Emotion Knowledge and Adjustment: The Moderating Role of Culture. under review. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gelfand MJ, Diener E, editors. Culture and Psychological Science: Special Section. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 2010; 5 (4):390–493. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Goh JS, Hebrank AC, Sutton BP, Chee ML, Sim SY, Park DC. Culture-related differences in default network activity during visuo-spatial judgments. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. 2013; 8 (2):134–142. doi:10.1093/scan/nsr077. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gottman J. Raising an emotionally intelligent child. Fireside; New York: 1998. [ Google Scholar ]
• Greenfield PM. The changing psychology of culture from 1800 through 2000. Psychological Science. 2013; 24 :1722–1731. doi:10.1177/0956797613479387. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Fine SE, Izard CE, Mostow AJ, Trentacosta CJ, Ackerman BP. First grade emotion knowledge as a predictor of fifth grade self-reported internalizing behaviors in children from economically disadvantaged families. Development and Psychopathology. 2003; 15 (2):331–342. doi:10.1017/S095457940300018X. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Freeman D. Initiating Change in Highland Ethiopia: Causes and Consequences of Cultural Transformation. Cambridge University Press; Cambridge: 2002. [ Google Scholar ]
• Frijda NH. The emotions. Cambridge University Press; NY: 1986. [ Google Scholar ]
• Halberstadt AG, Lozada FL. Emotion development in infancy through the lens of culture. Emotion Review. 2011; 3 :158–168. doi:10.1177/1754073910387946. [ Google Scholar ]
• Han JJ, Leichtman MD, Wang Q. Autobiographical memory in Korean, Chinese, and American children. Developmental Psychology. 1998; 34 (4):701–713. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.34.4.701. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hard BM, Tversky B, Lang DS. Making sense of abstract events: Building event schemas. Memory & Cognition. 2006; 34 (6):1221–1235. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hardin EE, Robitschek C, Flores LY, Navarro RL, Ashton MW. The cultural lens approach to evaluating cultural validity of psychological theory. American Psychologist. 2014; 69 (7):656–668. doi:10.1037/a0036532. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hedden T, Ketay S, Aron A, Markus HR, Gabrieli JE. Cultural influences on neural substrates of attentional control. Psychological Science. 2008; 19 (1):12–17. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02038.x. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Heine SJ. Cultural Psychology. 3rd ed W. W. Norton; New York, NY: 2016. [ Google Scholar ]
• Henrich J, Heine SJ, Norenzayan A. The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 2010; 33 :61–135. doi:10.1017/S0140525X0999152X. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hermans HM. The dialogical self: Toward a theory of personal and cultural positioning. Culture & Psychology. 2001; 7 (3):243–281. doi:10.1177/1354067X0173001. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hogrefe GJ, Wimmer H, Perner J. Ignorance versus false belief: A developmental lag in attribution of epistemic states. Child Development. 1986; 57 :567–582. doi:10.2307/1130337. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hong Y, Morris MW, Chiu C, Benet-Martínez V. Multicultural minds: A dynamic constructivist approach to culture and cognition. American Psychologist. 2000; 55 (7):709–720. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.55.7.709. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hudson JA. The development of future time concepts through mother-child conversation. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly. 2006; 52 :70–95. doi:10.1353/mpq.2006.0005. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kelly DJ, Liu S, Rodger H, Miellet S, Ge L, Caldara R. Developing cultural differences in face processing. Developmental Science. 2011; 14 (5):1176–1184. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2011.01067.x. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kim HS, Sasaki JY. Emotion regulation: The interplay of culture and genes. Social and Personality Psychology Compass. 2012; 6 (12):865–877. doi:10.1111/spc3.12003. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kitayama S, Cohen D, editors. Handbook of cultural psychology. Guilford Publications; New York, NY: 2007. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kitayama S, Conway LI, Pietromonaco PR, Park H, Plaut VC. Ethos of independence across regions in the United States: The production-adoption model of cultural change. American Psychologist. 2010; 65 (6):559–574. doi:10.1037/a0020277. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kitayama S, Duffy S, Kawamura T, Larsen JT. Perceiving an object and its context in different cultures: A cultural look at new look. Psychological Science. 2003; 14 (3):201–206. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kitayama S, King A, Yoon C, Tompson S, Huff S, Liberzon I. The dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4) moderates cultural difference in independent versus interdependent social orientation. Psychological Science. 2014; 25 (6):1169–1177. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kitayama S, Murata A. Culture modulates perceptual attention: An event-related potential study. Social Cognition. 2013; 31 (6):758–769. doi:10.1521/soco.2013.31.6.758. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kurby CA, Zacks JM. Segmentation in the perception and memory of events. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 2008; 12 (2):72–79. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lalonde RN, Cila J, Lou E, Cribbie RA. Are we really that different from each other? The difficulties of focusing on similarities in cross-cultural research. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology. 2015; 21 (4):525–534. doi:10.1037/pac0000134. [ Google Scholar ]
• Levine B, Svoboda E, Hay JF, Winocur G, Moscovitch M. Aging and autobiographical memory: Dissociating episodic from semantic retrieval. Psychology and Aging. 2002; 17 :677–689. doi:10.1037/0882-7974.17.4.677. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Levitan CA, Ren J, Woods AT, Boesveldt S, Chan JS, McKenzie KJ, et al. Cross-cultural color-odor associations. PLoS ONE. 2014; 9 (7):e101651. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0101651. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lu H, Su Y, Wang Q. Talking about others facilitates theory of mind in Chinese preschoolers. Developmental Psychology. 2008; 44 (6):1726–1736. doi:10.1037/a0013074. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Luo S, Ma Y, Liu Y, Li B, Wang C, Shi Z, Han S. Interaction between oxytocin receptor polymorphism and interdependent culture values on human empathy. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. 2015; 10 (9):1273–1281. doi:10.1093/scan/nsv019. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Mao J, Shen Y. Cultural identity change in expatriates: A social network perspective. Human Relations. 2015; 68 (10):1533–1556. doi:10.1177/0018726714561699. [ Google Scholar ]
• Markus HR. Pride, prejudice, and ambivalence: Toward a unified theory of race and ethnicity. American Psychologist. 2008; 63 (8):651–670. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.63.8.651. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Markus HR, Kitayama S. Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review. 1991; 98 (2):224–253. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.98.2.224. [ Google Scholar ]
• Mascolo ME, Li J, editors. Culture and developing selves: Beyond dichotomization. Jossey-Bass; San Francisco, CA, US: 2004. [ Google Scholar ]
• Matsumoto D, Grissom RJ, Dinnel DL. Do between-culture differences really mean that people are different? A look at some measures of cultural effect size. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. 2001; 32 (4):478–490. doi: 10.1177/0022022101032004007. [ Google Scholar ]
• McCauley RN, Henrich J. Susceptibility to the Müller-Lyer Illusion, Theory-Neutral Observation, and the Diachronic Penetrability of the Visual Input System. Philosophical Psychology. 2006; 19 (1):79–101. doi:10.1080/09515080500462347. [ Google Scholar ]
• McGaugh JL. Memory and emotion: The making of lasting memories. Columbia University Press; New York, NY: 2003. [ Google Scholar ]
• Miyamoto Y, Nisbett RE, Masuda T. Culture and the physical environment: Holistic versus analytic perceptual affordances. Psychological Science. 2006; 17 :113–119. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01673.x. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Moskowitz HW, Kumaraiah V, Sharma KN, Jacobs HL, Sharma SD. Cross-cultural differences in simple taste preferences. Science. 1975; 190 (4220):1217–1218. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.proxy.library.cornell.edu/stable/1742078 . [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Nelson K, Fivush R. The emergence of autobiographical memory: A social cultural developmental theory. Psychological Review. 2004; 111 :486–511. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.111.2.486. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Newtson D. Foundations of attributions: The perception of ongoing behavior. In: Harvey JH, Ickes WJ, Kidd RF, editors. New directions in attribution research. Erlbaum; Hillsdale, New Jersey: 1976. pp. 223–248. [ Google Scholar ]
• Nisbett RE, Miyamoto Y. The influence of culture: Holistic versus analytic perception. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 2005; 9 :467–473. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2005.08.004. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Nisbett RE, Peng K, Choi I, Norenzayan A. Culture and systems of thought: Holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychological Review. 2001; 108 (2):291–310. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.108.2.291. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Park DC, Huang C-M. Culture Wires the Brain: A Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 2010; 5 (4):391–400. doi: 10.1177/1745691610374591. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Peterson C, Wang Q, Hou Y. “When I was little”: Childhood recollections in Chinese and European Canadian grade-school children. Child Development. 2009; 80 (2):506–518. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01275.x. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Phinney JS, Ong AD. Conceptualization and measurement of ethnic identity: Current status and future directions. Journal Of Counseling Psychology. 2007; 54 (3):271–281. doi:10.1037/0022-0167.54.3.271. [ Google Scholar ]
• Putnam RD. Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. Simon & Schuster; New York, NY: 2000. [ Google Scholar ]
• Qiu L, Lin H, Leung AK. Cultural differences and switching of in-group sharing behavior between an American (Facebook) and a Chinese (Renren) social networking site. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. 2013; 44 (1):106–121. doi:10.1177/0022022111434597. [ Google Scholar ]
• Reynolds CR, Kamphaus RW. The clinician’s guide to the Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC) Guilford Press; New York, NY, US: 2002. [ Google Scholar ]
• Roberson D, Davidoff J, Davies I, Shapiro LR. Color categories: Evidence for the cultural relativity hypothesis. Cognitive Psychology. 2005; 50 :378–441. doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2004.10.001. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ruffman T, Slade L, Crowe E. The relation between children’s and mothers’ mental state language and theory-of-mind understanding. Child Development. 2002; 73 :734–751. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Shweder RA. The psychology of practice and the practice of the three psychologies. Asian Journal of Social Psychology. 2000; 3 :207–222. doi: 10.1111/1467-839X.00065. [ Google Scholar ]
• Shweder RA, Goodnow J, Hatano G, LeVine RA, Markus H, Miller P. The cultural psychology of development: One mind, many mentalities. In: Damon W, Lerner RM, editors. Handbook of child psychology, Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development. 5th ed. Wiley & Sons; New York, NY: 1998. pp. 865–937. [ Google Scholar ]
• Sternberg RJ. Culture and intelligence. American Psychologist. 2004; 59 (5):325–338. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.59.5.325. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sternberg RJ. The development of adaptive competence: Why cultural psychology is necessary and not just nice. Developmental Review. 2014; 34 :208–224. doi:10.1016/j.dr.2014.05.004. [ Google Scholar ]
• Suddendorf T. Linking yesterday and tomorrow: Preschoolers’ ability to report temporally displaced events. British Journal of Developmental Psychology. 2010; 28 :491–498. doi:10.1348/026151009X479169. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Swallow KM, Barch DM, Head D, Maley CJ, Holder D, Zacks JM. Changes in events alter how people remember recent information. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 2011; 23 (5):1052–1064. doi:10.1162/jocn.2010.21524. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Syed M, Azmitia M. Narrative and ethnic identity exploration: A longitudinal account of emerging adults’ ethnicity-related experiences. Developmental Psychology. 2010; 46 (1):208–219. doi:10.1037/a0017825. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Symons D. Mental state discourse, theory of mind, and the internalization of self-other understanding. Developmental Review. 2004; 24 :159–188. doi:10.1016/j.dr.2004.03.001. [ Google Scholar ]
• Symons DK, Fossum KM, Collins K. A longitudinal study of belief and desire state discourse during mother-child play and later false belief understanding. Social Development. 2006; 15 :676–691. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9507.2006.00364.x. [ Google Scholar ]
• Talhelm T, Zhang X, Oishi S, Shimin C, Duan D, Lan X, Kitayama S. Large-scale psychological differences within China explained by rice versus wheat agriculture. Science. 2014; 344 :603–608. doi:10.1126/science.1246850. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Taylor C, Clifford A, Franklin A. Color preferences are not universal. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 2013; 142 (4):1015–1027. doi:10.1037/a0030273. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Triandis HC. Culture and Social Behavior. McGraw-Hill; Boulder, CO: 1994. [ Google Scholar ]
• Trentacosta CJ, Fine SE. Emotion knowledge, social competence, and behavior problems in childhood and adolescence: A meta-analytic review. Social Development. 2010; 19 (1):1–29. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9507.2009.00543.x. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Trzesniewski KH, Donnellan MB. Rethinking ‘Generation Me’: A study of cohort effects from 1976-2006. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 2010; 5 (1):58–75. doi:10.1177/1745691609356789. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Twenge JM, Campbell WK, Freeman EC. Generational differences in young adults’ life goals, concern for others, and civic orientation, 1966-2009. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2012; 102 :1045–1062. doi:10.1037/a0027408. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang Q. Cultural effects on adults’ earliest childhood recollection and self-description: Implications for the relation between memory and the self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2001a; 81 :220–233. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.81.2.220. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang Q. ‘Did you have fun?’ American and Chinese mother-child conversations about shared emotional experiences. Cognitive Development. 2001b; 16 (2):693–715. doi:10.1016/S0885-2014(01)00055-7. [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang Q. Emotion situation knowledge in American and Chinese preschool children and adults. Cognition & Emotion. 2003; 17 (5):725–746. doi:10.1080/02699930302285. [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang Q. The emergence of cultural self-constructs: Autobiographical memory and self-description in European American and Chinese children. Developmental Psychology. 2004; 40 :3–15. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.40.1.3. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang Q. Earliest recollections of self and others in European American and Taiwanese young adults. Psychological Science. 2006a; 17 (8):708–714. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8721.2006.00432.x. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang Q. Relations of maternal style and child self-concept to autobiographical memories in Chinese, Chinese immigrant, and European American 3-year-olds. Child Development. 2006b; 77 (6):1794–1809. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00974.x. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang Q. Developing emotion knowledge in cultural contexts. International Journal of Behavioral Development. 2006c; 30 (Suppl. 1):8–12. [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang Q. ‘Remember when you got the big, big bulldozer?’ Mother-child reminiscing over time and across cultures. Social Cognition. 2007; 25 (4):455–471. doi:10.1521/soco.2007.25.4.455. [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang Q. Being American, being Asian: The bicultural self and autobiographical memory in Asian Americans. Cognition. 2008a; 107 :743–751. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2007.08.005. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang Q. Emotion knowledge and autobiographical memory across the preschool years: A cross-cultural longitudinal investigation. Cognition. 2008b; 108 :117–135. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2008.02.002. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang Q. Are Asians forgetful? Perception, retention, and recall in episodic remembering. Cognition. 2009a; 111 (1):123–131. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2009.01.004. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang Q. Once upon a time: Explaining cultural differences in episodic specificity. Social and Personality Psychology Compass. 2009b; 3 (4):413–432. doi:10.1111/j.1751-9004.2009.00182.x. [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang Q. The autobiographical self in time and culture. Oxford University Press; New York, NY: 2013. DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199737833.001.0001. [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang Q, Fivush R. Mother-child conversations of emotionally salient events: Exploring the functions of emotional reminiscing in European American and Chinese Families. Social Development. 2005; 14 (3):473–495. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9507.2005.00312.x. [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang Q, Capous D, Koh JBK, Hou Y. Past and future episodic thinking in middle childhood. Journal of Cognition and Development. 2014; 15 (4):625–643. doi:10.1080/15248372.2013.784977. [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang Q, Conway MA. The stories we keep: Autobiographical memory in American and Chinese middle-aged adults. Journal of Personality. 2004; 72 (5):911–938. doi: 10.1111/j.0022-3506.2004.00285.x. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang Q, Conway MA. Autobiographical memory, self, and culture. In: Nilsson L-G, Ohta N, editors. Memory and society: Psychological perspectives. Psychology Press; New York, NY: 2006. pp. 9–27. [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang Q, Hou Y, Tang H, Wiprovnick A. Traveling backward and forward in time: Culture and gender in the episodic specificity of past and future events. Memory. 2011; 19 (1):103–109. doi:10.1080/09658211.2010.537279. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang Q, Hutt R, Kulkofsky S, McDermott M, Wei R. Emotion situation knowledge and autobiographical memory in Chinese, immigrant Chinese, and European American 3-year-olds. Journal of Cognition and Development. 2006; 7 (1):95–118. doi:10.1207/s15327647jcd0701_5. [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang Q, Leichtman MD, Davies KI. Sharing memories and telling stories: American and Chinese mothers and their 3-year-olds. Memory. 2000; 8 (3):159–178. doi:10.1080/096582100387588. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang Q, Ross M. What we remember and what we tell: The effects of culture and self-priming on memory representations and narratives. Memory. 2005; 13 (6):594–606. doi:10.1080/09658210444000223. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang Q, Shao Y, Li YJ. “My way or Mom’s way?” The bilingual and bicultural self in Hong Kong Chinese children and adolescents. Child Development. 2010; 81 (2):555–567. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01415.x. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Yang Y, Wang Q. The relation of emotion knowledge to coping in European American and Chinese immigrant children. Journal of Child and Family Studies. 2015 [ Google Scholar ]
• Yeshurun Y, Sobel N. An odor is not worth a thousand words: From multidimensional odors to unidimensional odor objects. Annual Review of Psychology. 2010; 61 :219–241. doi: 10.1146/annurev.psych.60.110707.163639. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Zacks JM, Speer NK, Vettel JM, Jacoby LL. Event understanding and memory in healthy aging and dementia of the Alzheimer type. Psychology & Aging. 2006; 21 :466–482. doi:10.1037/0882-7974.21.3.466. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Zacks JM, Swallow KM. Event segmentation. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 2007; 16 (2):80–84. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]

Cultural Psychology

• Living reference work entry
• Later version available View entry history
• First Online: 25 December 2021
• Cite this living reference work entry

• Luca Tateo   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3207-6312 5 ,
• Giuseppina Marsico   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8683-2814 6 , 7 &
• Jaan Valsiner 8  

Part of the book series: Springer International Handbooks of Education ((SIHE))

103 Accesses

2 Citations

The chapter presents an overview and the historical background of what can be considered the family of “cultural psychologies,” that is, those approaches that, since the 1990s, have brought back the cultural context and the meaning-making at the center of psychological theories. First, the core principles of cultural psychology are defined. The historical roots and main authors are briefly presented, reconstructing the historical trajectory of an apparently new perspective with solid historical bases. Then, the current scholarly global landscape is sketched. The ideal curriculum of cultural psychology program is presented in terms of learning goals and descriptors. Afterward, selected instructional approaches are illuminated with examples of pedagogical scenarios that an instructor can implement and easily adapt to the different learning contexts. As a matter of conclusion, the challenges that cultural psychology is launching to the current curricula in psychology are presented. We emphasize the potentialities of cultural psychology to fertilize the different sub-areas of psychological sciences by introducing a perspective of integral humanism, that is, to re-appreciate the rich educational background that characterized psychology since its beginnings.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

Allport, G. W. (1937). Personality: A psychological interpretation . New York, NY: Holt.

Google Scholar  

Anandalakshmi, S. (1974). How independent is the independent variable? Problems and perspectives form New Delhi. In J. L. M. Dawson & W. J. Lonner (Eds.), Readings in cross-cultural psychology (pp. 79–89). Hong Kong, China: Hong Kong University Press.

Bhatia, S. (2018). Decolonizing psychology . New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Boesch, E. E. (1991). Symbolic action theory and cultural psychology . Berlin, Germany: Springer-Verlag Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-84497-3

Book   Google Scholar  

Brown, J. S., Heath, C., & Pea, R. (1999). Perspectives on activity theory . New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Bruner, J. (2012). What psychology should study. International Journal of Educational Psychology, 1 (1), 5–13.

Bruner, J. (2020). The culture of education . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Bruner, J. S. (1983). In search of mind: Essays in autobiography . New York, NY: Harper and Row.

Clegg, J. W., & Salgado, J. (2011). From Bakhtinian theory to a dialogical psychology. Culture & Psychology, 17 (4), 520–533.

Article   Google Scholar  

Cohen, D., & Kitayama, S. (Eds.). (2019). Handbook of cultural psychology . New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

Cole, M. (1996). Cultural psychology: A once and future discipline . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Cornejo, C., Marsico, G., & Valsiner, J. (Eds.). (2018). I activate you to affect me . Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishers.

Diriwächter, R. (2004). Völkerpsychologie: The synthesis that never was. Culture & Psychology, 10 (1), 85–109. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067X04040930

Duveen, G. (1998). The psychosocial production of ideas: Social representations and psychologic. Culture & Psychology, 4 (4), 455–472.

Gonzalez Rey, F. L. (2015). Human motivation in question: Discussing emotions, motives, and subjectivity from a cultural-historical standpoint. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 45 (4), 419–439.

Heine, S. J. (2020). Cultural psychology: Fourth international student edition . New York, NY: WW Norton & Company.

Heiphetz, L., & Oishi, S. (2021). Viewing development through the lens of culture: Integrating developmental and cultural psychology to better understand cognition and behavior. Perspectives on Psychological Science . Online first, July 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620980725

Ho, D. Y. (2019). Rewriting cultural psychology: Transcend your ethnic roots and redefine your identity . Irvine, CA/Boca Raton, FL: BrownWalker Press.

Jahoda, G. (1993). Crossroads between culture and mind: Continuities and change in theories of human nature . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Klempe, S. H. (2021). Sound and reason . New York: Palgrave.

Kluckhohn, C., Murray, H. A., & Schneider, D. M. (Eds.). (1948). Personality in nature, society, and culture (2nd ed. Rev.). New York: Knopf.

Milgram, S., Sabini, J. E., & Silver, M. E. (1992). The individual in a social world: Essays and experiments . New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Book Company.

Piechocinska, B. (2005). Physics from wholeness: Dynamical totality as a conceptual foundation for physical theories (PhD dissertation, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis). Retrieved from http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-5915

Sacks, O. (1995). An anthropologist from Mars: Seven paradoxical tales . London, UK: Picador.

Sammut, G. E., Andreouli, E. E., Gaskell, G. E., & Valsiner, J. E. (2015). The Cambridge handbook of social representations . Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

Shweder, R. A. (1991). Thinking through cultures: Expeditions in cultural psychology . Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.

Tateo, L. (2015). Giambattista Vico and the principles of cultural psychology: A programmatic retrospective. History of the Human Sciences, 28 (1), 44–65.

Tateo, L. (2020a). A theory of imagining, knowing, and understanding . Cham, CH: Springer Nature.

Tateo, L. (2020b). The school as semiotic intercultural arena. In Social ecology of a Chinese Kindergarten (pp. 117–128). Cham, CH: Springer.

Chapter   Google Scholar  

Tateo, L., & Marsico, G. (2019). Introduction: Framing a theory of ordinary and extraordinary in cultural psychology. In Marsico G. & Tateo, L. (Eds) (2019). Ordinary things and their extraordinary meanings (pp. xi–xxix). Charlotte, NC: InfoAgePublications.

Tateo, L., & Marsico, G. (2021). The creative synthesis and the global psychology. Human Arenas, 4 (1), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42087-021-00201-6

Valsiner, J. (1995). Editorial: Culture & psychology. Culture & Psychology, 1 (1), 5–10. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067X9511001

Valsiner, J. (1996). Editorial: After the first year. Culture & Psychology, 2 (1), 5–8. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067X9621001

Valsiner, J. (2001). The first six years: Culture’s adventures in psychology. Culture & Psychology, 7 (1), 5–48. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067X0171002

Valsiner, J. (2004). Three years later: Culture in psychology – between social positioning and producing new knowledge. Culture & Psychology, 10 (1), 5–27. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067X04040925

Valsiner, J. (2014). An invitation to cultural psychology . London, UK: Sage.

Valsiner, J. (2019). Culture & Psychology : 25 constructive years. Culture and Psychology, 25 (4), 429–469.

Valsiner, J., Marsico, G., Chaudhary, N., Sato, T., & Dazzani, V. (2016). Psychology as the science of human being. The Yokohama manifesto . New York, NY: Springer.

Valsiner, J. E. (Ed.). (2012). The Oxford handbook of culture and psychology . New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Van der Veer, R., & Valsiner, J. (1991). Understanding Vygotsky: A quest for synthesis . Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.

von Humboldt, W. (1988 [1836]). Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechts. – Wilhelm von Humboldt’s gesammelte Werke. Kuudes nide . Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter.

Wertsch, J. V., del Río, P., & Alvarez, A. (Eds.). (1995). Sociocultural studies of mind . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139174299

Xu, S., & Marsico, G. (Eds.). (2020). Social ecology of a Chinese Kindergarten: Where culture grows . Cham, CH: Springer Nature.

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

University of Salerno, Fisciano, Italy

Giuseppina Marsico

Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, Brazil

Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

Jaan Valsiner

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Luca Tateo .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

School of Education, Univ of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria

Joerg Zumbach

Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, Bonita Springs, FL, USA

Douglas Bernstein

Psychology Learning & Instruction, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Sachsen, Germany

Susanne Narciss

DISUFF, University of Salerno, Salerno, Salerno, Italy

Section Editor information

University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria

Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA

Douglas A. Bernstein

Psychologie des Lehrens und Lernens, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Deutschland

Department of Human, Philosophic, and Education Sciences, University of Salerno, Salerno, Italy

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Cite this entry.

Tateo, L., Marsico, G., Valsiner, J. (2022). Cultural Psychology. In: Zumbach, J., Bernstein, D., Narciss, S., Marsico, G. (eds) International Handbook of Psychology Learning and Teaching. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26248-8_28-1

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26248-8_28-1

Received : 23 October 2021

Accepted : 24 October 2021

Published : 25 December 2021

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-030-26248-8

Online ISBN : 978-3-030-26248-8

eBook Packages : Springer Reference Education Reference Module Humanities and Social Sciences Reference Module Education

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Chapter history

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26248-8_28-2

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26248-8_28-1

• Find a journal
• Track your research

DigitalCommons@PCOM

• < Previous

Home > ETDS > PSYCHOLOGY_DISSERTATIONS > 175

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

A cultural competency program for psychologists: clinical and supervisory practices with latino culture and language.

Marie C. Weil , Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine Follow

Date of Submission

Degree type.

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

Department Chair

Robert A. DiTomasso, Ph.D., ABPP

First Advisor

Bruce Zahn, Ed.D, ABPP, Chairperson

Second Advisor

Petra Kottsieper, Ph.D.

Third Advisor

Ivonne A. Acrich, M.D.

This study was designed to develop and evaluate an online cultural competence training program for psychologists (N = 6). Psychologists who supervise clinical psychology graduate students were recruited via their affiliations with the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM), the National Council of Schools and Programs of Professional Psychology (NCSPP), the Association of Psychology Training Clinics (APTC), the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC), and the Pennsylvania Psychological Association (PPA). The purpose of the study was to address multicultural training gaps between supervisors and doctoral students in psychology and to meet the psychological needs of Latinos, the largest ethnic minority group in the United States. The program was expected to develop and increase psychologists’ sensitivity to Latino culture and language and enhance their multicultural competence in supervision. The study examined cultural competence as measured by the Cultural Competence Assessment (CCA), supervisory multicultural competence as measured by the Multicultural Supervision Inventory – Brief (MSI – B), and supervisory styles of psychologists as measured by the Supervisory Styles Inventory (SSI). The results revealed that psychologists gained knowledge in Latino culture and language and in multicultural supervision following completion of the cultural competence program. The major implication of this study supports the idea that cultural competence training is an effective, promising tool with which to educate psychologists in cultural and supervisory practices as they relate to the treatment of Latinos. Recommendations for future training and research on cultural competency include the development of cultural competency curriculum models for psychology and continuing education mandates in multiculturalism for psychologists.

Recommended Citation

Weil, Marie C., "A Cultural Competency Program for Psychologists: Clinical and Supervisory Practices with Latino Culture and Language" (2010). PCOM Psychology Dissertations . 175. https://digitalcommons.pcom.edu/psychology_dissertations/175

Since May 13, 2011

Included in

Clinical Psychology Commons

Advanced Search

• Notify me via email or RSS
• Collections
• Disciplines
• Repository Policies
• Repository Disclaimer

Home | About | FAQ | My Account | Accessibility Statement

Privacy Copyright

Home > School, College, or Department > CLAS > Psychology > Dissertations and Theses

Psychology Dissertations and Theses

Theses/dissertations from 2024 2024.

Faculty Mentors' Influence on Latino/a/x STEM Undergraduates' STEM Identity Development , Sandy Cerda-Lezama

Individual and Structural Contributors to Implicit and Explicit Anti-Muslim Bias in the United States , Aeleah M. Granger

The Relationship Between Adverse Childhood Experiences and Juvenile Offender Typology , Aliza Beth Lipman

The Wage of Wellness: The Relationship Between Socioeconomic Status, Race, and Work Recovery , Emily Julia Ready

It Takes a Village: An Examination of Social Relationships and Mental Health , Em Francis Trubits

Theses/Dissertations from 2023 2023

Examining Factors Impacting the Service Needs of Unhoused Women , Holly Brott

Main, Mediated, and Moderated Effects of Participating in an After-School Social and Emotional Learning Program on Young Children's Development of Social-Emotional Skills , Amy L. Cordier

Who Puts the "Support" in Supportive Housing? The Impact of Housing Staff on Resident's Well-Being, and the Potential Moderating Role of Self-Determination , Kenna Estell Dickard

Motivation to Collaborate: A Qualitative Exploration of the Perspectives of Service Providers on an Alternative First Response Program , Desiree' J. DuBoise

Tell Me, Do You Feel It Too? A Meta-analysis of Dyadic Emotional Contagion in the Workplace , Stefanie Fox

Left on "Read" and All Alone: Instigated Cyber Incivility, Shame, and Experienced Ostracism at Work , Alison Lucia Hunt

Exploring Associations between Military Identity and Well-being Outcomes among Post-9/11 Veterans after Separation , James David Lee

Experiences of People with Serious Mental Illness Seeking Services at Community Mental Health Centers During the COVID-19 Pandemic , Emily Leickly

Why So Serious? Using the Belongingness Need Tenet from the Self-Determination Theory to Examine Workplace Humor and Its Outcomes , Katharine Lucille McMahon

Emotion Knowledge, Its Applications, and Their Associations With African American Children's Social Relationships With Teachers and Peers in Kindergarten and First Grade , Brielle Emily Petit

Stress-Reduction from Positive Support: Impacts of Receiving Partner Capitalization Support on Veteran Stress/Work Stress , MaryAnn Dona Samson

Diversity in Recruitment: The Role of Realistic Website Job Previews for Racial and Ethnic Minority Applicants , Jennifer Saucedo

Antecedents of FSSB: Evaluating the Demographic Basis of Support , Erika Ann Schemmel

A Daily Investigation of the Recovery Paradox: Examining the Dynamic Interplay of Workload, Recovery Experiences, and Microbreaks , Morgan Rose Taylor

Not on the Menu: Customer Sexual Harassment in the Restaurant Industry , Fernanda Wolburg Martinez

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

Model.Disclose(): Examination of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Disclosure at Work , Timothy Allen Carsey

Transforming Learning Communities, Transforming Ourselves: A Qualitative Investigation of Identity Processes in a Participatory Action Research-themed Undergraduate Course , Julia Sara Dancis

Clarifying and Measuring Inclusive Leadership , Kelly Mason Hamilton

Intersections of Masculinity, Culturally Relevant Factors, and Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration Among Asian American Men , Jason Z. Kyler-Yano

Sleeping to Support: An Examination of the Relationship Between Leader Sleep and Positive Support Behaviors , Jordyn Jan Leslie

Work-Related IPV Among Latinos: Exploring the Roles of Fatherhood Status, Gendered Expectations, and Support for Intimate Partner's Employment , Adrian Luis Manriquez

Masculinity Instability and Ideologies as Predictors of IPV Perpetration: The Mediating Role of Relationship Power , Emma Christine Marioles O'Connor

The Benefits of Social Support on Health and Well-Being in Military Populations: Examining Mechanisms, Source of Support, and the Reach of a Workplace Well-Being Intervention , AnnaMarie Sophia O'Neill

Do Motives Matter? The Role of Motivation in Shaping the Impact of Mindfulness Training on Teachers' Psychological Distress and Wellbeing , Cristi N. Pinela

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

The Longitudinal Effects of a Family and Sleep Supportive Intervention on Service Member Anger and Resilience , Shalene Joyce Allen

Drug Conviction and Employment Restriction: Experiences of Employees with Drug-Related Criminal Histories , Liana Bernard

Sustaining Boys' Motivation Over the Transition to Middle School: Can Interpersonal Resources Protect Boys from Engagement Declines Across Sixth Grade? , Brandy Anne Brennan

Returning to Rejection: Outcomes and Boundary Conditions of Mental Illness Stereotypes , Stefanie Fox

Guarding Against Strain: The Moderating Role of Nonwork Experiences in the Relationship Between Work-Related Hypervigilance and Strain in Correctional Officers , Samantha Getzen

Anti-Muslim Bias: Investigating Individual Differences, Threat Perceptions, and Emotions in Islamophobic Policy Support , Aeleah M. Granger

Black Children's Development of Self-Regulation within Stressful Contexts of Parenting: Investigating Potential Buffering Effects of a Kindergarten Social-Emotional Learning Program , Eli Labinger

"Like I Was an Actual Researcher": Participation and Identity Trajectories of Underrepresented Minority and First-Generation STEM Students in Research Training Communities of Practice , Jennifer Lynn Lindwall

Claiming Miscommunication to Justify Rape: The Role of Liking the Perpetrator , Alyssa Marie Glace Maryn

An "I" for an "I" : A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Instigated and Reciprocal Incivility , Lauren Sarah Park

Parenting and Children's Academic Coping as a Dynamic System: Feedforward, Feedback, and Mediators of Changes Across the School Year , Kristen Elizabeth Raine

Does Experiencing Spousal Support and Strain Impact the Quality of Family-Based Support that Supervisors Provide to Employees? , Joseph Alvin Sherwood

"B-ing Flexible" : Examining Creativity in Bisexual Employees , Megan Jane Snoeyink

Exploring the Relationships Between Community Experiences and Well-Being among Youth Experiencing Homelessness , Katricia Stewart

Mothers' Drinking Motives , Sheila Kathleen Umemoto

An Examination of Nurses' Schedule Characteristics, Recovery from Work, and Well-Being , Sarah Elizabeth Van Dyck

Preventing Sexual Violence Through Understanding Perceptions of Sexual Offenders , Judith G. Zatkin

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

Examining Employee Needs at Work and Home: a Self-Determination Theory Perspective , Dana Anuhea Auten

Trajectories, Time Windows, and Alternative Pathways of Engagement: Motivational Resources Underlying Academic Development during Middle School , Heather Anne Brule

Examining Mindfulness Training for Teachers: Theoretical and Methodological Extensions of Intervention Effectiveness , Jaiya Rae Choles

Detecting Reinforcement Patterns in the Stream of Naturalistic Observations of Social Interactions , James Lamar DeLaney 3rd

An Investigation of the Temporal Relationship Between Agitation and Sleep Disturbances , Emily Catherine Denning

Peers' Academic Coping as a Resource for Academic Engagement and Motivational Resilience in the First Year of Middle School , Daniel Lee Grimes

Home Resources Supporting Workplace Resources: an Investigation of Moderated Intervention Effects From the Study for Employment Retention of Veterans (SERVe) , Sarah Nielsen Haverly

"It Puts a Face to All the Knowledge We've Gotten" : a Program of Research on Intimate Partner Violence Surrogate Impact Panels , Kate Louise Sackett Kerrigan

A Daily Examination of Anger and Alcohol Use Among Post-9/11 Veterans , James David Lee

An Examination of Daily Family-Supportive Supervisor Behaviors, Perceived Supervisor Responsiveness and Job Satisfaction , Luke Daniel Mahoney

Nurse Can't Even: the Immediate Impact of Incivility on Affect, Well-being, and Behavior , Katharine Lucille McMahon

Perceptions of Police Use of Force at the Intersection of Race and Pregnancy , Emma Elizabeth Lee Money

The Impact of Paternal Caregivers for Youth Who Commit Sexual Offenses , Miranda Hope Sitney

Human Energy in the Workplace: an Investigation of Daily Energy Management Strategies, Job Stressors and Employee Outcomes , Morgan Rose Taylor

Individual and Community Supports that Impact Community Inclusion and Recovery for Individuals with Serious Mental Illnesses , Rachel Elizabeth Terry

Investigating Sexual Fantasy and Sexual Behavior in Adolescent Offenders , Hayley Lauren Tews

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

Integrating Work Ability into the Organizational Science Literature: Advancing Theory and Developing the Nomological Network , Grant Brady

Family Linked Workplace Resources and Contextual Factors as Important Predictors of Job and Individual Well-being for Employees and Families , Jacquelyn Marie Brady

The Role of Teacher Autonomy Support Across the Transition to Middle School: its Components, Reach, and Developmental Effects , Julia Sara Dancis

Does X Mark the Applicant? Assessing Reactions to Gender Non-Binary Job Seekers , Kelly Mason Hamilton

Urbanicity as a Moderator of the Relationship Between Stigma and Well-being Outcomes for Individuals with Serious Mental Illnesses , Emily Leickly

The Relationship Between Undergraduate Research Training Programs and Motivational Resources for Underrepresented Minority Students in STEM: Program Participation, Self-efficacy, a Sense of Belonging, and Academic Performance , Jennifer Lindwall

Perceived Partner Responsiveness, Sleep and Pain: a Dyadic Study of Military-Connected Couples , AnnaMarie Sophia O'Neill

Recruitment Marketing: How Do Wellness and Work-Life Benefits Influence Employer Image Perceptions, Organizational Attraction, and Job Pursuit Intentions? , Amy Christine Pytlovany

The Combined Effects of Parent and Teacher Involvement on the Development of Adolescents' Academic Engagement , Nicolette Paige Rickert

Examining the Development and Classroom Dynamics of Student Disaffection Over Multiple Time Periods: Short-term Episodes and Long-term Trajectories , Emily Anne Saxton

Drinking on a Work Night: a Comparison of Day and Person-Level Associations with Workplace Outcomes , Brittnie Renae Shepherd

Development and Validation of the Workplace Mental Illness Stigma Scale (W-MISS) , Nicholas Anthony Smith

Relational Thriving in Context: Examining the Roles of Gratitude, Affectionate Touch, and Positive Affective Variability in Health and Well-Being , Alicia Rochelle Starkey

Preventing Child Sexual Abuse and Juvenile Offending Through Parental Monitoring , Kelly E. Stewart

"To Call or Not to Call?" The Impact of Supervisor Training on Call Center Employee Attitudes and Well-Being , Whitney Elan Schneider Vogel

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

The Impact of Leader Race and Gender on Perceptions of Organizations in Response to Corporate Error , Nicolas Derek Brown

Impacts of Mindfulness Training on Mechanisms Underlying Stress Reduction in Teachers: Results from a Randomized Controlled Trial , Jaiya Rae Choles

Student Motivation Profiles as a Diagnostic Tool to Help Teachers Provide Targeted Support , Cailin Tricia Currie

Insufficient Effort Responding on Mturk Surveys: Evidence-Based Quality Control for Organizational Research , Lee Cyr

Affirmative Consent Endorsement and Peer Norms Supporting Sexual Violence Among Vulnerable Students on College Campuses , Alyssa Marie Glace

Gendered Partner-Ideals, Relationship Satisfaction, and Intimate Partner Violence , Sylvia Marie Ferguson Kidder

Organizational Calling and Safety: the Role of Workload and Supervisor Support , Layla Rhiannon Mansfield

Bystander Intervention to Prevent Campus Sexual Violence: the Role of Sense of Community, Peer Norms, and Administrative Responding , Erin Christine McConnell

Benevolent Sexism and Racial Stereotypes: Targets, Functions, and Consequences , Jean Marie McMahon

Perceived Overqualification and Withdrawal Among Seasonal Workers: Would Work Motivation Make a Difference? , Anthony Duy Nguyen

Differential Well-Being in Response to Incivility and Surface Acting among Nurses as a Function of Race , Lauren Sarah Park

Financial Strain and the Work-Home Interface: a Test of the Work-Home Resources Model from the Study for Employment Retention of Veterans (SERVe) , MacKenna Laine Perry

Neighbor Perceptions of Psychiatric Supportive Housing : the Role of Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behaviors , Amy Leigh Shearer

The Role of Caregiver Disruption in the Development of Juvenile Sexual Offenders , Miranda Sitney

Intrapersonal and Social-Contextual Factors Related to Psychological Well-being among Youth Experiencing Homelessness , Katricia Stewart

Age-based Differences in the Usefulness of Resources: a Multi-Study Investigation of Work and Well-being Outcomes , Lale Muazzez Yaldiz

Pathways to Kindergarten Growth: Synthesizing Theories of the Kindergarten Transition to Support Children's Development , Rita Yelverton

Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017

The Force of Manhood: the Consequences of Masculinity Threat on Police Officer Use of Force , Aurelia Terese Alston

Supervisor Mindfulness and Its Association with Leader-Member Exchange , Dana Anuhea Auten

Combat Experiences, Iso-strain, and Sleep Quality Affect Symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress among Working Post-9/11 Veterans , Gilbert Patrick Brady Jr.

A Study of Shame-proneness, Drinking Behaviors, and Workplace Role Ambiguity Among a Sample of Student Workers , Sarah Nielsen Haverly

Intraminority Support For and Participation In Race-Based Collective Action Movements: an Intersectional Perspective , Jaboa Shawntaé Lake

Patients and Nurses and Doctors Oh My!: Nurse Retention from a Multi-Foci Aggression Perspective , Kevin Oliver Novak

Advanced Search

• Notify me via email or RSS
• Featured Collections
• All Authors
• Schools & Colleges
• Dissertations & Theses
• PDXOpen Textbooks
• Conferences
• Collections
• Disciplines
• Faculty Expert Gallery
• Submit Research
• Faculty Profiles
• Terms of Use
• Feedback Form

Home | About | My Account | Accessibility Statement | Portland State University

Privacy Copyright

Browser does not support script.

• Undergraduate
• Executive education
• Study Abroad
• Summer schools
• Online certificate courses
• International students
• Meet, visit and discover LSE

MSc Social and Cultural Psychology

• Graduate taught
• Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science
• Application code L7U1
• Starting 2024
• Home full-time: Open
• Home part-time: Open
• Overseas full-time: Open
• Location: Houghton Street, London

MSc Social and Cultural Psychology explores the ways in which culture and society shape how people think, behave and relate to each other.

We draw on theories, concepts and methods of social and cultural psychology to understand how societies think, how communities develop a sense of identity and how they represent controversial and important issues affecting local and global public spheres.

The MSc aims to give you a grounded understanding of theoretical and applied issues as well as a sophisticated training in a broad range of research methods. It will advance your knowledge and professional competence in the area of social and cultural psychology, and enhance your independent thinking and analytical skills.

The programme, offered at our campus in London, is unique in its combination of social and cultural approaches to psychology and is one of the world's leading programmes in this field. It offers an extensive choice of specialist courses, addressing a variety of theoretical and applied issues in social and cultural psychology and in the social sciences as a whole.

Our department was recently ranked number one in the UK for Psychology in the  Good University Guide from The Times and Sunday Times .

Programme details

For more information about tuition fees and entry requirements, see the fees and funding and assessing your application sections.

Entry requirements

Minimum entry requirements for msc social and cultural psychology.

Upper second class honours (2:1) degree or equivalent in a social science discipline (a background in psychology is desirable but not required).

Competition for places at the School is high. This means that even if you meet our minimum entry requirement, this does not guarantee you an offer of admission.

If you have studied or are studying outside of the UK then have a look at our  Information for International Students  to find out the entry requirements that apply to you.

Assessing your application

We welcome applications from all suitably qualified prospective students and want to recruit students with the very best academic merit, potential and motivation, irrespective of their background.

We carefully consider each application on an individual basis, taking into account all the information presented on your application form, including your:

- academic achievement (including predicted and achieved grades) - statement of academic purpose - two academic references - CV

See further information on supporting documents

You may also have to provide evidence of your English proficiency, although you do not need to provide this at the time of your application to LSE.  See our English language requirements .

When to apply

Applications for this programme are considered on a rolling basis, meaning the programme will close once it becomes full. There is no fixed deadline by which you need to apply, however, to be considered for any LSE funding opportunity, you must have submitted your application and all supporting documents by the funding deadline. See the fees and funding section for more details. 

Fees and funding

Every graduate student is charged a fee for their programme.

The fee covers registration and examination fees payable to the School, lectures, classes and individual supervision, lectures given at other colleges under intercollegiate arrangements and, under current arrangements, membership of the Students' Union. It does not cover living costs or travel or fieldwork.

Tuition fees 2024/25 for MSc Social and Cultural Psychology

Home students: £17,424  Overseas students: £27,480

The Table of Fees shows the latest tuition amounts for all programmes offered by the School.

The amount of tuition fees you will need to pay, and any financial support you are eligible for, will depend on whether you are classified as a home or overseas student, otherwise known as your fee status. LSE assesses your fee status based on guidelines provided by the Department of Education.

Further information about fee status classification.

Fee reduction

Students who completed undergraduate study at LSE and are beginning taught graduate study at the School are eligible for a  fee reduction  of around 10 per cent of the fee.

Scholarships and other funding

The School recognises that the  cost of living in London  may be higher than in your home town or country, and we provide generous scholarships each year to home and overseas students.

This programme is eligible for needs-based awards from LSE, including the  Graduate Support Scheme ,  Master's Awards , and  Anniversary Scholarships . 

Selection for any funding opportunity is based on receipt of an offer for a place and submitting a Graduate Financial Support application, before the funding deadline. Funding deadline for needs-based awards from LSE:  25 April 2024 .

In addition to our needs-based awards, LSE also makes available scholarships for students from specific regions of the world and awards for students studying specific subject areas.  Find out more about financial support.

Government tuition fee loans and external funding

A postgraduate loan is available from the UK government for eligible students studying for a first master’s programme, to help with fees and living costs. Some other governments and organisations also offer tuition fee loan schemes.

Find out more about tuition fee loans

Further information

Fees and funding opportunities

Information for international students

LSE is an international community, with over 140 nationalities represented amongst its student body. We celebrate this diversity through everything we do.  

If you are applying to LSE from outside of the UK then take a look at our Information for International students . 

1) Take a note of the UK qualifications we require for your programme of interest (found in the ‘Entry requirements’ section of this page). 

2) Go to the International Students section of our website. 

3) Select your country. 

4) Select ‘Graduate entry requirements’ and scroll until you arrive at the information about your local/national qualification. Compare the stated UK entry requirements listed on this page with the local/national entry requirement listed on your country specific page.

Part-time study Part time study is only available for students who do not require a student visa.

Programme structure and courses

You will take two compulsory courses (one theoretical and one methodological), a research dissertation of 10,000 words and options to the value of one unit from a wide range of courses.

You will leave the Department equipped with conceptual and research skills, the ability to assess and analyse evidence, critical judgement and experience of working individually and in teams.

Contemporary Social and Cultural Psychology Examines the relationship between mind, society and culture with a focus on phenomena at the interface between the individual and society. Issues covered include self in society, individual and social identities, cognition and culture, social representations, attitudes and attributions, language and communication, social influence, beliefs and inter-group relations and various applied aspects of social and cultural psychology.

Methods for Social Psychological Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods Provides training in quantitative and qualitative methods of research for social and cultural psychology.

Dissertation Consists of an independent research project of up to 10,000 words on a topic of your choice, involving field research and supervised by a member of faculty.

Examples of previous PBS dissertations can be found  on our Postgraduate Prizes page . 

You will be able to choose from two half unit options. The following electives are aligned towards the core themes of this Masters:

Organisations, Groups and Identity

Political Psychology: Inequality & Intergroup Relations

Social Representations: Social Knowledge and Contemporary Issues

Dialogue: Conflict & Negotiation

For the most up-to-date list of optional courses please visit the relevant School Calendar page .  

You must note, however, that while care has been taken to ensure that this information is up to date and correct, a change of circumstances since publication may cause the School to change, suspend or withdraw a course or programme of study, or change the fees that apply to it. The School will always notify the affected parties as early as practicably possible and propose any viable and relevant alternative options. Note that the School will neither be liable for information that after publication becomes inaccurate or irrelevant, nor for changing, suspending or withdrawing a course or programme of study due to events outside of its control, which includes but is not limited to a lack of demand for a course or programme of study, industrial action, fire, flood or other environmental or physical damage to premises.

You must also note that places are limited on some courses and/or subject to specific entry requirements. The School cannot therefore guarantee you a place. Please note that changes to programmes and courses can sometimes occur after you have accepted your offer of a place. These changes are normally made in light of developments in the discipline or path-breaking research, or on the basis of student feedback. Changes can take the form of altered course content, teaching formats or assessment modes. Any such changes are intended to enhance the student learning experience. You should visit the School’s  Calendar , or contact the relevant academic department, for information on the availability and/or content of courses and programmes of study. Certain substantive changes will be listed on the  updated graduate course and programme information page.

Teaching and assessment

Contact hours and independent study.

Within your programme you will take a number of courses, often including half unit courses and full unit courses. In half unit courses, on average, you can expect 20-30 contact hours in total and for full unit courses, on average, you can expect 40-60 contact hours in total. This includes sessions such as lectures, classes, seminars or workshops. Hours vary according to courses and you can view indicative details in the Calendar  within the Teaching section of each  course guide .

You are also expected to complete independent study outside of class time. This varies depending on the programme, but requires you to manage the majority of your study time yourself, by engaging in activities such as reading, note-taking, thinking and research.

Teaching methods

LSE is internationally recognised for its teaching and research and therefore employs a rich variety of teaching staff with a range of experience and status. Courses may be taught by individual members of faculty, such as lecturers, senior lecturers, readers, associate professors and professors. Many departments now also employ guest teachers and visiting members of staff, LSE teaching fellows and graduate teaching assistants who are usually doctoral research students and in the majority of cases, teach on undergraduate courses only. You can view indicative details for the teacher responsible for each course in the relevant  course guide .

All taught courses are required to include formative coursework which is unassessed. It is designed to help prepare you for summative assessment which counts towards the course mark and to the degree award. LSE uses a range of formative assessment, such as essays, problem sets, case studies, reports, quizzes, mock exams and many others. Summative assessment will consist of examinations, essays and a dissertation. An indication of the formative coursework and summative assessment for each course can be found in the relevant  course guide .

Academic support

You will be assigned an academic mentor who will be available to you for guidance on academic or personal concerns. You will also be allocated a dissertation supervisor who will assist you and guide you generally with your dissertation. 

There are many opportunities to extend your learning outside the classroom and complement your academic studies at LSE.  LSE LIFE  is the School’s centre for academic, personal and professional development. Some of the services on offer include: guidance and hands-on practice of the key skills you will need to do well at LSE: effective reading, academic writing and critical thinking; workshops related to how to adapt to new or difficult situations, including development of skills for leadership, study/work/life balance and preparing for the world of work; and advice and practice on working in study groups and on cross-cultural communication and teamwork.

LSE is committed to enabling all students to achieve their full potential and the School’s  Disability and Wellbeing Service  provides a free, confidential service to all LSE students and is a first point of contact for all disabled students.

Teaching staff

Programme directors

Professor Sandra Jovchelovitch  

Dr Alex Gillespie

Student support and resources

We’re here to help and support you throughout your time at LSE, whether you need help with your academic studies, support with your welfare and wellbeing or simply to develop on a personal and professional level.

Whatever your query, big or small, there are a range of people you can speak to who will be happy to help.  

Department librarians   – they will be able to help you navigate the library and maximise its resources during your studies. 

Accommodation service  – they can offer advice on living in halls and offer guidance on private accommodation related queries.

Class teachers and seminar leaders  – they will be able to assist with queries relating to specific courses. 

Disability and Wellbeing Service  – they are experts in long-term health conditions, sensory impairments, mental health and specific learning difficulties. They offer confidential and free services such as  student counselling,  a  peer support scheme  and arranging  exam adjustments.  They run groups and workshops.  

IT help  – support is available 24 hours a day to assist with all your technology queries.   

LSE Faith Centre  – this is home to LSE's diverse religious activities and transformational interfaith leadership programmes, as well as a space for worship, prayer and quiet reflection. It includes Islamic prayer rooms and a main space for worship. It is also a space for wellbeing classes on campus and is open to all students and staff from all faiths and none.   

Language Centre  – the Centre specialises in offering language courses targeted to the needs of students and practitioners in the social sciences. We offer pre-course English for Academic Purposes programmes; English language support during your studies; modern language courses in nine languages; proofreading, translation and document authentication; and language learning community activities.

LSE Careers  ­ – with the help of LSE Careers, you can make the most of the opportunities that London has to offer. Whatever your career plans, LSE Careers will work with you, connecting you to opportunities and experiences from internships and volunteering to networking events and employer and alumni insights. 

LSE Library   –   founded in 1896, the British Library of Political and Economic Science is the major international library of the social sciences. It stays open late, has lots of excellent resources and is a great place to study. As an LSE student, you’ll have access to a number of other academic libraries in Greater London and nationwide. 

LSE LIFE  – this is where you should go to develop skills you’ll use as a student and beyond. The centre runs talks and workshops on skills you’ll find useful in the classroom; offers one-to-one sessions with study advisers who can help you with reading, making notes, writing, research and exam revision; and provides drop-in sessions for academic and personal support. (See ‘Teaching and assessment’). 

LSE Students’ Union (LSESU)  – they offer academic, personal and financial advice and funding.  

PhD Academy   – this is available for PhD students, wherever they are, to take part in interdisciplinary events and other professional development activities and access all the services related to their registration. 

Sardinia House Dental Practice   – this   offers discounted private dental services to LSE students.  

St Philips Medical Centre  – based in Pethwick-Lawrence House, the Centre provides NHS Primary Care services to registered patients.

Student Services Centre  – our staff here can answer general queries and can point you in the direction of other LSE services.  

Student advisers   – we have a  Deputy Head of Student Services (Advice and Policy)  and an  Adviser to Women Students  who can help with academic and pastoral matters.

Student life

As a student at LSE you’ll be based at our central London campus. Find out what our campus and London have to offer you on academic, social and career perspective. 

Student societies and activities

Your time at LSE is not just about studying, there are plenty of ways to get involved in  extracurricular activities . From joining one of over 200 societies, or starting your own society, to volunteering for a local charity, or attending a public lecture by a world-leading figure, there is a lot to choose from. 

The campus 

LSE is based on one  campus  in the centre of London. Despite the busy feel of the surrounding area, many of the streets around campus are pedestrianised, meaning the campus feels like a real community. 

Life in London 

London is an exciting, vibrant and colourful city. It's also an academic city, with more than 400,000 university students. Whatever your interests or appetite you will find something to suit your palate and pocket in this truly international capital. Make the most of career opportunities and social activities, theatre, museums, music and more. 

Want to find out more? Read why we think  London is a fantastic student city , find out about  key sights, places and experiences for new Londoners . Don't fear, London doesn't have to be super expensive: hear about  London on a budget . 

Preliminary reading

M Cole  Cultural Psychology: a once and future discipline  (Harvard University Press, 1996)

S. Jovchelovitch  Knowledge in Context: Representations, community and culture (Routledge Classics, 2019)

S Kitayama and D Cohen  Handbook of Cultural Psychology  (Guilford Press, 2010) S Moscovici  Social Representations: explorations in social psychology  (Polity Press, 2000) R Schweder  Why Men Barbecue: recipes for cultural psychology  (Harvard University Press, 2003) M Tomasello  The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition  (Harvard University Press, 1999)

Selected readings of research by faculty:

K Corti  and A Gillespie  Revisiting Milgram’s Cyranoid Method: experimenting with hybrid human agents  (The Journal of Social Psychology, 2015) 

C Howarth, W Wagner, N Magnusson & G Sammut ‘It’s only other people who make me feel black’: acculturation, identity and agency in a multicultural community ( Political Psychology, 2014)

S Jovchelovitch and J Priego-Hernandez,   Underground Sociabilities: identity, culture and resistance in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas  (Brasilia, 2013)

Quick Careers Facts for the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science

Median salary of our PG students 15 months after graduating: £33,000

Top 5 sectors our students work in:

• Financial and Professional Services              
• Education, Teaching and Research            
• Consultancy      
• Real Estate, Environment and Energy 
• Other Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities

The data was collected as part of the Graduate Outcomes survey, which is administered by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). Graduates from 2020-21 were the fourth group to be asked to respond to Graduate Outcomes. Median salaries are calculated for respondents who are paid in UK pounds sterling and who were working in full-time employment.

This programme is intended to equip you for a career in business organisations, communities, health, the media, development and international agencies, government or in research.

Further information on graduate destinations for this programme

Jacqueline Priego Hernandez

Tabasco, Mexico

The MSc programme has its focus on both societal and cultural issues by integrating theory and practice with the main aim of intervention at individual, institutional and communal levels. Additionally, the programme is interdisciplinary, and contributions from sociological, anthropological and economic perspectives on key current social psychological issues are addressed.

I have had the opportunity to benefit from the exceptional facilities at the School, above all from the world-class library and the wide range of academic and cultural events taking place here every single day. LSE has reinforced my desire to continue in the field of social psychology as a career option. The lectures and the contact with expert research contributed to broadening my views on different topics and to refining my research interests and my expectations in relation to my future career. After completing my MSc programme I intend to pursue a doctoral degree.

Support for your career

Many leading organisations give careers presentations at the School during the year, and LSE Careers has a wide range of resources available to assist students in their job search. Find out more about the  support available to students through LSE Careers .

Please contact Louise Millar via email:  [email protected]

Find out more about LSE

Discover more about being an LSE student - meet us in a city near you, visit our campus or experience LSE from home. 

Experience LSE from home

Webinars, videos, student blogs and student video diaries will help you gain an insight into what it's like to study at LSE for those that aren't able to make it to our campus.  Experience LSE from home . 

Come on a guided campus tour, attend an undergraduate open day, drop into our office or go on a self-guided tour.  Find out about opportunities to visit LSE . 

LSE visits you

Student Marketing, Recruitment and Study Abroad travels throughout the UK and around the world to meet with prospective students. We visit schools, attend education fairs and also hold Destination LSE events: pre-departure events for offer holders.  Find details on LSE's upcoming visits . 

How to apply

Virtual Graduate Open Day

Register your interest

Related programmes, msc organisational and social psychology.

Code(s) L7U2

MSc Social and Public Communication

Code(s) L7U5

MSc Psychology of Economic Life

Code(s) C8UC

MSc Sociology

Code(s) L3U2

MSc Social Anthropology

Code(s) L6U5

Request a prospectus

• Name First name Last name
• Address Address Line 1 Address Line 2 City County Postcode Country

Speak to Admissions

Content to be supplied

Enjoy a completely custom, expertly-written dissertation. Choose from hundreds of writers, all of whom are career specialists in your subject.

List of Interesting Cultural Research Paper Topics

Cultural research paper topics allow students to explore people’s historical aspects, actions, ideas, and narratives that they have copied or altered over time. People express their cultures via various symbols and language. Additionally, different aspects of culture affect people’s mindsets.

When pursuing cultural students, students write research papers, essays, and articles on varied topics. However, most learners struggle to select the best titles for their papers. That’s because the topic that a student selects influences the path they take when completing this assignment. For this reason, we’ve come up with this guide with a list of interesting cultural research topics for learners to consider.

Discover a vast array of captivating cultural research paper topics with the expertise of our professional dissertation writers . Our dedicated team is ready to assist you in selecting compelling topics and crafting high-quality research papers that meet the highest academic standards.

How to Choose Cultural Research Topics

The internet is awash with cultural research ideas from which students can choose what to explore. However, not every topic you come across will be suitable for you. For that reason, consider the following aspects when choosing your cultural topic for research.

• Select a topic that meets your writing assignment requirements
• Settle on a topic you find interesting
• Pick a topic that meets the scope of your assignment

In addition to these criteria, check the available research to select a topic you will find sufficient information for before you start writing your paper. Also, brainstorm concepts and create a research question around the topic. Here are different categories of cultural research paper topics from which you can choose your favorite title.

Cultural Anthropology Research Topics

If you find cultural anthropology interesting, pick your topic from the following ideas.

• How traditional food can reflect a nation’s history
• Analysis of the refugees’ impact on the cultures of the European countries
• How Christian traditions differ from one culture to another
• How countries in the Soviet Union moved from communism
• Effects of liberalism on the education system
• Analysis of a communistic nation’s cultural values
• Causes of political division in the United States
• Why most people in the Netherlands love cycling
• How people view the death concept in Africa
• How the English language influences the American culture as the common language

Cultural Diversity Research Paper Topics

Perhaps, you’re interested in cultural diversity. In that case, consider these ideas for your research paper.

• Analysis of cultural diversity’s role in schools
• How cultural diversity influences modern society
• How significant is cultural diversity in this century?
• How multiculturalism and pluralism affect the American citizens’ lives
• Psychological counseling associations to cultural diversity
• How cultural diversity affects the medical industry
• How migration affects cultural diversity of the Asian land
• How cultural diversity affects people’s interactions
• Demonstrating critical thinking with special attention to diversity and multicultural issues
• Cultural diversity as a reason for not tolerating racism

Cross-Cultural Communication Research Topics

Cross-cultural communication is among fields with excellent topics for cultural research. Here are some of the best ideas in this field.

• Approaches to cross-cultural information exchange
• Practical cross-cultural dialogue strategies
• Intercultural dialogue and translation
• Teaching cross-cultural communication and culture
• Cross-cultural information exchange artifacts
• Factors enhancing cross-cultural dialogue competence
• Cultural and health-related issues between ethnic minorities and healthcare providers
• The adaptation of international students to American campuses
• Low-context cultures versus high-context cultures- Cross-cultural perspective
• Assessing cross-cultural effectiveness

Cultural Psychology Research Topics

If interested in cultural psychology research, consider these ideas for your papers and essays.

• How cultural psychology has evolved over the years
• How cultural psychology affects diversity
• Filial piety and personality among the British citizens
• Impacts of famous artists on the global culture
• Impacts of COVID-19 on the US political atmosphere
• Comparing women’s emotions and gender stereotypes as exhibited by men’s superior thinking
• Influences of cross-cultural psychology
• Social and self behavior among the United States’ Red Indians
• Analyzing the unemployed graduates’ experiences in the United Kingdom
• How parenting stress relates to the stigma of a mother with an autistic child

Cross-Cultural Research Topics

Cross-cultural research paper topics cover psychological behavior and processes across different cultures. Here are topic samples in this category.

• Communication styles among different cultures
• How attitudes towards conflicts differ among cultures
• How people from different cultures approach the same task differently
• How different cultures approach knowing
• Why humans should respect and work with people from different cultures
• The attitudes of different cultures towards disclosure
• How decision-making styles differ among cultures
• How non-verbal communication promotes a culture
• What determines business communication across cultures?
• How history and social organization affect modern society

Cultural Studies Research Paper Topics

When pursuing cultural studies, writing research papers is unavoidable. Here are cultural research paper topics to consider for your papers and essays.

• How stigma affects the efforts to prevent sexually transmitted diseases from spreading
• Challenges encountered by people with social disorders and anxiety
• How films influence the audiences’ cultures
• How songs promote feminism
• Coping mechanism for culturally different people
• How cultural studies facilitate the promotion of brands in global markets
• How people perceive the old and the youths in their cultures
• How cultural studies can help in promoting businesses internationally
• Cultural traits exhibition in exotic and indigenous animals
• Influence of associating with a particular language on a person’s culture

Cultural Geography Research Topics

Cultural geography focuses on cultural changes in various geographical settings. Here are topics to explore in this category.

• Explaining the cultural concept
• Analyzing a culture area and the culture itself
• Analysis of cultural landscapes
• Cultural ecology and culture history
• Focusing on the institutions
• Understanding cultural geography
• The history of cultural geography
• Understanding feminist geography
• Explain the evolution of urban geography
• Analysis of the geography of space and sexuality

Chinese Cultural Research Topics

Are you interested in studying Chinese culture? If yes, this list has the best cultural topics for research paper that you can explore.

• Evaluating Cultural Revolution in China
• The Chinese government and Tibet
• Culture-bound psychiatric syndromes in China
• The Chinese culture and silk road
• Cross-cultural competency in China
• How culture influences the Chinese politics
• Effects of Buddhism on the Chinese culture
• Chinese medicine and culture
• Childhood illness treatment in traditional China and religion
• The cultural perspective of the human stomach in China

Research Topics on Community-Centered Cultural Adaptation

Are you interested in community-centered cultural adaptation research? If yes, here are topics to consider for your papers.

• Stage-setting and professional consultations for cultural adaptation purposes
• Preliminary cultural content adaptation
• Iterative cultural content adaption with members of the community
• Cultural adaptation with meetings and community feedback
• Role of language during cultural adaptation
• The concept of cultural adaptation
• Factors that limit community-centered cultural adaptation
• How conflict of interest can hinder community-centered cultural adaptation
• How gender influences community-centered cultural adaptation
• How to enhance community-centered cultural adaptation

Cultural Analysis Topics for Research

Perhaps, you’re interested in analyzing a cultural aspect or phenomenon. In that case, consider these ideas for your research paper.

• Analysis of cultural phenomenon in your community
• Analyzing the influence of TikTok on local culture
• Analysis of “the dab” popularity
• Analyzing the effects of bandwagon on the culture
• Analysis of the normalization of the holocaust in some cultures
• Analyzing religious beliefs as a cultural phenomenon
• Analyzing the popularity of sitcoms
• Analyze the fan base of your favorite celebrity
• Analysis of social media as a cultural phenomena
• Analyzing cross-cultural fashion trends

Cultural Analysis Essay Topics

If interested in analyzing the culture, pick the idea to write about in this list.

• Analyzing drug use by sportspeople
• Analyzing homelessness in America
• Communication differences between males and females
• Analyzing obesity trends across age brackets
• How sports influence culture
• Analyzing multicultural identity
• Analysis of modeling and body size aspects of a culture
• Effects of multicultural families on the involved parties
• Analysis of gender role changes over time
• How being raised by a single parent affects a child- A cultural perspective

Unique Cultural Analysis Paper Topics

Are you looking for a unique topic for cultural research? If yes, this section has a good idea for you.

• Why are cultural studies essential?
• How society treats people based on their cultures
• How the minorities cope in a different culture
• How feminism affects the culture
• How isolated communities can conserve their cultures
• How religion influences culture- Use the Muslim community as a case study
• Describe the cultural commonalities among human beings
• Explain the correlation of sex and attitude as cultural tools
• The influence of associating with a particular language on a person’s culture
• How exotic and indigenous groups exhibit cultural differences

Pick your topics from this list and then take your time to develop them through research to come up with solid papers or essays that will earn you the top grades.

Frequently Asked Questions

Richard Ginger is a dissertation writer and freelance columnist with a wealth of knowledge and expertise in the writing industry. He handles every project he works on with precision while keeping attention to details and ensuring that every work he does is unique.

Succeed With A Perfect Dissertation

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

As Putin continues killing civilians, bombing kindergartens, and threatening WWIII, Ukraine fights for the world's peaceful future.

Ukraine Live Updates

84 Cultural Psychology Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best cultural psychology topic ideas & essay examples, 🎓 interesting topics to write about cultural psychology, ✅ simple & easy cultural psychology essay titles, ❓ cultural psychology questions.

• Culturally Informed Psychological Assessment They do not posit a single culture, requiring the assessor to discern these cultures and their influence on a person’s psychological behavior.
• Cross-Cultural Psychology Study The relationship between cultural and cross-cultural psychology is from a definition point of view. Quantitative and qualitative research methodologies are the most effective in cross-cultural psychology studies.
• Multicultural Psychology as a Subspecialty of Psychology Over the past 30 years, the study of culture minority issues in the field of psychology has grown to what can now be seen as a significant and dynamic subspecialty in the context of American […]
• African American Culture: Psychological Processes The evolutionary perspectives of the African American community are mostly based on their survival from the period of slavery to the period of racial discrimination and segregation in America.
• Culture, Emotions, and Psychology Relationships The most profound understanding of the relation of culture to psychology and emotional response starts from defining a culture, which is varied across nations and studies.
• Emerging Issues in Multicultural Psychology Modern multicultural psychologists have been challenged by the impact that the internet has had on the society, particularly among the young people.
• Contemporary Issues in Cultural & Cross-Cultural Psychology The difference between cultural psychology and cross-cultural psychology emanates from the fact that psychologists in cross-cultural psychology commonly use cultural frameworks as a means of assessing the universality of psychological practices and processes, while psychologists […]
• Cross-Cultural Psychology in Contemporary Psychiatry Also, contemporary psychiatry embraces cross-cultural psychology, which recognizes the diversity in the growth and development of psychological notions influenced by cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Clinical neuropsychology integrates neuroscience and clinical psychology to understand biological factors […]
• Racial Profiling in Cultural Psychology The idea that some cultures are superior to others is compatible with the issue of racial identity non-apparently existing in society.
• Hewlett-Packard: Application of Cross-Cultural Psychology The HP Company should effectively collaborate with all the stakeholders and employees to receive broader views and alternatives of what to implement.
• The Impact of Culture on Aging: Psychological and Sociological Analysis Analyzing the impact of American culture on the process of aging, disease management and pain control, we should first identify the main features of American mentality.
• Emerging Issues in Cross-Cultural Psychology The new economic order has been due to the fact that different cultures have enabled their people to utilize the cultural competitive advantage to achieve it.
• Psychology in Afghan Sociocultural Context Fundamental reasons for such an attitude towards the science of human behavior lie in the “popularity of psychological myths,” the presence of “therapeutic techniques with poor empirical support” and the advancement in the field of […]
• Psychological Impacts on the Culturally Diverse Individual It is also important to note that the social-political factors often have very pronounced psychological impacts on the human as well as the societal life.
• Multicultural Psychology: Cultural Identity and Racism It is a branch of psychology that tries to comprehend and represent the psychology of different people, groups and organizations adequately for the purpose of equal treatment due to the fact that there is a […]
• Cross-Cultural Psychology: Similarities and Differences in Belief Systems and Behavioral Patterns These similarities and differences in cultural backgrounds have led to emergence of cross-cultural psychology, a study on the interaction between diverse human culture, belief systems and behavioral patterns.
• The Role of Socio-Cultural Psychology on Society This may be in respect to the view of the majority with regard to how one is to express the self.
• Universal Concept of Cross-Cultural Psychology Cross cultural psychology is the term used to refer to the studies done on the processes of the mind and human beings’ behavior using scientific methods.
• Cultural Psychology: Critical Thinking Examples
• The Convergence Between Cultural Psychology and Developmental Science
• Trends in Cultural Psychology
• How Cultural Psychology Impacts Nonverbal Communication
• Cultural Evolutionary Theory: How Culture Evolves and Why It Matters
• The Cultural Psychology Concepts and Theories
• Cultural Psychology of Ethnic Minorities
• Methodological Problems in Cross-Cultural Psychology
• Differences in Cultural Psychology Between East Asia and North America
• Cultural Psychology in Clinical Research: Practice with Portuguese Immigrants
• Using Ethnographic Methods for Cultural Psychology Research
• Stereotyping in Cultural Psychology: Multiple Perspectives of Culture
• Psychology: Effects of Culture on Online Shopping
• Cultural Psychology: Effect of Ramayana on Various Cultures and Civilisations
• Nationalism in Cultural Psychology
• Gender and Gender Roles in Cultural Psychology
• Cultural Psychology Effect on Emotional Regulation
• Understanding Culture Clashes and Catalyzing Change in Cultural Psychology
• Cross-Cultural Psychology of Organizational Behavior
• Western Culture and the Spread of Serial Murder: Cultural Psychology Perspective
• The Difference Between Cultural Psychology and Cross-Cultural Psychology
• Cultural Psychology: Definition & Challenges
• Types of Comparative Studies in Cross-Cultural Psychology
• Cultural Psychology as a Scholarly Discipline
• Cultural Psychology and Its Significance to Consumer Research
• The Constructivist Perspective of Cultural Psychology
• W.E.I.R.D. in Cultural Psychology or Euro-American Centrism
• Stereotypes in Cultural Psychology: Individuals as Homogeneous Products of Culture
• Cultural Psychology: Answers the Big Questions of Life in Each Culture
• The Psychological Cultural Model by Hazel Rose Markus and Alana Conner
• Eight Cultural Conflicts That Make Us Who We Are
• Whiting Model in Cultural Psychology: Cultural Learning Environment
• Cultural Psychology: Independent and Collectivistic Cultures
• Cultural Psychology of Health in India: Modern Medicine and Traditional Systems
• The Nijmegen School of Cultural Psychology: Culture as a Behavior Regulating System
• Aspects of Language Use in Cross‐Cultural Psychology
• An Evaluation of the Cultural Psychology of Our Time
• The Effects of Migration on the Cultural Psychology of Asian Land
• How Music, Art, and Drama Influence the Cultural Psychology
• Contributions to Indigenous and Cultural Psychology
• What Is the Relationship Between Cross-Cultural Psychology and Cultural Psychology?
• Is Cultural Psychology Part of Social Psychology?
• What Is the Role of Cultural Psychology in Nonverbal Communication?
• What Are the Main Goals of Cultural Psychology?
• How Would You Differentiate Cultural Psychology From Other Branches of Psychology?
• What Is the Difference Between Indigenous Psychology and Cultural Psychology?
• How Is Cultural Psychology Related to General Psychology?
• What Is the Basic Concept of Cultural Psychology?
• Where Does Cultural Psychology Come From?
• Is Cultural Psychology a Natural Science?
• What Are the Approaches to Culture Psychology?
• Who Is the Father of Cultural Psychology?
• Is Cultural Psychology the Same as Cross-Cultural Psychology?
• What Does Cultural Psychology Teach?
• Why Is Social Cultural Psychology Important in Our Society?
• How Does Cultural Psychology Differ From General Psychology?
• What Is the Scope of Cultural Psychology?
• Is Cultural Psychology Relevant Today?
• What Is the Nature of Cultural Psychology?
• What Are the Current Issues in Cultural Psychology?
• Are There Similarities in Cultural Psychology Between East Asia and North America?
• Why Is Cultural Psychology Often Confused With Cross-Cultural Psychology?
• What Does Cultural Psychology Focus On Today?
• How Are Cultural Psychology and Personality Related?
• What Is the Unique Contribution of Cultural Psychology?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, March 2). 84 Cultural Psychology Essay Topic Ideas & Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/cultural-psychology-essay-topics/

"84 Cultural Psychology Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." IvyPanda , 2 Mar. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/topic/cultural-psychology-essay-topics/.

IvyPanda . (2024) '84 Cultural Psychology Essay Topic Ideas & Examples'. 2 March.

IvyPanda . 2024. "84 Cultural Psychology Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." March 2, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/cultural-psychology-essay-topics/.

1. IvyPanda . "84 Cultural Psychology Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." March 2, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/cultural-psychology-essay-topics/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "84 Cultural Psychology Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." March 2, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/cultural-psychology-essay-topics/.

• Personal Ethics Titles
• Cultural Identity Research Topics
• Workplace Diversity Research Ideas
• Personal Identity Paper Topics
• Bilingual Education Essay Ideas
• Positive Psychology Titles
• Cultural Relativism Questions
• Moral Development Essay Topics

Cultural Relativity and Acceptance of Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Article sidebar.

Main Article Content

There is a debate about the ethical implications of using human embryos in stem cell research, which can be influenced by cultural, moral, and social values. This paper argues for an adaptable framework to accommodate diverse cultural and religious perspectives. By using an adaptive ethics model, research protections can reflect various populations and foster growth in stem cell research possibilities.

INTRODUCTION

Stem cell research combines biology, medicine, and technology, promising to alter health care and the understanding of human development. Yet, ethical contention exists because of individuals’ perceptions of using human embryos based on their various cultural, moral, and social values. While these disagreements concerning policy, use, and general acceptance have prompted the development of an international ethics policy, such a uniform approach can overlook the nuanced ethical landscapes between cultures. With diverse viewpoints in public health, a single global policy, especially one reflecting Western ethics or the ethics prevalent in high-income countries, is impractical. This paper argues for a culturally sensitive, adaptable framework for the use of embryonic stem cells. Stem cell policy should accommodate varying ethical viewpoints and promote an effective global dialogue. With an extension of an ethics model that can adapt to various cultures, we recommend localized guidelines that reflect the moral views of the people those guidelines serve.

Stem cells, characterized by their unique ability to differentiate into various cell types, enable the repair or replacement of damaged tissues. Two primary types of stem cells are somatic stem cells (adult stem cells) and embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells exist in developed tissues and maintain the body’s repair processes. [1] Embryonic stem cells (ESC) are remarkably pluripotent or versatile, making them valuable in research. [2] However, the use of ESCs has sparked ethics debates. Considering the potential of embryonic stem cells, research guidelines are essential. The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) provides international stem cell research guidelines. They call for “public conversations touching on the scientific significance as well as the societal and ethical issues raised by ESC research.” [3] The ISSCR also publishes updates about culturing human embryos 14 days post fertilization, suggesting local policies and regulations should continue to evolve as ESC research develops. [4]  Like the ISSCR, which calls for local law and policy to adapt to developing stem cell research given cultural acceptance, this paper highlights the importance of local social factors such as religion and culture.

I.     Global Cultural Perspective of Embryonic Stem Cells

Views on ESCs vary throughout the world. Some countries readily embrace stem cell research and therapies, while others have stricter regulations due to ethical concerns surrounding embryonic stem cells and when an embryo becomes entitled to moral consideration. The philosophical issue of when the “someone” begins to be a human after fertilization, in the morally relevant sense, [5] impacts when an embryo becomes not just worthy of protection but morally entitled to it. The process of creating embryonic stem cell lines involves the destruction of the embryos for research. [6] Consequently, global engagement in ESC research depends on social-cultural acceptability.

a.     US and Rights-Based Cultures

In the United States, attitudes toward stem cell therapies are diverse. The ethics and social approaches, which value individualism, [7] trigger debates regarding the destruction of human embryos, creating a complex regulatory environment. For example, the 1996 Dickey-Wicker Amendment prohibited federal funding for the creation of embryos for research and the destruction of embryos for “more than allowed for research on fetuses in utero.” [8] Following suit, in 2001, the Bush Administration heavily restricted stem cell lines for research. However, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005 was proposed to help develop ESC research but was ultimately vetoed. [9] Under the Obama administration, in 2009, an executive order lifted restrictions allowing for more development in this field. [10] The flux of research capacity and funding parallels the different cultural perceptions of human dignity of the embryo and how it is socially presented within the country’s research culture. [11]

b.     Ubuntu and Collective Cultures

African bioethics differs from Western individualism because of the different traditions and values. African traditions, as described by individuals from South Africa and supported by some studies in other African countries, including Ghana and Kenya, follow the African moral philosophies of Ubuntu or Botho and Ukama , which “advocates for a form of wholeness that comes through one’s relationship and connectedness with other people in the society,” [12] making autonomy a socially collective concept. In this context, for the community to act autonomously, individuals would come together to decide what is best for the collective. Thus, stem cell research would require examining the value of the research to society as a whole and the use of the embryos as a collective societal resource. If society views the source as part of the collective whole, and opposes using stem cells, compromising the cultural values to pursue research may cause social detachment and stunt research growth. [13] Based on local culture and moral philosophy, the permissibility of stem cell research depends on how embryo, stem cell, and cell line therapies relate to the community as a whole. Ubuntu is the expression of humanness, with the person’s identity drawn from the “’I am because we are’” value. [14] The decision in a collectivistic culture becomes one born of cultural context, and individual decisions give deference to others in the society.

Consent differs in cultures where thought and moral philosophy are based on a collective paradigm. So, applying Western bioethical concepts is unrealistic. For one, Africa is a diverse continent with many countries with different belief systems, access to health care, and reliance on traditional or Western medicines. Where traditional medicine is the primary treatment, the “’restrictive focus on biomedically-related bioethics’” [is] problematic in African contexts because it neglects bioethical issues raised by traditional systems.” [15] No single approach applies in all areas or contexts. Rather than evaluating the permissibility of ESC research according to Western concepts such as the four principles approach, different ethics approaches should prevail.

Another consideration is the socio-economic standing of countries. In parts of South Africa, researchers have not focused heavily on contributing to the stem cell discourse, either because it is not considered health care or a health science priority or because resources are unavailable. [16] Each country’s priorities differ given different social, political, and economic factors. In South Africa, for instance, areas such as maternal mortality, non-communicable diseases, telemedicine, and the strength of health systems need improvement and require more focus. [17] Stem cell research could benefit the population, but it also could divert resources from basic medical care. Researchers in South Africa adhere to the National Health Act and Medicines Control Act in South Africa and international guidelines; however, the Act is not strictly enforced, and there is no clear legislation for research conduct or ethical guidelines. [18]

Some parts of Africa condemn stem cell research. For example, 98.2 percent of the Tunisian population is Muslim. [19] Tunisia does not permit stem cell research because of moral conflict with a Fatwa. Religion heavily saturates the regulation and direction of research. [20] Stem cell use became permissible for reproductive purposes only recently, with tight restrictions preventing cells from being used in any research other than procedures concerning ART/IVF.  Their use is conditioned on consent, and available only to married couples. [21] The community's receptiveness to stem cell research depends on including communitarian African ethics.

c.     Asia

Some Asian countries also have a collective model of ethics and decision making. [22] In China, the ethics model promotes a sincere respect for life or human dignity, [23] based on protective medicine. This model, influenced by Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), [24] recognizes Qi as the vital energy delivered via the meridians of the body; it connects illness to body systems, the body’s entire constitution, and the universe for a holistic bond of nature, health, and quality of life. [25] Following a protective ethics model, and traditional customs of wholeness, investment in stem cell research is heavily desired for its applications in regenerative therapies, disease modeling, and protective medicines. In a survey of medical students and healthcare practitioners, 30.8 percent considered stem cell research morally unacceptable while 63.5 percent accepted medical research using human embryonic stem cells. Of these individuals, 89.9 percent supported increased funding for stem cell research. [26] The scientific community might not reflect the overall population. From 1997 to 2019, China spent a total of $576 million (USD) on stem cell research at 8,050 stem cell programs, increased published presence from 0.6 percent to 14.01 percent of total global stem cell publications as of 2014, and made significant strides in cell-based therapies for various medical conditions. [27] However, while China has made substantial investments in stem cell research and achieved notable progress in clinical applications, concerns linger regarding ethical oversight and transparency. [28] For example, the China Biosecurity Law, promoted by the National Health Commission and China Hospital Association, attempted to mitigate risks by introducing an institutional review board (IRB) in the regulatory bodies. 5800 IRBs registered with the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry since 2021. [29] However, issues still need to be addressed in implementing effective IRB review and approval procedures.

The substantial government funding and focus on scientific advancement have sometimes overshadowed considerations of regional cultures, ethnic minorities, and individual perspectives, particularly evident during the one-child policy era. As government policy adapts to promote public stability, such as the change from the one-child to the two-child policy, [30] research ethics should also adapt to ensure respect for the values of its represented peoples.

Japan is also relatively supportive of stem cell research and therapies. Japan has a more transparent regulatory framework, allowing for faster approval of regenerative medicine products, which has led to several advanced clinical trials and therapies. [31] South Korea is also actively engaged in stem cell research and has a history of breakthroughs in cloning and embryonic stem cells. [32] However, the field is controversial, and there are issues of scientific integrity. For example, the Korean FDA fast-tracked products for approval, [33] and in another instance, the oocyte source was unclear and possibly violated ethical standards. [34] Trust is important in research, as it builds collaborative foundations between colleagues, trial participant comfort, open-mindedness for complicated and sensitive discussions, and supports regulatory procedures for stakeholders. There is a need to respect the culture’s interest, engagement, and for research and clinical trials to be transparent and have ethical oversight to promote global research discourse and trust.

d.     Middle East

Countries in the Middle East have varying degrees of acceptance of or restrictions to policies related to using embryonic stem cells due to cultural and religious influences. Saudi Arabia has made significant contributions to stem cell research, and conducts research based on international guidelines for ethical conduct and under strict adherence to guidelines in accordance with Islamic principles. Specifically, the Saudi government and people require ESC research to adhere to Sharia law. In addition to umbilical and placental stem cells, [35] Saudi Arabia permits the use of embryonic stem cells as long as they come from miscarriages, therapeutic abortions permissible by Sharia law, or are left over from in vitro fertilization and donated to research. [36] Laws and ethical guidelines for stem cell research allow the development of research institutions such as the King Abdullah International Medical Research Center, which has a cord blood bank and a stem cell registry with nearly 10,000 donors. [37] Such volume and acceptance are due to the ethical ‘permissibility’ of the donor sources, which do not conflict with religious pillars. However, some researchers err on the side of caution, choosing not to use embryos or fetal tissue as they feel it is unethical to do so. [38]

Jordan has a positive research ethics culture. [39] However, there is a significant issue of lack of trust in researchers, with 45.23 percent (38.66 percent agreeing and 6.57 percent strongly agreeing) of Jordanians holding a low level of trust in researchers, compared to 81.34 percent of Jordanians agreeing that they feel safe to participate in a research trial. [40] Safety testifies to the feeling of confidence that adequate measures are in place to protect participants from harm, whereas trust in researchers could represent the confidence in researchers to act in the participants’ best interests, adhere to ethical guidelines, provide accurate information, and respect participants’ rights and dignity. One method to improve trust would be to address communication issues relevant to ESC. Legislation surrounding stem cell research has adopted specific language, especially concerning clarification “between ‘stem cells’ and ‘embryonic stem cells’” in translation. [41] Furthermore, legislation “mandates the creation of a national committee… laying out specific regulations for stem-cell banking in accordance with international standards.” [42] This broad regulation opens the door for future global engagement and maintains transparency. However, these regulations may also constrain the influence of research direction, pace, and accessibility of research outcomes.

e.     Europe

In the European Union (EU), ethics is also principle-based, but the principles of autonomy, dignity, integrity, and vulnerability are interconnected. [43] As such, the opportunity for cohesion and concessions between individuals’ thoughts and ideals allows for a more adaptable ethics model due to the flexible principles that relate to the human experience The EU has put forth a framework in its Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being allowing member states to take different approaches. Each European state applies these principles to its specific conventions, leading to or reflecting different acceptance levels of stem cell research. [44]

For example, in Germany, Lebenzusammenhang , or the coherence of life, references integrity in the unity of human culture. Namely, the personal sphere “should not be subject to external intervention.” [45]  Stem cell interventions could affect this concept of bodily completeness, leading to heavy restrictions. Under the Grundgesetz, human dignity and the right to life with physical integrity are paramount. [46] The Embryo Protection Act of 1991 made producing cell lines illegal. Cell lines can be imported if approved by the Central Ethics Commission for Stem Cell Research only if they were derived before May 2007. [47] Stem cell research respects the integrity of life for the embryo with heavy specifications and intense oversight. This is vastly different in Finland, where the regulatory bodies find research more permissible in IVF excess, but only up to 14 days after fertilization. [48] Spain’s approach differs still, with a comprehensive regulatory framework. [49] Thus, research regulation can be culture-specific due to variations in applied principles. Diverse cultures call for various approaches to ethical permissibility. [50] Only an adaptive-deliberative model can address the cultural constructions of self and achieve positive, culturally sensitive stem cell research practices. [51]

II.     Religious Perspectives on ESC

Embryonic stem cell sources are the main consideration within religious contexts. While individuals may not regard their own religious texts as authoritative or factual, religion can shape their foundations or perspectives.

The Qur'an states:

“And indeed We created man from a quintessence of clay. Then We placed within him a small quantity of nutfa (sperm to fertilize) in a safe place. Then We have fashioned the nutfa into an ‘alaqa (clinging clot or cell cluster), then We developed the ‘alaqa into mudgha (a lump of flesh), and We made mudgha into bones, and clothed the bones with flesh, then We brought it into being as a new creation. So Blessed is Allah, the Best of Creators.” [52]

Many scholars of Islam estimate the time of soul installment, marked by the angel breathing in the soul to bring the individual into creation, as 120 days from conception. [53] Personhood begins at this point, and the value of life would prohibit research or experimentation that could harm the individual. If the fetus is more than 120 days old, the time ensoulment is interpreted to occur according to Islamic law, abortion is no longer permissible. [54] There are a few opposing opinions about early embryos in Islamic traditions. According to some Islamic theologians, there is no ensoulment of the early embryo, which is the source of stem cells for ESC research. [55]

In Buddhism, the stance on stem cell research is not settled. The main tenets, the prohibition against harming or destroying others (ahimsa) and the pursuit of knowledge (prajña) and compassion (karuna), leave Buddhist scholars and communities divided. [56] Some scholars argue stem cell research is in accordance with the Buddhist tenet of seeking knowledge and ending human suffering. Others feel it violates the principle of not harming others. Finding the balance between these two points relies on the karmic burden of Buddhist morality. In trying to prevent ahimsa towards the embryo, Buddhist scholars suggest that to comply with Buddhist tenets, research cannot be done as the embryo has personhood at the moment of conception and would reincarnate immediately, harming the individual's ability to build their karmic burden. [57] On the other hand, the Bodhisattvas, those considered to be on the path to enlightenment or Nirvana, have given organs and flesh to others to help alleviate grieving and to benefit all. [58] Acceptance varies on applied beliefs and interpretations.

Catholicism does not support embryonic stem cell research, as it entails creation or destruction of human embryos. This destruction conflicts with the belief in the sanctity of life. For example, in the Old Testament, Genesis describes humanity as being created in God’s image and multiplying on the Earth, referencing the sacred rights to human conception and the purpose of development and life. In the Ten Commandments, the tenet that one should not kill has numerous interpretations where killing could mean murder or shedding of the sanctity of life, demonstrating the high value of human personhood. In other books, the theological conception of when life begins is interpreted as in utero, [59] highlighting the inviolability of life and its formation in vivo to make a religious point for accepting such research as relatively limited, if at all. [60] The Vatican has released ethical directives to help apply a theological basis to modern-day conflicts. The Magisterium of the Church states that “unless there is a moral certainty of not causing harm,” experimentation on fetuses, fertilized cells, stem cells, or embryos constitutes a crime. [61] Such procedures would not respect the human person who exists at these stages, according to Catholicism. Damages to the embryo are considered gravely immoral and illicit. [62] Although the Catholic Church officially opposes abortion, surveys demonstrate that many Catholic people hold pro-choice views, whether due to the context of conception, stage of pregnancy, threat to the mother’s life, or for other reasons, demonstrating that practicing members can also accept some but not all tenets. [63]

Some major Jewish denominations, such as the Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist movements, are open to supporting ESC use or research as long as it is for saving a life. [64] Within Judaism, the Talmud, or study, gives personhood to the child at birth and emphasizes that life does not begin at conception: [65]

“If she is found pregnant, until the fortieth day it is mere fluid,” [66]

Whereas most religions prioritize the status of human embryos, the Halakah (Jewish religious law) states that to save one life, most other religious laws can be ignored because it is in pursuit of preservation. [67] Stem cell research is accepted due to application of these religious laws.

We recognize that all religions contain subsets and sects. The variety of environmental and cultural differences within religious groups requires further analysis to respect the flexibility of religious thoughts and practices. We make no presumptions that all cultures require notions of autonomy or morality as under the common morality theory , which asserts a set of universal moral norms that all individuals share provides moral reasoning and guides ethical decisions. [68] We only wish to show that the interaction with morality varies between cultures and countries.

III.     A Flexible Ethical Approach

The plurality of different moral approaches described above demonstrates that there can be no universally acceptable uniform law for ESC on a global scale. Instead of developing one standard, flexible ethical applications must be continued. We recommend local guidelines that incorporate important cultural and ethical priorities.

While the Declaration of Helsinki is more relevant to people in clinical trials receiving ESC products, in keeping with the tradition of protections for research subjects, consent of the donor is an ethical requirement for ESC donation in many jurisdictions including the US, Canada, and Europe. [69] The Declaration of Helsinki provides a reference point for regulatory standards and could potentially be used as a universal baseline for obtaining consent prior to gamete or embryo donation.

For instance, in Columbia University’s egg donor program for stem cell research, donors followed standard screening protocols and “underwent counseling sessions that included information as to the purpose of oocyte donation for research, what the oocytes would be used for, the risks and benefits of donation, and process of oocyte stimulation” to ensure transparency for consent. [70] The program helped advance stem cell research and provided clear and safe research methods with paid participants. Though paid participation or covering costs of incidental expenses may not be socially acceptable in every culture or context, [71] and creating embryos for ESC research is illegal in many jurisdictions, Columbia’s program was effective because of the clear and honest communications with donors, IRBs, and related stakeholders.  This example demonstrates that cultural acceptance of scientific research and of the idea that an egg or embryo does not have personhood is likely behind societal acceptance of donating eggs for ESC research. As noted, many countries do not permit the creation of embryos for research.

Proper communication and education regarding the process and purpose of stem cell research may bolster comprehension and garner more acceptance. “Given the sensitive subject material, a complete consent process can support voluntary participation through trust, understanding, and ethical norms from the cultures and morals participants value. This can be hard for researchers entering countries of different socioeconomic stability, with different languages and different societal values. [72]

An adequate moral foundation in medical ethics is derived from the cultural and religious basis that informs knowledge and actions. [73] Understanding local cultural and religious values and their impact on research could help researchers develop humility and promote inclusion.

IV.     Concerns

Some may argue that if researchers all adhere to one ethics standard, protection will be satisfied across all borders, and the global public will trust researchers. However, defining what needs to be protected and how to define such research standards is very specific to the people to which standards are applied. We suggest that applying one uniform guide cannot accurately protect each individual because we all possess our own perceptions and interpretations of social values. [74] Therefore, the issue of not adjusting to the moral pluralism between peoples in applying one standard of ethics can be resolved by building out ethics models that can be adapted to different cultures and religions.

Other concerns include medical tourism, which may promote health inequities. [75] Some countries may develop and approve products derived from ESC research before others, compromising research ethics or drug approval processes. There are also concerns about the sale of unauthorized stem cell treatments, for example, those without FDA approval in the United States. Countries with robust research infrastructures may be tempted to attract medical tourists, and some customers will have false hopes based on aggressive publicity of unproven treatments. [76]

For example, in China, stem cell clinics can market to foreign clients who are not protected under the regulatory regimes. Companies employ a marketing strategy of “ethically friendly” therapies. Specifically, in the case of Beike, China’s leading stem cell tourism company and sprouting network, ethical oversight of administrators or health bureaus at one site has “the unintended consequence of shifting questionable activities to another node in Beike's diffuse network.” [77] In contrast, Jordan is aware of stem cell research’s potential abuse and its own status as a “health-care hub.” Jordan’s expanded regulations include preserving the interests of individuals in clinical trials and banning private companies from ESC research to preserve transparency and the integrity of research practices. [78]

The social priorities of the community are also a concern. The ISSCR explicitly states that guidelines “should be periodically revised to accommodate scientific advances, new challenges, and evolving social priorities.” [79] The adaptable ethics model extends this consideration further by addressing whether research is warranted given the varying degrees of socioeconomic conditions, political stability, and healthcare accessibilities and limitations. An ethical approach would require discussion about resource allocation and appropriate distribution of funds. [80]

While some religions emphasize the sanctity of life from conception, which may lead to public opposition to ESC research, others encourage ESC research due to its potential for healing and alleviating human pain. Many countries have special regulations that balance local views on embryonic personhood, the benefits of research as individual or societal goods, and the protection of human research subjects. To foster understanding and constructive dialogue, global policy frameworks should prioritize the protection of universal human rights, transparency, and informed consent. In addition to these foundational global policies, we recommend tailoring local guidelines to reflect the diverse cultural and religious perspectives of the populations they govern. Ethics models should be adapted to local populations to effectively establish research protections, growth, and possibilities of stem cell research.

For example, in countries with strong beliefs in the moral sanctity of embryos or heavy religious restrictions, an adaptive model can allow for discussion instead of immediate rejection. In countries with limited individual rights and voice in science policy, an adaptive model ensures cultural, moral, and religious views are taken into consideration, thereby building social inclusion. While this ethical consideration by the government may not give a complete voice to every individual, it will help balance policies and maintain the diverse perspectives of those it affects. Embracing an adaptive ethics model of ESC research promotes open-minded dialogue and respect for the importance of human belief and tradition. By actively engaging with cultural and religious values, researchers can better handle disagreements and promote ethical research practices that benefit each society.

This brief exploration of the religious and cultural differences that impact ESC research reveals the nuances of relative ethics and highlights a need for local policymakers to apply a more intense adaptive model.

[1] Poliwoda, S., Noor, N., Downs, E., Schaaf, A., Cantwell, A., Ganti, L., Kaye, A. D., Mosel, L. I., Carroll, C. B., Viswanath, O., & Urits, I. (2022). Stem cells: a comprehensive review of origins and emerging clinical roles in medical practice.  Orthopedic reviews ,  14 (3), 37498. https://doi.org/10.52965/001c.37498

[2] Poliwoda, S., Noor, N., Downs, E., Schaaf, A., Cantwell, A., Ganti, L., Kaye, A. D., Mosel, L. I., Carroll, C. B., Viswanath, O., & Urits, I. (2022). Stem cells: a comprehensive review of origins and emerging clinical roles in medical practice.  Orthopedic reviews ,  14 (3), 37498. https://doi.org/10.52965/001c.37498

[3] International Society for Stem Cell Research. (2023). Laboratory-based human embryonic stem cell research, embryo research, and related research activities . International Society for Stem Cell Research. https://www.isscr.org/guidelines/blog-post-title-one-ed2td-6fcdk ; Kimmelman, J., Hyun, I., Benvenisty, N.  et al.  Policy: Global standards for stem-cell research.  Nature   533 , 311–313 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/533311a

[4] International Society for Stem Cell Research. (2023). Laboratory-based human embryonic stem cell research, embryo research, and related research activities . International Society for Stem Cell Research. https://www.isscr.org/guidelines/blog-post-title-one-ed2td-6fcdk

[5] Concerning the moral philosophies of stem cell research, our paper does not posit a personal moral stance nor delve into the “when” of human life begins. To read further about the philosophical debate, consider the following sources:

Sandel M. J. (2004). Embryo ethics--the moral logic of stem-cell research.  The New England journal of medicine ,  351 (3), 207–209. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp048145 ; George, R. P., & Lee, P. (2020, September 26). Acorns and Embryos . The New Atlantis. https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/acorns-and-embryos ; Sagan, A., & Singer, P. (2007). The moral status of stem cells. Metaphilosophy , 38 (2/3), 264–284. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24439776 ; McHugh P. R. (2004). Zygote and "clonote"--the ethical use of embryonic stem cells.  The New England journal of medicine ,  351 (3), 209–211. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp048147 ; Kurjak, A., & Tripalo, A. (2004). The facts and doubts about beginning of the human life and personality.  Bosnian journal of basic medical sciences ,  4 (1), 5–14. https://doi.org/10.17305/bjbms.2004.3453

[6] Vazin, T., & Freed, W. J. (2010). Human embryonic stem cells: derivation, culture, and differentiation: a review.  Restorative neurology and neuroscience ,  28 (4), 589–603. https://doi.org/10.3233/RNN-2010-0543

[7] Socially, at its core, the Western approach to ethics is widely principle-based, autonomy being one of the key factors to ensure a fundamental respect for persons within research. For information regarding autonomy in research, see: Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, & National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research (1978). The Belmont Report. Ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research.; For a more in-depth review of autonomy within the US, see: Beauchamp, T. L., & Childress, J. F. (1994). Principles of Biomedical Ethics . Oxford University Press.

[8] Sherley v. Sebelius , 644 F.3d 388 (D.C. Cir. 2011), citing 45 C.F.R. 46.204(b) and [42 U.S.C. § 289g(b)]. https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/6c690438a9b43dd685257a64004ebf99/$file/11-5241-1391178.pdf

[9] Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005, H. R. 810, 109 th Cong. (2001). https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/109/hr810/text ; Bush, G. W. (2006, July 19). Message to the House of Representatives . National Archives and Records Administration. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/07/20060719-5.html

[10] National Archives and Records Administration. (2009, March 9). Executive order 13505 -- removing barriers to responsible scientific research involving human stem cells . National Archives and Records Administration. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/removing-barriers-responsible-scientific-research-involving-human-stem-cells

[11] Hurlbut, W. B. (2006). Science, Religion, and the Politics of Stem Cells.  Social Research ,  73 (3), 819–834. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40971854

[12] Akpa-Inyang, Francis & Chima, Sylvester. (2021). South African traditional values and beliefs regarding informed consent and limitations of the principle of respect for autonomy in African communities: a cross-cultural qualitative study. BMC Medical Ethics . 22. 10.1186/s12910-021-00678-4.

[13] Source for further reading: Tangwa G. B. (2007). Moral status of embryonic stem cells: perspective of an African villager. Bioethics , 21(8), 449–457. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8519.2007.00582.x , see also Mnisi, F. M. (2020). An African analysis based on ethics of Ubuntu - are human embryonic stem cell patents morally justifiable? African Insight , 49 (4).

[14] Jecker, N. S., & Atuire, C. (2021). Bioethics in Africa: A contextually enlightened analysis of three cases. Developing World Bioethics , 22 (2), 112–122. https://doi.org/10.1111/dewb.12324

[15] Jecker, N. S., & Atuire, C. (2021). Bioethics in Africa: A contextually enlightened analysis of three cases. Developing World Bioethics, 22(2), 112–122. https://doi.org/10.1111/dewb.12324

[16] Jackson, C.S., Pepper, M.S. Opportunities and barriers to establishing a cell therapy programme in South Africa.  Stem Cell Res Ther   4 , 54 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1186/scrt204 ; Pew Research Center. (2014, May 1). Public health a major priority in African nations . Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2014/05/01/public-health-a-major-priority-in-african-nations/

[17] Department of Health Republic of South Africa. (2021). Health Research Priorities (revised) for South Africa 2021-2024 . National Health Research Strategy. https://www.health.gov.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/National-Health-Research-Priorities-2021-2024.pdf

[18] Oosthuizen, H. (2013). Legal and Ethical Issues in Stem Cell Research in South Africa. In: Beran, R. (eds) Legal and Forensic Medicine. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32338-6_80 , see also: Gaobotse G (2018) Stem Cell Research in Africa: Legislation and Challenges. J Regen Med 7:1. doi: 10.4172/2325-9620.1000142

[19] United States Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services. (1998). Tunisia: Information on the status of Christian conversions in Tunisia . UNHCR Web Archive. https://webarchive.archive.unhcr.org/20230522142618/https://www.refworld.org/docid/3df0be9a2.html

[20] Gaobotse, G. (2018) Stem Cell Research in Africa: Legislation and Challenges. J Regen Med 7:1. doi: 10.4172/2325-9620.1000142

[21] Kooli, C. Review of assisted reproduction techniques, laws, and regulations in Muslim countries.  Middle East Fertil Soc J   24 , 8 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s43043-019-0011-0 ; Gaobotse, G. (2018) Stem Cell Research in Africa: Legislation and Challenges. J Regen Med 7:1. doi: 10.4172/2325-9620.1000142

[22] Pang M. C. (1999). Protective truthfulness: the Chinese way of safeguarding patients in informed treatment decisions. Journal of medical ethics , 25(3), 247–253. https://doi.org/10.1136/jme.25.3.247

[23] Wang, L., Wang, F., & Zhang, W. (2021). Bioethics in China’s biosecurity law: Forms, effects, and unsettled issues. Journal of law and the biosciences , 8(1).  https://doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsab019 https://academic.oup.com/jlb/article/8/1/lsab019/6299199

[24] Wang, Y., Xue, Y., & Guo, H. D. (2022). Intervention effects of traditional Chinese medicine on stem cell therapy of myocardial infarction.  Frontiers in pharmacology ,  13 , 1013740. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2022.1013740

[25] Li, X.-T., & Zhao, J. (2012). Chapter 4: An Approach to the Nature of Qi in TCM- Qi and Bioenergy. In Recent Advances in Theories and Practice of Chinese Medicine (p. 79). InTech.

[26] Luo, D., Xu, Z., Wang, Z., & Ran, W. (2021). China's Stem Cell Research and Knowledge Levels of Medical Practitioners and Students.  Stem cells international ,  2021 , 6667743. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/6667743

[27] Luo, D., Xu, Z., Wang, Z., & Ran, W. (2021). China's Stem Cell Research and Knowledge Levels of Medical Practitioners and Students.  Stem cells international ,  2021 , 6667743. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/6667743

[28] Zhang, J. Y. (2017). Lost in translation? accountability and governance of Clinical Stem Cell Research in China. Regenerative Medicine , 12 (6), 647–656. https://doi.org/10.2217/rme-2017-0035

[29] Wang, L., Wang, F., & Zhang, W. (2021). Bioethics in China’s biosecurity law: Forms, effects, and unsettled issues. Journal of law and the biosciences , 8(1).  https://doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsab019 https://academic.oup.com/jlb/article/8/1/lsab019/6299199

[30] Chen, H., Wei, T., Wang, H.  et al.  Association of China’s two-child policy with changes in number of births and birth defects rate, 2008–2017.  BMC Public Health   22 , 434 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-12839-0

[31] Azuma, K. Regulatory Landscape of Regenerative Medicine in Japan.  Curr Stem Cell Rep   1 , 118–128 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40778-015-0012-6

[32] Harris, R. (2005, May 19). Researchers Report Advance in Stem Cell Production . NPR. https://www.npr.org/2005/05/19/4658967/researchers-report-advance-in-stem-cell-production

[33] Park, S. (2012). South Korea steps up stem-cell work.  Nature . https://doi.org/10.1038/nature.2012.10565

[34] Resnik, D. B., Shamoo, A. E., & Krimsky, S. (2006). Fraudulent human embryonic stem cell research in South Korea: lessons learned.  Accountability in research ,  13 (1), 101–109. https://doi.org/10.1080/08989620600634193 .

[35] Alahmad, G., Aljohani, S., & Najjar, M. F. (2020). Ethical challenges regarding the use of stem cells: interviews with researchers from Saudi Arabia. BMC medical ethics, 21(1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-00482-6

[36] Association for the Advancement of Blood and Biotherapies.  https://www.aabb.org/regulatory-and-advocacy/regulatory-affairs/regulatory-for-cellular-therapies/international-competent-authorities/saudi-arabia

[37] Alahmad, G., Aljohani, S., & Najjar, M. F. (2020). Ethical challenges regarding the use of stem cells: Interviews with researchers from Saudi Arabia.  BMC medical ethics ,  21 (1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-00482-6

[38] Alahmad, G., Aljohani, S., & Najjar, M. F. (2020). Ethical challenges regarding the use of stem cells: Interviews with researchers from Saudi Arabia. BMC medical ethics , 21(1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-00482-6

Culturally, autonomy practices follow a relational autonomy approach based on a paternalistic deontological health care model. The adherence to strict international research policies and religious pillars within the regulatory environment is a great foundation for research ethics. However, there is a need to develop locally targeted ethics approaches for research (as called for in Alahmad, G., Aljohani, S., & Najjar, M. F. (2020). Ethical challenges regarding the use of stem cells: interviews with researchers from Saudi Arabia. BMC medical ethics, 21(1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-00482-6), this decision-making approach may help advise a research decision model. For more on the clinical cultural autonomy approaches, see: Alabdullah, Y. Y., Alzaid, E., Alsaad, S., Alamri, T., Alolayan, S. W., Bah, S., & Aljoudi, A. S. (2022). Autonomy and paternalism in Shared decision‐making in a Saudi Arabian tertiary hospital: A cross‐sectional study. Developing World Bioethics , 23 (3), 260–268. https://doi.org/10.1111/dewb.12355 ; Bukhari, A. A. (2017). Universal Principles of Bioethics and Patient Rights in Saudi Arabia (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/124; Ladha, S., Nakshawani, S. A., Alzaidy, A., & Tarab, B. (2023, October 26). Islam and Bioethics: What We All Need to Know . Columbia University School of Professional Studies. https://sps.columbia.edu/events/islam-and-bioethics-what-we-all-need-know

[39] Ababneh, M. A., Al-Azzam, S. I., Alzoubi, K., Rababa’h, A., & Al Demour, S. (2021). Understanding and attitudes of the Jordanian public about clinical research ethics.  Research Ethics ,  17 (2), 228-241.  https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016120966779

[40] Ababneh, M. A., Al-Azzam, S. I., Alzoubi, K., Rababa’h, A., & Al Demour, S. (2021). Understanding and attitudes of the Jordanian public about clinical research ethics.  Research Ethics ,  17 (2), 228-241.  https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016120966779

[41] Dajani, R. (2014). Jordan’s stem-cell law can guide the Middle East.  Nature  510, 189. https://doi.org/10.1038/510189a

[42] Dajani, R. (2014). Jordan’s stem-cell law can guide the Middle East.  Nature  510, 189. https://doi.org/10.1038/510189a

[43] The EU’s definition of autonomy relates to the capacity for creating ideas, moral insight, decisions, and actions without constraint, personal responsibility, and informed consent. However, the EU views autonomy as not completely able to protect individuals and depends on other principles, such as dignity, which “expresses the intrinsic worth and fundamental equality of all human beings.” Rendtorff, J.D., Kemp, P. (2019). Four Ethical Principles in European Bioethics and Biolaw: Autonomy, Dignity, Integrity and Vulnerability. In: Valdés, E., Lecaros, J. (eds) Biolaw and Policy in the Twenty-First Century. International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine, vol 78. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05903-3_3

[44] Council of Europe. Convention for the protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine: Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (ETS No. 164) https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list?module=treaty-detail&treatynum=164 (forbidding the creation of embryos for research purposes only, and suggests embryos in vitro have protections.); Also see Drabiak-Syed B. K. (2013). New President, New Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Policy: Comparative International Perspectives and Embryonic Stem Cell Research Laws in France.  Biotechnology Law Report ,  32 (6), 349–356. https://doi.org/10.1089/blr.2013.9865

[45] Rendtorff, J.D., Kemp, P. (2019). Four Ethical Principles in European Bioethics and Biolaw: Autonomy, Dignity, Integrity and Vulnerability. In: Valdés, E., Lecaros, J. (eds) Biolaw and Policy in the Twenty-First Century. International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine, vol 78. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05903-3_3

[46] Tomuschat, C., Currie, D. P., Kommers, D. P., & Kerr, R. (Trans.). (1949, May 23). Basic law for the Federal Republic of Germany. https://www.btg-bestellservice.de/pdf/80201000.pdf

[47] Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Germany . Eurostemcell. (2017, April 26). https://www.eurostemcell.org/regulation-stem-cell-research-germany

[48] Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Finland . Eurostemcell. (2017, April 26). https://www.eurostemcell.org/regulation-stem-cell-research-finland

[49] Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Spain . Eurostemcell. (2017, April 26). https://www.eurostemcell.org/regulation-stem-cell-research-spain

[50] Some sources to consider regarding ethics models or regulatory oversights of other cultures not covered:

Kara MA. Applicability of the principle of respect for autonomy: the perspective of Turkey. J Med Ethics. 2007 Nov;33(11):627-30. doi: 10.1136/jme.2006.017400. PMID: 17971462; PMCID: PMC2598110.

Ugarte, O. N., & Acioly, M. A. (2014). The principle of autonomy in Brazil: one needs to discuss it ...  Revista do Colegio Brasileiro de Cirurgioes ,  41 (5), 374–377. https://doi.org/10.1590/0100-69912014005013

Bharadwaj, A., & Glasner, P. E. (2012). Local cells, global science: The rise of embryonic stem cell research in India . Routledge.

For further research on specific European countries regarding ethical and regulatory framework, we recommend this database: Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Europe . Eurostemcell. (2017, April 26). https://www.eurostemcell.org/regulation-stem-cell-research-europe   

[51] Klitzman, R. (2006). Complications of culture in obtaining informed consent. The American Journal of Bioethics, 6(1), 20–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/15265160500394671 see also: Ekmekci, P. E., & Arda, B. (2017). Interculturalism and Informed Consent: Respecting Cultural Differences without Breaching Human Rights.  Cultura (Iasi, Romania) ,  14 (2), 159–172.; For why trust is important in research, see also: Gray, B., Hilder, J., Macdonald, L., Tester, R., Dowell, A., & Stubbe, M. (2017). Are research ethics guidelines culturally competent?  Research Ethics ,  13 (1), 23-41.  https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016116650235

[52] The Qur'an  (M. Khattab, Trans.). (1965). Al-Mu’minun, 23: 12-14. https://quran.com/23

[53] Lenfest, Y. (2017, December 8). Islam and the beginning of human life . Bill of Health. https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2017/12/08/islam-and-the-beginning-of-human-life/

[54] Aksoy, S. (2005). Making regulations and drawing up legislation in Islamic countries under conditions of uncertainty, with special reference to embryonic stem cell research. Journal of Medical Ethics , 31: 399-403.; see also: Mahmoud, Azza. "Islamic Bioethics: National Regulations and Guidelines of Human Stem Cell Research in the Muslim World." Master's thesis, Chapman University, 2022. https://doi.org/10.36837/ chapman.000386

[55] Rashid, R. (2022). When does Ensoulment occur in the Human Foetus. Journal of the British Islamic Medical Association , 12 (4). ISSN 2634 8071. https://www.jbima.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/2-Ethics-3_-Ensoulment_Rafaqat.pdf.

[56] Sivaraman, M. & Noor, S. (2017). Ethics of embryonic stem cell research according to Buddhist, Hindu, Catholic, and Islamic religions: perspective from Malaysia. Asian Biomedicine,8(1) 43-52.  https://doi.org/10.5372/1905-7415.0801.260

[57] Jafari, M., Elahi, F., Ozyurt, S. & Wrigley, T. (2007). 4. Religious Perspectives on Embryonic Stem Cell Research. In K. Monroe, R. Miller & J. Tobis (Ed.),  Fundamentals of the Stem Cell Debate: The Scientific, Religious, Ethical, and Political Issues  (pp. 79-94). Berkeley: University of California Press.  https://escholarship.org/content/qt9rj0k7s3/qt9rj0k7s3_noSplash_f9aca2e02c3777c7fb76ea768ba458f0.pdf https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520940994-005

[58] Lecso, P. A. (1991). The Bodhisattva Ideal and Organ Transplantation.  Journal of Religion and Health ,  30 (1), 35–41. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27510629 ; Bodhisattva, S. (n.d.). The Key of Becoming a Bodhisattva . A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life. http://www.buddhism.org/Sutras/2/BodhisattvaWay.htm

[59] There is no explicit religious reference to when life begins or how to conduct research that interacts with the concept of life. However, these are relevant verses pertaining to how the fetus is viewed. (( King James Bible . (1999). Oxford University Press. (original work published 1769))

Jerimiah 1: 5 “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee…”

In prophet Jerimiah’s insight, God set him apart as a person known before childbirth, a theme carried within the Psalm of David.

Psalm 139: 13-14 “…Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…”

These verses demonstrate David’s respect for God as an entity that would know of all man’s thoughts and doings even before birth.

[60] It should be noted that abortion is not supported as well.

[61] The Vatican. (1987, February 22). Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation Replies to Certain Questions of the Day . Congregation For the Doctrine of the Faith. https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19870222_respect-for-human-life_en.html

[62] The Vatican. (2000, August 25). Declaration On the Production and the Scientific and Therapeutic Use of Human Embryonic Stem Cells . Pontifical Academy for Life. https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_academies/acdlife/documents/rc_pa_acdlife_doc_20000824_cellule-staminali_en.html ; Ohara, N. (2003). Ethical Consideration of Experimentation Using Living Human Embryos: The Catholic Church’s Position on Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Human Cloning. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology . Retrieved from https://article.imrpress.com/journal/CEOG/30/2-3/pii/2003018/77-81.pdf.

[63] Smith, G. A. (2022, May 23). Like Americans overall, Catholics vary in their abortion views, with regular mass attenders most opposed . Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/05/23/like-americans-overall-catholics-vary-in-their-abortion-views-with-regular-mass-attenders-most-opposed/

[64] Rosner, F., & Reichman, E. (2002). Embryonic stem cell research in Jewish law. Journal of halacha and contemporary society , (43), 49–68.; Jafari, M., Elahi, F., Ozyurt, S. & Wrigley, T. (2007). 4. Religious Perspectives on Embryonic Stem Cell Research. In K. Monroe, R. Miller & J. Tobis (Ed.),  Fundamentals of the Stem Cell Debate: The Scientific, Religious, Ethical, and Political Issues  (pp. 79-94). Berkeley: University of California Press.  https://escholarship.org/content/qt9rj0k7s3/qt9rj0k7s3_noSplash_f9aca2e02c3777c7fb76ea768ba458f0.pdf https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520940994-005

[65] Schenker J. G. (2008). The beginning of human life: status of embryo. Perspectives in Halakha (Jewish Religious Law).  Journal of assisted reproduction and genetics ,  25 (6), 271–276. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-008-9221-6

[66] Ruttenberg, D. (2020, May 5). The Torah of Abortion Justice (annotated source sheet) . Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/234926.7?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en

[67] Jafari, M., Elahi, F., Ozyurt, S. & Wrigley, T. (2007). 4. Religious Perspectives on Embryonic Stem Cell Research. In K. Monroe, R. Miller & J. Tobis (Ed.),  Fundamentals of the Stem Cell Debate: The Scientific, Religious, Ethical, and Political Issues  (pp. 79-94). Berkeley: University of California Press.  https://escholarship.org/content/qt9rj0k7s3/qt9rj0k7s3_noSplash_f9aca2e02c3777c7fb76ea768ba458f0.pdf https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520940994-005

[68] Gert, B. (2007). Common morality: Deciding what to do . Oxford Univ. Press.

[69] World Medical Association (2013). World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki: ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. JAMA , 310(20), 2191–2194. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2013.281053 Declaration of Helsinki – WMA – The World Medical Association .; see also: National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. (1979).  The Belmont report: Ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research . U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/belmont-report/read-the-belmont-report/index.html

[70] Zakarin Safier, L., Gumer, A., Kline, M., Egli, D., & Sauer, M. V. (2018). Compensating human subjects providing oocytes for stem cell research: 9-year experience and outcomes.  Journal of assisted reproduction and genetics ,  35 (7), 1219–1225. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-018-1171-z https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6063839/ see also: Riordan, N. H., & Paz Rodríguez, J. (2021). Addressing concerns regarding associated costs, transparency, and integrity of research in recent stem cell trial. Stem Cells Translational Medicine , 10 (12), 1715–1716. https://doi.org/10.1002/sctm.21-0234

[71] Klitzman, R., & Sauer, M. V. (2009). Payment of egg donors in stem cell research in the USA.  Reproductive biomedicine online ,  18 (5), 603–608. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1472-6483(10)60002-8

[72] Krosin, M. T., Klitzman, R., Levin, B., Cheng, J., & Ranney, M. L. (2006). Problems in comprehension of informed consent in rural and peri-urban Mali, West Africa.  Clinical trials (London, England) ,  3 (3), 306–313. https://doi.org/10.1191/1740774506cn150oa

[73] Veatch, Robert M.  Hippocratic, Religious, and Secular Medical Ethics: The Points of Conflict . Georgetown University Press, 2012.

[74] Msoroka, M. S., & Amundsen, D. (2018). One size fits not quite all: Universal research ethics with diversity.  Research Ethics ,  14 (3), 1-17.  https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016117739939

[75] Pirzada, N. (2022). The Expansion of Turkey’s Medical Tourism Industry.  Voices in Bioethics ,  8 . https://doi.org/10.52214/vib.v8i.9894

[76] Stem Cell Tourism: False Hope for Real Money . Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI). (2023). https://hsci.harvard.edu/stem-cell-tourism , See also: Bissassar, M. (2017). Transnational Stem Cell Tourism: An ethical analysis.  Voices in Bioethics ,  3 . https://doi.org/10.7916/vib.v3i.6027

[77] Song, P. (2011) The proliferation of stem cell therapies in post-Mao China: problematizing ethical regulation,  New Genetics and Society , 30:2, 141-153, DOI:  10.1080/14636778.2011.574375

[78] Dajani, R. (2014). Jordan’s stem-cell law can guide the Middle East.  Nature  510, 189. https://doi.org/10.1038/510189a

[79] International Society for Stem Cell Research. (2024). Standards in stem cell research . International Society for Stem Cell Research. https://www.isscr.org/guidelines/5-standards-in-stem-cell-research

[80] Benjamin, R. (2013). People’s science bodies and rights on the Stem Cell Frontier . Stanford University Press.

Mifrah Hayath

SM Candidate Harvard Medical School, MS Biotechnology Johns Hopkins University

Olivia Bowers

MS Bioethics Columbia University (Disclosure: affiliated with Voices in Bioethics)

Article Details

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .

The Value of Defeat in Developing Resilience

"wins and lessons" instead of "wins and losses" in youth sports..

Posted May 16, 2024 | Reviewed by Michelle Quirk

• What Is Resilience?
• Find counselling near me
• How we respond to failure in sports and in life is highly significant.
• Self-assessment at the individual and team levels after defeats allows us to zoom in on areas for growth.
• School social work practitioners can give students choices to support their ability to think independently.

No athlete plays to lose, nor does any coach game plan for defeat. It’s safe to say that a competitive mindset is a prerequisite to participating in sports in any capacity. Nevertheless, no athlete or coach is undefeated in their lifetime, and how we respond to failure makes all the difference in sports and in life. As a youth football head coach, my teams and I have experienced our share of defeats. Sometimes we are outplayed, sometimes outcoached, sometimes both. Gleaned from a less-than-stellar win-loss record has been a plethora of teaching and learning moments.

Self-assessment at the individual and team levels after defeats has allowed us to zoom in on analyzing areas for growth, opportunities that often don’t exist after victories. It’s human nature to believe that little work is needed after wins while more work is needed after losses. The more we win, the more we believe we have already outworked our competition , subconsciously becoming complacent. Losses, though never desired, can be capitalized upon to accelerate growth through urgency.

I’ve often told my athletes that to play like a winner, you have to work like a loser. During especially difficult seasons, I’ve used the language of “wins and lessons” instead of “wins and losses” as it encourages continuous growth under undesirable circumstances. These lessons often transcend from the football field into the classroom and eventually into careers in the boardroom.

What if ‘All I Do Is Win’?

“All I do is win, win, win no matter what” (DJ Khaled, 2010).

Although this seems like a delightful way to experience life, it’s quite obvious that the low points in our lives make the high points that much more enjoyable. If all we did was win, apathy would replace enthusiasm as we wouldn’t know the sting of loss. Defeat helps us learn resilience through constructive criticism, whereas constructive criticism is more difficult to formulate and accept in victory.

It’s a myth that we either fail or we succeed. The reality is that we fail in order to succeed—that the road to success is paved in failure. Thus, there is no success without failure, and contrary to what some may believe, failure is not the opposite of success but rather it’s a part of success (Huffington, 2018). Ultimately, if all we did was win, it would be impossible for us to grow.

Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset

Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck (2015) writes about fixed and growth mindsets : A fixed mindset leads to a desire to look smart and therefore a tendency to (a) avoid challenges, (b) give up easily due to obstacles, (c) see effort as fruitless, (d) ignore useful feedback, and (e) be threatened by others’ success. This results in what she calls "static intelligence ." A growth mindset, on the other hand, leads to a desire to learn and therefore a tendency to (a) embrace challenges, (b) persist despite obstacles, (c) see effort as a path to mastery, (d) learn from criticism, and (e) be inspired by others’ success. This results in what she calls "developmental intelligence."

Implications for School Social Work Practice

Developing growth-minded youth, athletes or not, means facilitating autonomy. School social work practitioners can give students choices to support their ability to think independently. To develop meaningful relationships with students, school social work practitioners can organize group activities in and out of sports. Asking students to keep a journal is a great way for school social work practitioners to support students’ self-reflection.

School social work practitioners can provide opportunities for students to display life skills by welcoming student leadership in decision-making , particularly in peer-group settings (e.g., team sports). When teachable moments appear, school social work practitioners can pause to stress the transferability of life skills. Using volunteerism is another way school social work practitioners can involve local communities by having students teach (or coach) younger students.

Academic development is the top priority for students, including student-athletes, and school social work practitioners can help coaches take an interest in their athletes’ academic progress. By encouraging peer evaluation and learning from others, school social work practitioners can encourage students to learn from each other in addition to their teachers and coaches. Finally, school social work practitioners can help teachers and coaches intentionally plan developmental strategies to encourage realistic goal-setting for their students and athletes.

Wins and losses in youth sports are essentially meaningless. I’ve told the parents of my youth football players that some of them may go pro, but none of them will go pro next year. (I coach 8-year-olds.) I’ve opted to use the language of "wins and lessons" instead of "wins and losses," and it has helped implement a growth mindset for holistic athlete development. I ask my athletes to consider how the lessons they learn on the football field can translate to lessons applied in the classroom, and one day, the boardroom. Past task competence can help develop future task confidence ; thus, reflecting on why a lesson learned about football is actually a lesson learned about life is of utmost importance to the development of student and athlete resilience and empowerment.

Dweck, C. (2015). Carol Dweck revisits the growth mindset. Education Week, 35 (5), 20–24.

Satara, A. (n.d.). In 1 Sentence Arianna Huffington Captured the Pathway to Success; Anyone with ambitious goals needs to hear her perspective on this . Inc.com.

Khaled, D. (Artist). (2010). All I do is win [Music]. Victory.

Dr. Nafees Alam is a professor specializing in nonprofit program evaluation and macro practice, where he has over seven years of experience.

• Find a Therapist
• Find a Treatment Center
• Find a Psychiatrist
• Find a Support Group
• Find Online Therapy
• International
• New Zealand
• South Africa
• Switzerland
• Asperger's
• Bipolar Disorder
• Chronic Pain
• Eating Disorders
• Passive Aggression
• Personality
• Goal Setting
• Positive Psychology
• Stopping Smoking
• Low Sexual Desire
• Relationships
• Child Development
• Self Tests NEW
• Therapy Center
• Diagnosis Dictionary
• Types of Therapy

At any moment, someone’s aggravating behavior or our own bad luck can set us off on an emotional spiral that threatens to derail our entire day. Here’s how we can face our triggers with less reactivity so that we can get on with our lives.

• Emotional Intelligence
• Gaslighting
• Affective Forecasting
• Neuroscience