Culture and Groups

Our final week was about culture and groups. To be more specific, how cultural effects can be fluid in different intergroup conditions. Our readings basically talked about how assumptions based on dichotomies such as individualism and collectivism or independency and interdependency can be wrong (Or this was one of the points I interpreted). A person from an individualistic culture may develop collectivistic personality traits depending on the group they are in. But it is not only limited with this, readings also talk about how group relations are affected by culture.

A comparison between North American and East Asian societies helps us detect the different effects of culture on groups. For example, North Americans apply an intergroup comparison; they compare the group they are in with other groups and see their own group as the superior one. Whereas in the East Asian culture, intragroup relations are more dominant. They do not compare themselves with other groups. Relationships within the group are more important. Another example can be categorical or relational trust. For North Americans, being a part of the same group with an individual is enough for trusting them, whereas for East Asian culture, personal relationships are the key factor for trust. Lastly, relational mobility should be talked about. In individualistic cultures such as North America, people can easily change groups for various reasons. Whereas in East Asia we can observe that the group memberships are not as fluid as North America. The important thing in East Asia is to strengthen the bonds within a group, not changing it.

Readings also indicate the fact that certain psychological features are shaped by simply the “situation”. With a theoretical basis obtained from Sheriff’s Robber’s Cave experiment and the minimal group paradigm, the second article talks about how and why groups may interact with each other the way they do.

I felt that when they are in a group, people from North America perceive their groups as an individual, or maybe directly themselves. Personality traits we observe in individualistic cultures can be maybe applied to the group situation. And I really liked the fact that in our readings, intergroup interactions are not only explained by psychological structures, but (maybe a little bit indirectly) also with historical and political backgrounds, even though there were some parts that I did not agree politically.