Quiz — Chapter 38: Cultural Psychology — How Culture Shapes the Mind

Instructions

25 multiple-choice questions. Select the single best answer. Answer key with explanations follows.

Questions

1. The acronym WEIRD in Henrich, Hein, and Norenzayan's (2010) critique of behavioral science stands for:

A) Worldwide, European, Individualist, Rational, Developed B) Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic C) White, Egalitarian, Independent, Research-focused, Dominant D) Western, Empiricist, Intellectual, Rational, Deductive

2. The primary argument of Henrich and colleagues' "The weirdest people in the world" paper was that:

A) WEIRD samples have higher intelligence than non-WEIRD populations B) Cross-cultural research is too difficult to conduct with adequate rigor C) WEIRD populations are outliers on many psychological dimensions, making them poor representatives of human psychology broadly D) Cultural differences are superficial and should not change how psychological findings are interpreted

3. Hazel Markus and Shinobu Kitayama's 1991 paper distinguished between:

A) High-context and low-context communication styles B) Independent and interdependent self-construals C) Individualist and collectivist moral reasoning D) Tight and loose cultural norms

4. In Masuda and Nisbett's (2001) research on cognitive style, Japanese participants compared to American participants:

A) Recalled more about focal objects in animated scenes B) Showed less sensitivity to background contextual information C) Recalled more background contextual information in animated scenes D) Were less accurate on spatial perception tasks

5. Geert Hofstede's dimension of "power distance" refers to:

A) The degree to which a culture values personal power and dominance B) The extent to which less powerful members accept and expect unequal distribution of power C) The distance between political leaders and ordinary citizens D) The hierarchy of needs in individualist versus collectivist cultures

6. Michele Gelfand's research on "tight" versus "loose" cultures found that tight cultures are characterized by:

A) Geographically isolated populations with limited outside contact B) Strong social norms, clear behavioral expectations, and low tolerance for norm violations C) High income inequality and formal class stratification D) Collectivist values and strong in-group loyalty

7. Research on display rules (Matsumoto & Ekman) found that:

A) Japanese and American participants showed consistently different emotional expressions even when alone B) Cultural differences in emotional expression only occurred when a social audience was present C) American participants suppressed negative emotions more than Japanese participants when observed D) Emotional expression was equally spontaneous across cultures regardless of social context

8. The concept of amae in Japanese culture refers to:

A) A form of shame that motivates prosocial behavior B) An energizing anger-like state that drives competitive behavior C) A sweet sense of dependence and indulgence in another's benevolence D) The obligation to maintain group harmony at personal cost

9. Lisa Feldman Barrett's constructionist theory of emotion argues that:

A) Emotions are fixed biological categories with universal neural signatures B) Cultural factors determine the emotional vocabulary people use but not the underlying emotional states C) Emotions are constructed from basic components (affect, interoception) through culturally shaped processes D) Display rules are the primary mechanism through which culture shapes emotion

10. The fundamental attribution error is described as LESS pronounced in East Asian cultures because:

A) People in East Asian cultures are better at logic and systematic reasoning B) The holistic, context-sensitive cognitive style produces more situational attributions C) Collectivist cultures have stronger in-group protection biases D) East Asian educational systems specifically train situational attribution

11. Cultural neuroscience research (Zhu et al., 2007) found that in self-referential brain activation:

A) Chinese and American participants showed identical patterns of medial prefrontal cortex activation B) American participants showed equivalent mPFC activation for self and mother; Chinese participants showed higher activation for self C) Chinese participants showed equivalent mPFC activation for self and mother; American participants showed higher activation for self D) The mPFC showed no cultural variation; cultural differences were found in limbic regions

12. According to John Berry's acculturation framework, which strategy is generally associated with the BEST psychological outcomes?

A) Assimilation B) Separation C) Marginalization D) Integration

13. The strategy of "marginalization" in Berry's acculturation model refers to:

A) Maintaining heritage culture while avoiding new cultural participation B) Adopting the new culture while abandoning heritage culture C) Neither maintaining heritage culture nor participating in the new culture D) Finding a middle ground between heritage and new culture

14. Research on bicultural identity integration (BII) has found that people with HIGH bicultural identity integration tend to show:

A) Higher psychological stress from managing two competing cultural frameworks B) More cognitive flexibility and creativity C) Stronger identification with one culture over the other D) Less sensitivity to cultural cues in ambiguous situations

15. Melanie Tervalon and Jann Murray-García's "cultural humility" framework differs from traditional "cultural competency" in that it:

A) Requires more extensive knowledge of specific cultural groups B) Replaces cultural knowledge with pure empathy C) Emphasizes ongoing self-reflection and openness rather than achieved knowledge competency D) Focuses primarily on institutional change rather than individual practice

16. The Müller-Lyer optical illusion, which shows differential effects across cultures, demonstrated that:

A) People in non-Western cultures have superior visual acuity B) Visual perception previously assumed to be universal varies with cultural experience (specifically, "carpentered world" exposure) C) The illusion is only effective when testing participants who speak languages with spatial terms D) Optical illusions are culturally constructed rather than related to visual processing

17. Hofstede's "uncertainty avoidance" dimension describes:

A) The degree to which cultures avoid competitive situations B) Cultural variation in how future-oriented decisions are made C) The degree to which ambiguity and novel situations are experienced as threatening D) Preferences for certainty in interpersonal versus financial decisions

18. Research on the self-enhancement bias (the tendency to view oneself as above average) shows that:

A) The bias is equally strong across all cultures studied B) The bias is stronger in individualist cultures and weaker or reversed in East Asian collectivist cultures C) The bias is stronger in collectivist cultures where group status requires personal enhancement D) The bias shows no cultural variation, only variation in the domains of self-enhancement

19. Monochronic versus polychronic time orientation refers to:

A) The difference between future-oriented and past-oriented cultures B) Whether cultures treat time as linear and segmentable versus fluid with multiple simultaneous activities C) The preference for short-term versus long-term planning horizons D) Whether schedules are based on solar or lunar cycles

20. Which of the following best describes the relationship between culture and race?

A) Race is a biological category that determines cultural values B) Culture and race are interchangeable terms in cross-cultural psychology C) Cultural patterns correlate with demographic categories but are not determined by them; individual variation within cultural groups is substantial D) Race is a social construction that has no connection to cultural psychology

21. Research on the self-construal differences between independent and interdependent cultures shows that:

A) People in collectivist cultures have weaker self-concepts overall B) The relationship between self-concept and close others is neurologically distinct across cultures C) Collectivist cultures produce more cognitive dissonance because group and individual goals conflict D) Independent self-construals are more adaptive because they support higher achievement motivation

22. The concept of "display rules" was developed to explain which observation?

A) Cross-cultural variation in the experience of emotional states B) Why people produce the same spontaneous emotional expressions in private but different expressions in social contexts across cultures C) Differential rates of emotional disorders across cultural groups D) Why collectivist cultures value emotional restraint more than individualist cultures

23. Hofstede's original individualism-collectivism research was based on data from:

A) Clinical populations in 50 countries B) IBM employee surveys across 50 countries C) Cross-national laboratory experiments comparing student populations D) Anthropological field studies across 50 societies

24. The WEIRD critique implies which of the following for psychological practice?

A) Psychological frameworks developed in WEIRD contexts should be abandoned for non-WEIRD populations B) Frameworks should be applied with awareness of their cultural embedding and not treated as universal truths C) Non-WEIRD populations require entirely different therapeutic approaches with no overlap D) Cultural variation in psychology is too large to allow any cross-cultural application of findings

25. Research documenting cultural variation in attribution (Miller, 1984) found that compared to American participants, Indian participants:

A) Made stronger dispositional attributions for negative behaviors B) Were less accurate in explaining social behaviors C) Made more situational/contextual attributions for social behaviors D) Showed the same attribution patterns but articulated them differently

Answer Key

1. B — WEIRD stands for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic — the characteristics that describe the populations on which most behavioral science research is conducted. Henrich and colleagues argued these populations are systematically unrepresentative of the human species.

2. C — The paper's core argument: WEIRD samples show outlier values on many psychological dimensions (self-enhancement, fairness norms, perception, attribution, reasoning style). Conclusions drawn from WEIRD samples therefore cannot be treated as universal human psychology.

3. B — Markus and Kitayama's foundational 1991 paper introduced the independent/interdependent self-construal distinction: independent self = bounded, autonomous, internally defined; interdependent self = embedded in relationships, contextually sensitive, defined through social roles and obligations.

4. C — Japanese participants recalled more contextual background information (consistent with holistic, context-sensitive cognition); Americans recalled more about focal objects (consistent with analytic, object-focused cognition). The difference reflects broader cognitive style differences documented across many tasks.

5. B — Power distance: the extent to which less powerful members of a society accept and expect unequal power distribution. High power-distance cultures have steeper hierarchies and more deference to authority; low power-distance cultures have flatter hierarchies and more tolerance for challenging authority.

6. B — Tight cultures (Gelfand): strong social norms, clear behavioral expectations in specific situations, and severe sanctioning for norm violations. Associated historically with threat environments requiring coordinated behavior. Not equivalent to collectivism (B) though they correlate.

7. B — Display rules produced cultural differences in emotional expression specifically in the social observation condition — Japanese participants suppressed expressions when observed; Americans did not. The underlying spontaneous expressions (when alone) were nearly identical, suggesting the difference was in when and how emotions are expressed, not in the underlying emotional response.

8. C — Amae is a Japanese concept for a sweet, indulgent sense of relying on and being cherished by a close other — not translatable as a single English emotion. It describes a relational affective quality valued in interdependent cultures.

9. C — Barrett's constructionist theory: emotions are not fixed natural kinds with universal neural signatures but are constructed from basic affective components (valence, arousal) through culturally learned processes of categorization, language, and social scripting. Culture is not just dressing on a universal substrate; it partly constitutes emotional experience.

10. B — East Asian cultures' more holistic, context-sensitive cognitive style produces greater attention to situational factors in explaining behavior, reducing the dispositional over-attribution that characterizes the FAE. The cognitive style difference — not simply cultural content — produces the attribution difference.

11. C — Chinese participants showed equivalent mPFC activation for self-relevant and mother-relevant trait judgments — consistent with interdependent self-construal (close others are part of the self). American participants showed higher activation for self than for mother — consistent with independent self-construal (the self is clearly bounded and distinct from others).

12. D — Integration — maintaining heritage culture while fully participating in the new culture — is consistently associated with the best psychological outcomes in acculturation research. Bicultural individuals who successfully integrate report higher wellbeing, better adaptation, and more cognitive flexibility.

13. C — Marginalization: neither maintaining heritage culture nor adopting the new culture. This produces loss of both cultural identity structures without replacement and is associated with the worst psychological outcomes in acculturation research.

14. B — High BII (seeing two cultural identities as compatible and complementary) is associated with more cognitive flexibility and creativity — people can draw on both cultural frameworks as problem-solving resources. Low BII (experiencing the identities as conflicting) produces more psychological stress.

15. C — Cultural humility emphasizes ongoing self-reflection, recognizing power imbalances, and remaining open to learning from each individual — rather than achieving a competency level of cultural knowledge and applying it. Competency models can produce stereotyping; humility maintains curiosity.

16. B — The Müller-Lyer illusion is significantly weaker in people from non-carpentered environments (less exposure to right angles, boxes, buildings). This demonstrated that a visual illusion long assumed to be universal was substantially shaped by visual experience — undermining assumptions about universal perception.

17. C — Uncertainty avoidance: the degree to which cultures feel threatened by ambiguity, novel situations, and the unknown. High-UA cultures develop more rules, rituals, and conventions to reduce uncertainty. Not the same as risk avoidance — some high-UA cultures are quite comfortable with physical risk but uncomfortable with social or epistemic ambiguity.

18. B — The self-enhancement bias (tendency to rate oneself as above average on positive traits) is reliably stronger in North American and Western European samples than in East Asian samples, where modesty and fitting in are more valued and self-effacement is more common. This directly challenges the assumption that self-enhancement is universal.

19. B — Monochronic time (Hall's term): linear, segmentable, schedulable — one task at a time, punctuality as moral value. Polychronic time: fluid, multiple simultaneous activities, relational obligations take precedence over schedule. These reflect different cultural relationships to time, not planning horizon (answer D) or past/future orientation (answer A).

20. C — Cultural psychology makes claims about modal tendencies in populations, not about individuals. Cultural patterns correlate with (but are not determined by) demographic categories. Individual variation within any cultural group is substantial. Culture changes; people move between cultures; individuals within cultures vary enormously.

21. B — Zhu et al.'s cultural neuroscience finding: the neural relationship between self-referential processing and processing close others is literally different across cultures, reflecting different self-construals at the level of neural organization. The self is not just conceptually different; it is neurologically differently organized across cultures.

22. B — Display rules explain why people from different cultures show different emotional expressions in social contexts but nearly identical spontaneous expressions when alone. The emotional substrate is similar; the cultural script for when and how to display it differs.

23. B — Hofstede's original research analyzed surveys of IBM employees across 50 countries — a large, systematic dataset with the advantage of holding employment context relatively constant across countries while comparing national cultures. The IBM context is both a strength (comparative control) and limitation (employees of a multinational corporation are not representative of all cultural variation).

24. B — The WEIRD critique calls for cultural humility in applying frameworks — not abandoning them, but holding them with awareness of their cultural embedding and treating their universality as an empirical question rather than an assumption. Answer A would mean abandoning large bodies of useful research; answer C overstates the non-overlap.

25. C — Miller (1984) compared American and Indian participants' explanations of prosocial and deviant behaviors. Indian participants made more situational/contextual attributions; American participants made more dispositional attributions. The cross-cultural difference in attribution style had been attributed to a universal cognitive error; Miller's work showed it was culturally variable.

Score: 23–25 = Excellent | 19–22 = Strong | 15–18 = Review flagged sections | Below 15 = Re-read the chapter