A fourfold conceptual framework for cultural and cross-cultural psychology: relativism, construct universalism, repertoire universalism and absolutism

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511974090.008

7 - A fourfold conceptual framework for cultural and cross-cultural psychology: relativism, construct universalism, repertoire universalism and absolutism

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012

Johnny R. J. Fontaine

Edited by

Fons J. R. van de Vijver ,

Athanasios Chasiotis and

Seger M. Breugelmans

Show author details

Johnny R. J. Fontaine: Affiliation:
Ghent University, Belgium
Fons J. R. van de Vijver: Affiliation:
Universiteit van Tilburg, The Netherlands
Athanasios Chasiotis: Affiliation:
Universiteit van Tilburg, The Netherlands
Seger M. Breugelmans: Affiliation:
Universiteit van Tilburg, The Netherlands

Book contents

Get access

Summary

The dichotomous conceptual framework that opposes relativism to universalism plays a key role in the debates on the culture–psychology relationships (e.g., Berry, Poortinga and Pandey, 1997; see also Eckensberger, this volume). The impact of this dichotomous framework is so profound that it has led to the emergence of the two fairly autonomously functioning sub-domains of cultural psychology and cross-cultural psychology, with the former advocating a relativist and the latter advocating a universalist perspective. The problem with this twofold framework, however, is that universalism is too broad a concept. Universalism can refer to a variety of concepts ranging from approaches that only assume universality of underlying psychological traits and processes to approaches that attribute quantitative cross-cultural differences in psychological test scores to genetic differences. The broadness of the concept causes confusion in theoretical discussions. This problem was recognised by Berry et al. (1992, 2002) in their landmark book Cross-cultural psychology: research and applications. They proposed a threefold conceptual framework in which the extreme form of universalism, which interprets quantitative cross-cultural differences in psychological test scores in terms of genetic differences, was treated as a separate, third perspective. The central thesis of the present contribution is that the recognition of an additional, distinct type of universalism is needed to clarify the confusion that is caused by the broadness of the universalism concept. This thesis is based on a critical analysis of both the twofold and the threefold conceptual framework.

Type: Chapter
Information: Fundamental Questions in Cross-Cultural Psychology , pp. 165 - 189

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511974090.008 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Berry, J. W. (1979). A cultural ecology of social behavior. In Berkowitz, L. (ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (vol. XII, pp. 177–206). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar

Berry, J. W., Poortinga, Y. H., and Pandey, J. (eds.). (1997). Handbook of cross-cultural psychology (2nd edn, vol. I). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.Google Scholar

Berry, J. W., Poortinga, Y. H., Segall, M. H., and Dasen, P. R. (1992). Cross-cultural psychology: Research and applications. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Berry, J. W., Poortinga, Y. H., Segall, M. H., and Dasen, P. R. (2002). Cross-cultural psychology: Research and applications (2nd edn). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Breugelmans, S. M., and Poortinga, Y. H. (2006). Emotion without a word: Shame and guilt among Rarámuri Indians and rural Javanese. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 1111–22.CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Brown, D. (1991). Human universals. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar

Cote, J. (1994). Adolescent storm and stress: An examination of the Mead/Freeman controversy. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar

Feyerabend, P. (1975). Against method: Outline of an anarchist theory of knowledge. London: New Left Books.Google Scholar

Fontaine, J. R. J. (2005). Equivalence. In Kempf-Leonard, K. (ed.), Encyclopedia of social measurement (vol. I, pp. 803–13). New York: Academic Press.CrossRef Google Scholar

Fontaine, J. R. J. (2008). Traditional and multilevel approaches in cross-cultural research: An integration of methodological frameworks. In Vijver, F. J. R., Hemert, D. A. and Poortinga, Y. H. (eds.), Multilevel analysis of individuals and cultures (pp. 65–92). New York: Erlbaum.Google Scholar

Fontaine, J. R. J., Poortinga, Y. H., Setiadi, B., and Suprapti, S. M. (2002). Cognitive structure of emotion terms in Indonesia and The Netherlands. Cognition and Emotion, 16, 61–86.CrossRef Google Scholar

Freeman, D. (1983). Margaret Mead and Samoa: The making and unmaking of an anthropological myth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar

John, O. P., Angleitner, A., and Ostendorf, F. (1988). The lexical approach to personality: A historical review of trait taxonomic research. European Journal of Personality, 2, 171–203.CrossRef Google Scholar

Kärtner, J., Keller, H., Lamm, B., Abels, M., Yovsi, R. D., Chaudhary, N., and Su, Y. (2008). Similarities and differences in contingency experiences of 3-months-olds across sociocultural contexts. Infant Behavior and Development, 31, 488–500.CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Kitayma, S., Markus, H. R., and Kurokawa, M. (2000). Culture, emotion, and well-being: Good feelings in Japan and the United States. Cognition and Emotion, 14, 93–124.CrossRef Google Scholar

Lynn, R., and Vanhanen, T. (2002). IQ and the wealth of nations. Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar

Mackintosh, N. J. (1998). IQ and human intelligence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

McCrae, R. R., Terracciano, A., and ,79 members of the Personality Profiles of Cultures Project (2005). Personality profiles of cultures: Aggregate personality traits. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 407–25.CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Mead, M. (1928). Coming of age in Samoa: A psychological study of primitive youth for Western civilization. New York: Morrow Quill Paperbacks.Google Scholar

,Merriam-Webster Online (2009). Universalism. Retrieved 4 July 2009, from www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/universalism.

Messick, S. (1989). Validity. In Linn, R. L. (ed.), Educational measurement (3rd edn, pp. 13–103). New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.Google Scholar

Miller, J. G. (1997). Theoretical issues in cultural psychology. In Berry, J. W., Poortinga, Y. H. and Pandey, J. (eds.), Handbook of cross-cultural psychology (2nd edn), vol. I: Theory and method (pp. 85–128). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.Google Scholar

Murdock, G. P. (1975). Outline of world cultures (5th edn). New Haven, CT: Human Relations Area Files.Google Scholar

Osgood, C. E., May, W. H., and Miron, M. S. (1975). Cross-cultural universals of affective meaning. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar

Poortinga, Y. H. (1997). Towards convergence? In Berry, J. W., Poortinga, Y. H. and Pandey, J. (eds.), Handbook of cross-cultural psychology (2nd edn), vol. I: Theory and method (pp. 347–87). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.Google Scholar

Poortinga, Y. H. (1999). Do differences in behavior imply a need for different psychologies?Applied Psychology: An International Review, 48, 419–32.Google Scholar

Poortinga, Y. H. (2003). Coherence of culture and generalizability of data: Two questionable assumptions in cross-cultural psychology. In Berman, M. and Berman, J. J. (eds.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, vol. XLIX: Cross-cultural differences in perspectives on the self (pp. 257–305). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar

Przeworski, A., and Teune, H. (1970). The logic of comparative social inquiry. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar

Rosaldo, M. (1980). Knowledge and passion: Ilongot notions of self and social life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef Google Scholar

Russell, J. A., Lewicka, M., and Niit, T. (1989). A cross-cultural study of a circumplex model of affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 848–56.CrossRef Google Scholar

Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries. In Zanna, M. (ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (vol. XXV, pp. 1–65). Orlando, FL: Academic Press.Google Scholar

Vijver, F. J. R., and Leung, K. (1997). Methods and data analysis for cross-cultural research. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Google Scholar

Vijver, F. J. R., and Poortinga, Y. H. (1997). Towards an integrated analysis of bias in cross-cultural assessment. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 13, 29–37.CrossRef Google Scholar

Vijver, F. J. R., Hemert, D. A., and Poortinga, Y. H. (2008). Conceptual issues in multilevel models. In Vijver, F. J. R., Hemert, D. A. and Poortinga, Y. H. (eds.), Multilevel analysis of individuals and cultures (pp. 3–26). New York: Erlbaum.Google Scholar

Hemert, D. A., Poortinga, Y. H., and Vijver, F. J. R. (2007). Emotion and culture: A meta-analysis. Cognition and Emotion, 21, 913–43.CrossRef Google Scholar

Hemert, D. A., Vijver, F. J. R., Poortinga, Y. H., and Georgas, J. (2002). Structure and score levels of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire across individuals and countries. Personality and Individual Differences, 33, 1229–49.CrossRef Google Scholar

Vester, J. M., and Prinsloo, R. J. (1988). The diminishing test performance gap between English speakers and Afrikaans speakers in South Africa. In Irvine, S. H. and Berry, J. W. (eds.), Human abilities in cultural context (pp. 534–60). New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef Google Scholar

Vogel, F., and Motulsky, A. G. (1979). Human genetics: Problems and approaches. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar

Wassmann, J., and Dasen, R. R. (1994). Yupno number system and counting. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 25, 78–94.CrossRef Google Scholar

Yamaguchi, S. (1999, June). Amae: When people presume acceptance of their own inappropriate behavior. Paper presented at the AAAS meeting, San Francisco.Google Scholar

Yamaguchi, S., and Ariizumi, Y. (2006). Close interpersonal relationships among Japanese: Amae as distinguished from attachment and dependence. In Kim, U., Yang, K.-S. and Hwang, K.-K. (eds.), Indigenous and cultural psychology: Understanding people in context (pp. 163–74). New York: Springer Science.CrossRef Google Scholar