Applying Cross-Cultural Psychology to Development

Developmental psychology is the study of human biological, social, and cognitive changes throughout the lifespan. While most learn about developmental issues from conception to puberty, or to the end of the teenage years, developmental psychology broadly takes a “cradle to grave” approach. Issues of middle age, retirement, aging, and death and dying are equally relevant to the field. Think of these common social issues: should caregivers spank their children? how should communities handle their aging members? how should caregivers tend to their infants? how do we socialize children to their gender? All encompass developmental concerns or concepts. All of them also require a consideration of cultural values.

In this chapter, you will review basic issues in developmental psychology: universal and diverse development, “successful” development, and ecological considerations. You will also review how behavioral, social, and emotional knowledge is passed from one generation to another. After reviewing these foundational concepts, the chapter will guide you through two scholarly articles on cultural issues in child development, specifically. The articles use cross-cultural comparisons to discuss commonly-accepted, western definitions of “foundational” developmental ideas: the nuclear family and attachment. While the articles use global examples, consider that the U.S. is becoming increasingly racially and ethnically diverse, and that immigration results in globalized communities within the country. Thus, these themes and ideas are still relevant to the study of U.S. Multicultural Psychology.

Basic Issues in Developmental Psychology

Human development is often marked by stages and milestones: when a child begins to walk, when they begin to speak, and so forth. Milestones continue into adulthood (e.g., when a person is considered an “adult,” has a child, etc.). These developmental progressions through stages and milestones can be described by their universal and diverse qualities. Universal development refers to developmental stages or milestones that have the same progression, regardless of cultural context. For example, all infants follow the same progression in learning language: they first coo, then babble, then speak one-word phrases, and so forth, until they are fluent speakers in their language(s). Diverse development can refer to the language an infant learns (e.g., Spanish, Tagalog, or Urdu) or how caregivers expose their infants to language. For example, in some cultures it is typical to speak to infants in a conversational tone, while in others, caregivers use more direct speech (Hammer & Weiss, 1999). While opportunities for language development may differ, all infants progress similarly through stages of language (Hammer & Weiss, 1999; cf Maschinot, 2008).

Much of the developmental psychology literature tries to explore what constitutes “normal” development. Many caregivers and other adults like to know where their child “compares” to objective developmental standards. This can include whether an infant is able to sit up on their own at the expected age, whether a child is able to obtain good grades in school or stay in their seat during class, and how a teen adjusts socially to high school. Many markers of “successful” development are only successful in a specific cultural context. While tracking whether an infant can sit up on their own (or hold up their head, walk, pick up an object, etc.) are universal markers of normal development – ideally, everyone should meet these standards – a child living in rural Mongolia’s and a child in Boston will likely have different benchmarks for what it is to be developmentally successful.

Consider one Western ideal for development: that children develop a sense of independence, where growing up represents the ability to function outside of the family. In many cultures and families this is not the ideal at all: instead, interdependence and a prioritization of the group over the individual is a far greater developmental achievement.

In addition to cultural considerations – a community’s values, social norms, beliefs – development is also shaped by socioeconomic status, parental behaviors and stress, and policy. For some, cultural norms, public policy, and socioeconomic status may all complement each other. For example, white middle class families in the U.S. are often in a position where they can achieve U.S. cultural values, as public policy is often shaped by this same group. For other families, these identities and statuses may conflict with one another. For example, until recently same-sex couples were unable to legally marry (a legislative policy) and can continue to face social barriers to raising children (e.g., stigma). From a scientific perspective, these different concepts can become muddled – for example, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status are often mixed together and the root causes of developmental differences are wrongly ascribed to race/ethnicity. For example, for some time the differences in literacy development in White and Black children was thought to be due to racial differences in cognitive ability (Hammer & Weiss, 2000). In reality, children’s literacy is tied to whether their family is impoverished – and therefore do not likely have the resources to purchase children’s books (Hammer & Weiss, 2000).

Given this, cross-cultural research in development requires a careful, detailed analysis of the full context of how a child is developing. In addition to cultural norms, researchers and practitioners must consider the child’s family and family’s stressors (economic, social, etc), access to resources (due to economic or policy constraints), and so on.

How do people learn? How is knowledge transmitted?

We will explore two theories of learning: behaviorism and social learning theory. Understanding the processes through which people learn will help us to understand how cultural values and knowledge are transmitted.

Behaviorism consists of reinforcing (increasing a desired behavior) and punishing (decreasing an undesired behavior). Young children are praised (reinforcement) when they accomplish a task and are reprimanded (punished) when they disobey. Praise and reprimand (or discipline) will come in different forms based on cultural values – whether praise is small and nonverbal, explicitly verbal, or involves some sort of tangible reward or whether reprimand is ignoring a behavior, verbally scolding, or corporal punishment. Through reinforcement and punishment, adults can convey to children and teens which behaviors are socially acceptable and/or desired.

Social learning consists of a learner observing someone else performing an activity, and then choosing whether or not to copy this person – a model. If a child observe the model being reinforced for their behavior, the child will likely mimic the model. If the model was punished, then the child learns to not copy the model. This process is known as vicarious learning. Generally, a learner is more likely to copy a model if the model is seen as competent, successful, and similar to the learner (e.g., same gender, etc.). It is worth noting that “competent” and “successful” are culturally defined: Kim Kardashian may be seen as successful in some cultures, but not in all. Similarities between the model and learner are key – in diverse societies, like the U.S., children will often look for models that resemble them racially/ethnically or share similar upbringings (socioeconomic class, urban/rural, etc.). In this way, children learn by seeking out who they think is an ideal model, which is often culturally defined.

In Summary…

Much of human development must be considered within cultural and ecological contexts. Often, Western developmental concepts are imposed on non-western families and children, as many mistakenly assume these concepts are universal. Two of these not-so-universal concepts are detailed in the articles reviewed below: the nuclear family unit and attachment theory.

Guided Reading: Trask (through section 2.4 only)

Trask reviews how “family” is defined and what social, economic, and historical forces shape that definition. As you review the reading, be sure you can articulate the following:

1. How do policy, social, and religious spheres influence how family is defined in the U.S.A.?
2. Trask suggests there are two general ways of categorizing definitions of families: by structure and by process. What is an example of each?
3. Identify themes or propgranda used in the U.S. post-World War II that promoted the “utility” of families. What did the ideal family unit look like (known as Parsonian families)?
   1. Did this picture actually represent everyone? Who was left out?
   2. How could children be impacted by these family expectations? What was going on culturally to influence their socialization?
4. How do non-western societies define family?

Guided reading: Keller

Keller reviews Bowlby’s attachment theory and Ainsworth’s strange situation (for a demonstration of this experiment, see this video).

1. Ainsworth found a breakdown of “attachment styles” in U.S. mother-child dyads, where most infants were classified as secure. How does this ratio of secure-to-insecurely attached infants hold up in other cultures and countries?
2. Keller argues that certain developmental constructs, like maternal sensitivity, have moral values embedded into them. What would this mean for the construct’s validity? (recall: chapter 4).
3. What were your reactions to some of the examples of how infants are raised in non-U.S. cultures? In general, did you have stronger reactions to the Trask article or to the Keller article? Why do you think that is?

References

Hammer, C. S., & Weiss, A. L. (1999). Guiding language development: How African American mothers and their infants structure play interactions. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 45(5), 1219-1233. Guiding Language Development: How African American Mothers and Their Infants Structure Play Interactions

Hammer, C. S., & Weiss, A. L. (2000). African American mothers’ views of their infants’ language development and language -learning environment. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 9(2), 126-140. African American Mothers’ Views of Their Infants’ Language Development and Language-Learning Environment

Keller, H. (2013). Attachment and culture. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 44(2), 175-194. SageJournals, Attachment and Culture

Maschinot, B. (2008). The changing face of the United States: The influence of culture on child development. Zero to Three.

Trask, B. S. (2010). Globalization and families: Accelerated systemic social change. Springer Science + Business Media.