Culture and basic psychological processes--toward a system view of culture: comment on Oyserman et al. (2002).
D. Oyserman, H. M. Coon, and M. Kemmelmeier (2002) provide a most comprehensive review of empirical studies that used attitudinal surveys to capture cultural variations in individualism and collectivism. In the present article, the author suggests that the cross-cultural validity of attitudinal surveys can no longer be taken for granted. Moreover, the meta-theory underlying this literature (called the entity view of culture) is called into question. The author presents an alternative meta-theory (called the system view of culture) and discusses its implications for future work in cultural and cross-cultural psychology.
Kitayama
Shinobu
S
Department of Integrated Human Studies, Kyoto University, Japan. kitayama@hi.h.kyoto-u.ac.jp
D001290:Attitude; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D006801:Humans; D011593:Psychology, Social; D013598:Systems Theory