Cross-cultural Studies (Penguin modern psychology readings)

By Douglass Richard Price-Williams

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140805206
• ISBN13: 9780140805208
• Release Date: January 1970
• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 5.0" x 1.0" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

Classic readings

This book contains a carefully chosen set of readings about testing psychological theories in a variety of cultures In the introduction, Price-Williams points out to the reader that a great deal of psychological theory has been developed by Western researchers, based on observations and work with Westerners. Oddly, many believe that such theories can be assumed to be operant throughout the entire human race, in all cultures. In this book, Price-Williams has collected classic papers that bring out the issues relevant for cross-cultural psychological research. He has organized the papers so as to bring out the thread of the scientific dialogue that was carried out between the researchers of the times.The book has eight sections: theory and method, tests, visual illusions, pictorial depth perception, field dependence, conservation (of quantity in the Piagetian sense), achievement motivation, and Freudian hypotheses. Each section contains a short (one or two page) introduction that provides the context for the discussion, followed by 2 or 3 classic papers that bring out the essence of the topic. Each paper closes with the original cited references. At the end of the book there is also a selection of references for further reading, organized by topic, as well as an author index and a subject index.The topic of the book was perhaps most clearly stated in the paper by Frijda and Jahoda. In it, they state "The need for additional comparisons, and for the testing of consequences of interpretations, is greatest in explanatory studies. Partialling-out of covarying factors by more involved experimental designs, and extension of lines of reasoning to intercultural differences is often indispensable. For instance, supposed cross-cultural influences of ecological variables should also hold within one and the same culture; white American inhabitants of the Great Plains should show as much horizontal-vertical illusion, in comparison to New Yorkers, as plains-versus-city dwellers separated by cultural boundaries." Such ideas should be obvious- -it's amazing how often they're overlooked in experimental design. Later in the volume, R. A. Levine eloquently describes social motivations in Africa that seem to be applicable much more broadly "When a rural family is faced with a decline in income such as that caused by overcrowding on the land, there is a choice between lowering standards of consumption and finding new sources of income. The former alternative, which involves becoming increasing poverty, is in fact adopted by families in economically depressed areas all over the world. Such families operate on a principle of least effort in which the comfort of remaining in familiar surroundings and doing familiar things, even when faced with starvation, outweighs the future economic benefits that might be gained from drastically changing their way of life. So long as their impoverishment is gradual, they will put up with it, for it affords known and immed