1. Indigenous,cultural,and
cross-cultural psychology:
A theoretical, conceptual, and
epistemological analysis
By: Uichol Kim
Presentor: Jingyan Ding 10906035

2. Guideline
• Introduction
• Analysis of culture
• Ecology and cultural adaptation
• Epistemology
• Phenomenology
• Conculsion

3. Introduction
• Three approaches attempt to explain
cultural differences can be identified:
– Universalist
• Aims to discover abstract, nomothetic, and general
laws of human functioning-----etic approach
– Contextualist
• Point out that many theories are ethnocentric,
biased, and culture-bound-----emic approach
– Integrationist
• Integrate the context and content

4. • Two types of integrationist approaches
– Indigenization from without (derived etic)
• Involves transporting psychological theories,
concepts, and methods and modifying them to fit
the local cultural context.-----external imposition
– Indigenization from within (indigenous
approach)
• Theories, concepts and methods are developed
internally and indigenous information is considered
to be a primary source of knowledge.- a bottom-up

5. Analysis of culture
• Two approaches to understanding culture
– Derived etic approach
• Psychologists adopted a top-down, positivistic
approach in their search for abstract and universal
laws of human functioning.
• Culture is considered to be a contextual factor and
was eliminated from the research design.
• Culture is treated as a quasi-independent variable
and behavior as a dependent variable.

7. – In the indigenous psychologies approach
• Culture is an emergent property of individuals and
groups interacting with their natural and human
environment.
• Culture is defined as a rubric of patterned
variables.
• Differences in cultures exist because we have
focused on and developed different aspects of our
environment and attached different meanings and
values to them.

8. • Understanding a culture from within
– The task
• Translate the first-person phenomenological,
episodic, and procedural experience into analytical,
semantic and declarative knowledge.
– A transaction model of causality
• Focus on the generative and proactive aspects.

10. – Basic scientific tenets
• Which outlined in the sociocognitive theory
developed by Bandura
– Separation of different levels of analysis
• Physiological
• Psychological
• Culture

11. – Three key aspects to investigate culture,
• Context
• Epistemology
• Phenomenology

12. bottom
up

13. Ecology and cultural adaptation
• Ecology refers to the total pattern of
relationships between life forms and their
environment, and includes the natural
environment that humans share with other
living organisms.

14. • Berry(1976)found
– Cultural differences arise partly due to
variations in ecology and human adaptation to
it.
– that ecological context has a significant effect
on types of cultures that emerge, which in turn
affect individual functioning, namely cognitive
style.
See a table below

15. period Before sixteen century After sixteen century
Economic mode Subsistence economies Market economies
People work for food, and other living
materials
wages
labor Serfs and peasants workers
Skill and knowledge Passed down from one
generation to another
Result in production
and distribution
Socialization
practices
Trust, cooperation, and
conservatism
Social intelligence,
technological
intelligence
Goal of socialization Survival , subsistence Development of
cognitive and linguistic
skills
relationship Long-standing relationship
of trust and obligation
Full of unrelated
strangers
Collective action Family, clan, tribe Class, union
Social and cultural change in ecological context

16. Epistemology
• The development and transformation of cultures
can trace the art work, religion, science.
• Comparison of Western Liberalism and East
Asian perspective.
– Individualism & relationship (harmony)
– Rationality & emotional

17. • Western liberalism

18. • Chinese “Confucianism”

19. – There can be competing philosophies and
worldviews within a particular culture. These
have influenced each another and have been
integrated and blended into a synthetic form.

20. Phenomenology
• The greatest variation across cultures
exists in the area of phenomenology.

21. Summary and conclusion
• Although science can provide the most
accurate understanding of the world, it can
also blind and limit our understanding.
– Researchers in the field of psychology
imposed the natural sciences model to study
human beings. But the natural sciences
paradigm distorted psychological phenomena.

22. – Psychological theories were assumed to be
universal.
– Expert or professional knowledge have
imposed on the lay public.

23. • The indigenous psychologies approach
advocates
– liberation from these external impositions and
experience of phenomenon as an insider.
– A linkage of humanities with social science.

24. Question?