Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Lecture 3: WEIRD societies

In today’s class, Dr. Heine went over some of his current research in what he calls “The Weirdest People in the World”. However, he uses the term “weird” in a different sense from what most of us would use the term. When we think of that word we think of bizarre, odd and perhaps even freaky things. Weird is the 40-year-old dude who talks to nobody except his pet spider and Chucky replica dolls. Weird is the 60-year-old crazy cat lady on The Simpsons. In this sense, weird just comes to describe anything out of the ordinary, where ordinary describes the majority. In that case, weird can also mean exceptional (perhaps in a good sense, or perhaps as exceptions to the norm) such as in the case of WEIRD societies; WEIRD stands for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic societies.

"GAAAARHHHHHH WEEEAAAAAAAAAAA!!"
Studying WEIRD people (people who live in WEIRD societies) shows that there is quite a bit of differences in various cultural psychologies. People from these WEIRD societies are highly exceptional in many aspects of their psychology. We can show evidence of this by a series of telescoping contrasts between:

-    Industrialized and non-industrialized societies
-    Western and non-Western societies
-    Americans and other Westerners
-    University educated Americans and other Americans

Beginning with the comparison between industrialized and non-industrialized societies we see various domains in which industrialized societies occupy an extreme position. First off, we have visual illusions. The famous Mueller-Lyer Illusion where we find that one line is longer than another (even though they are identical lines) just because of a couple of triangles missing an arm (or v’s) facing different directions on the ends of the line.  The fact that the illusion can only be seen by some societies exemplifies the modularity of mind, a term that means that different parts of the brain serve different functions due to evolution (Noam Chomsky’s view of universal grammar and LAD were loosely based upon this idea, but that’s a different topic of study). The theory is that there is a particular point in our development where we can learn this “mental trait” of perceiving depth via physical corners. This is kind of hard to put into words so this picture from the notes should help:


So basically, if we grow up in a society where this is the predominant architecture, we learn to perceive things being further away or closer to us due to the angles of the top and bottom of a line. Going back on Lecture 2’s idea of general psychology stripping context and content from studies, we can see that this kind of conclusion is not possible. Some other topics of interest where WEIRD societies are different are perceptions of fairness, folkbiological reasoning and egocentric spatial reasoning. Perceptions of fairness can be studied by telling the subject that they were to receive ten dollars and that they could split that amount in any way they wanted, which they would then share with another subject partaking in the study who they would never meet or see. People from WEIRD societies tended to share the money more often than people from non WEIRD societies (I am not 100% sure if this is correct, but I think it is. I also don’t remember what Dr. Heine had to say about folkbiological reasoning. If anyone knows either of these for certain, please leave me a comment!) For egocentric spatial reasoning, WEIRD societies tend to describe the position of an item relative to us by saying it’s on our left or right; other societies use cardinal directions such as north, south, east or west. 

When comparing Western and non-Western societies, there were some domains in which Western societies occupy an extreme position. Westerners tend to use analytic reasoning more than holistic reasoning. Comparing holistic and analytic reasoning is like comparing family resemblance-based and rule-based judgments. Westerners viewed analytic reasoning as the dominant reasoning style, however, a few years back, researchers found that analytic thinking was much less evident in East Asia. Now, there is more evidence showing that analytic thinking is less common almost everywhere in the non-Western world. Westerners also have more independent self-concepts, more motivations for self-enhancement, more desire for choice, they are less conforming and their morality is exclusively based on justice.

Next, in comparing Americans and non-Americans, we find that Americans harbor more defensive reactions to thoughts of death, they are more individualistic, their reasoning is even more analytical and they desire even more choice. When the thought of death crosses people’s minds, they show varied degrees of defensive responses. The thought of death may spur beliefs in the supernatural, patriotism, they more enthusiastically protect the status quo and they become more extreme in their position towards outgroup members. Americans seemed to show the most defensive reactions to thoughts of death; this may stem from the extreme individualistic ideals common throughout the US. When a society is geared more towards a collective whole, the thought of passing away may not be as bad because their culture, nation, etc will continue on. With extreme individualism, the most that will continue on after your death will be your family.

Finally, by comparing college educated Americans and other Americans we see that the former have higher heritability estimates for IQ, more independent views of self, they are less conforming, they have an increased justice-based morality, desire for choice and defensive responses to death thoughts than their less educated counterparts. Important to note here is that the higher heritability estimates for IQ may have more to do with socioeconomic status rather than genetic predisposition. For people to obtain a post secondary education, they must be able to financially support that decision. This is not possible for the bottom layer of the socioeconomic cake (REMINDER: Another thing you should be grateful for in life; we are blessed with the privilege to be in a university, let alone one with a beautiful campus so enjoy it!). In other words, perhaps these IQ results stem more from socioeconomic reasons than the evidence suggests; lower income homes may have less resources to spend on enriching the residential environment with educative amenities. Most adoption agencies (in developed countries) will not allow you to adopt if you have a low income. Low income families have more variability in education compared to mid to high income families; some families set a higher priority than others, Thus, there is a possibility that the heritability estimates of IQ are so high because of the restricted amount of estimates.

Sadly, this was the funniest comic on IQ tests I could find..
To conclude, when analyzing many key psychological phenomena, it is apparent that the WEIRD samples are truly the outliers.  A few exceptions to this case are when viewing emotional expressions (a smile means the same anywhere in the world), desired traits of partners (money and looks, ldo), etc. An obvious issue arises: how can we generalize to the world population or a “universal CPU” when theories are mostly built upon these WEIRD samples? Clearly, psychologists need to be wary of this and focus more attention on samples from other parts of the world; however, this is a difficult thing to overcome, as psychology is really only a revered topic in the WEIRD societies therefore making it expensive to study other countries all over the world. Reiterating the question posed by Dr. Heine at the end of class, what do you think psychologists should do to rectify this problem?

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Lecture 2: Studying Cultural Psychology

Through the last few millenia, humans have adapted to a society that is highly dependent upon cultural learning and accumulation. We share values and cultural ideologies that set individuals apart from others all over the world. Cultural ideas are a necessity for our success and survival.

Shweder: "I embrace all cultures. Blackhaws and Canucks."
Richard Shweder, now a professor at the University of Chicago, is known as one of the founders of cultural Psychology. He contrasted "general psychology" with "cultural psychology" and came up with this view of general psychology:

"A key goal of general psychology is to reveal the underlying, and universal, CPU. To do this, we need to isolate it from context and content, to reduce the noise and allow us to detect a clear signal. Avoid studying multiple cultures as this increases the amount of noise. Any cultural variation that is found occurs because of noise that conceals the CPU. "Real" cultural variation can't exist, because the "real" mind is the CPU, which is universal."

I'm not sure if this is a widely accepted view of general psychology, but this view seems to be highly limited to the lab. Extrapolating data taken by completely stripping the context and content from the real world doesn't seem like a very good idea. Real life is so complex and our actions cannot be predicted without the context of the situation in my opinion. Also, this view of general psychology is heavily weighted towards the nature side of the "nature vs nurture" debate. If the mind is universal, then the view of "nurture" is the noise? The human mind is shaped from birth to death by our experiences and I believe that the state of our mind at any given point in time will differ greatly. Continuing on...

"In contrast, cultural psychology maintains that the mind cannot be separated from content or context. Mind and culture are mutually constituted. That is, mind arises from participating in a culture, with all activities, challenges, practices, and scripts inherent with it. Also, culture arises from the participation of the minds within it."

This is more in line with how I think psychologists should study people. To remove so much context and content, the results show what would happen in the "universal" CPU of the mind, but these results are not very applicable to real life. It also seems like Shweder presented an exaggerated view of general psychology, or an outdated one; that's definitely not the type of stuff I learned in Psy 100.

Next in class, we did a visual test comparing lines in boxes. We had to determine from two choices which line corresponded to a blown up image of one of the two choices. Three questions testing relative sizes (to the box) and three questions testing absolute sizes. Then we were surveyed by our ethnicity and whether we got more absolute or relative questions correct (or got the same). This was to demonstrate in class a study done by Hedden et al. in 2008 where they found that East Asians showed more brain activation in the left inferior parietal lobule and the right precentral gyrus for the absolute tasks, while their American counterparts showed more for the relative tasks. These regions have to do with attentional control; when the subjects did the culturally unfamiliar task, these brain regions were activated more. Conclusion: Culture differentiates us in many ways, including ways in which we do tasks such as trying to find similarities in lines within boxes. (lol)


Finally, Dr. Heine addressed the serious fact that some researchers don't concern themselves with the trend of the subjects in their studies. In the top psychology journals, 68% of the participants were American, and 96% were from industrialized Western countries, while 70% were psychology undergraduates. This means that the odds of a randomly chosen American undergraduate vs a non undergraduate is over 4000 to 1!


So what do you guys think about the applicability of studies cited in the news or magazines to the general public? Even if they are properly managed studies that follow good scientific practices, the nature of the subjects alone makes it so that not everyone can relate to a finding, yet most people do. Feel free to leave comments!

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Lecture 1: Differentiating Humans from Animals

The first topic discussed by Dr. Heine was the difference between homo sapiens and the rest of the animal kingdom. Why were chimpanzees, orangutans and other types of gorillas/monkeys stronger than we were, even though we shared the same ancestry? It is known that humans are so much weaker than our nearest primate relatives, but why? A Michael Phelps analogy was needed to drive the point home; as one of the best competitive swimmers of all time, Phelps trains extremely hard multiple times per day to be the world class competitor he is. To maintain his body weight, he has to consume 12,000 calories per day. For the average human being, this amount of exercise and food consumption is not feasible to maintain a "normal" lifestyle.

"I love Psychology THIS much."
A trade-off between traits in species becomes apparent, in this case a trade-off between muscle and brain. Two physical adaptations to bring about a bigger brain size come into play: Humans have less muscle mass and smaller intestines, which is apparently an adaptation to eating cooked food. Eating raw food apparently takes more energy, and as we are all lazy human beings, this adaptation is awesome!

Moving forward, we get to three competing theories on why primates have such big brains:

1) Many primates are fruit eaters and fruit eating is a highly intellectual practice requiring a big brain. Not only do you have to remember where the fruit trees are, but you must also remember when to come back so you get some nice ripe fruits.

2) Many primates like to eat puzzles, in which I mean foods they have to somehow manipulate to extract the good stuff inside. Examples: Termites (a fine delicacy) and nuts.

3) Many primates like to live within large social networks in which you can learn from each other (progressive learning) while having to spend a lot of time maintaining relationships.

Of course, any good theory must have some scientific evidence to back it up. This is where theory 1) and 2) fall, while theory 3) prevails. There was zero correlation between brain size and a fruit diet, and also zero correlation between brain size and a extraction required food diet. However, there is a positive correlation between brain size and the mean group size kept by the species in question. [Fun fact of the day: Humans can have relationships with approximately 150 people without losing touch. Many will disagree saying they have 900+ friends on Facebook. Facebook is like a steroid for social networks. And you really don't know everyone on your list anyways.] Conclusion: "Primate brain evolution appears to be largely driven by their highly social lifestyle."

So... Humans are ultra-social! Compared to primates, we live in larger groups, we're more interested in each other's activities and we participate in cultural learning. A study was done to compare the learning styles of a 2.5 year old human children, orangutans and chimpanzees by Herrmann et al. in 2007. When tasked with general problem-solving skills regarding the physical world, chimps and humans were nearly identical in their results, with the orangutans being slightly worst. Nevertheless, when tasked with social learning, the humans fared the best than both the other primates. Conclusion: Humans are unique in the sense that we partake in so much social learning. The ability to learn skills by observing and imitating is a key factor in our large brain evolution.

When humans learn from a model, we imitate; when chimpanzees learn from a model, they emulate. Let me XPAND: Humans tend to internalize the model's goals and behavioral strategies to solve similar problems, while chimpanzees focus on the environment and their surroundings rather than taking into account the model's intentions.

Another study (by Nagel et al. 1993) comparing chimpanzees and 2 year old human babies showed a disadvantage of imitative learning. In this study, the subject used a rake to reach an object that he/she/monkey couldn't reach without the tool. The model would demonstrate how to use it using either the teeth down (the ineffective way) or the teeth up (the effective way) approach. The babies would all imitate whichever method the model used, while the chimpanzees tried to figure it out on their own and used the teeth up approach more frequently. This disadvantage of imitative learning can be seen all the time in real life. One example: You aren't prepared for your exam and you're stuck on a particular question. You look to your right and you see a girl wearing glasses and think "that girl must know the right answer" and you copy her answer when in fact, she hasn't studied either and she copied off the jock to her right, etc. Ok, that wasn't the greatest analogy, but you get my point.

What is the key benefit of imitative learning? Cultural accumulation. "Imitative learning allows for a faithful and high fidelity reproduction of the target behavior." (Quoted that one cause its quite the aesthetically pleasing sentence). Not only can we reproduce a high quality imitation (ie. fake Gucci bags), but we can actually improve them (ie. Windows Vista vs. Windows XP... wait. Bad example) (ie. 2010 Honda Accord vs 2004 Honda Accord). We have that two word phrase (cultural accumulation) to thank for all the technology we take for granted. All of our iPhones/Blackberries/Androids, laptops, televisions, architecture, shopping malls, cities, automobiles, and hammers. That's right. Hammers. With that, I leave you with the evolution of hammers with an addition to the most modern of hammers that Dr.  Heine's image didn't include. Please feel free to comment! Share any interesting theories you guys have for why humans have bigger brains or how we evolved from our hairier counterparts.

From stone age fist rocks, to steam powered hammers to...
...MC Hammer

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Welcome!

Disclaimer: This blog is not a substitute for the lecture, textbook, reading material, etc. It is merely a supplemental tool to compliment everyone's learning on our journey through this course. Please do not use this resource as a reason to skip lectures/readings/etc. Also, keep in mind that I'm merely a student and not a TA, which means a couple of things: a) some things I post may have unintentional mistakes or misunderstandings and b) I may not submit a post promptly for every lecture.

Why am I doing this? First off, I want to spur discussions with fellow classmates to enhance our experience and learning. Hopefully some of you may share my genuine interest for Psychology so that we can have novel and interesting discussions on the subject. Please leave comments! Second, I want to use this blog as an outlet for teaching; teaching a topic is the best way to learn in my opinion.

I am also going to maintain an academic blog for Psy 333 Sec 001 with Dr. Eric Eich, so feel free to follow that one as well!