Social Psychology Brown Bag: Globalizing Psychology: Varieties of Interdependence Across Cultures

Abstract:
Research in Psychology has predominantly focused on Western, largely North American and Western European populations. However, culture matters, as illustrated by the dramatic between-nation variation in vulnerability to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this talk, I draw on prior work showing that unlike the West, which values the independence of the self, much of the non-West shares a view of the self as embedded in relationships or interdependent. Of importance, however, interdependence may be realized by using different strategies, depending on social, ecological, and historical conditions. That is, there may be substantial heterogeneity within the non-West. In particular, Latin American cultures are known to be as interdependent as East Asian cultures. However, I will report two new studies that show that Latin American cultures, but not East Asian cultures, use the expression of the self, including the expression of emotions, as the primary means of achieving the valued state of interdependence. First, using an EEG index of self-referential processing, I found that European Americans, but not East Asians, preferentially process self-enhancing information. Second, using behavioral outcomes, I also found that Latin Americans are more similar to European Americans on the dimension of self-enhancement, even though they are demonstrably more interdependent than the latter. I will conclude by underscoring the importance of globalizing the psychology literature.