Cultural Processes : A Social Psychological Perspective

With the rapid growth of knowledge concerning ethnic and national group differences in human behaviors in the last two decades, researchers are increasingly curious as to why, how, and when such differences surface. The field is ready to leapfrog from a descriptive science of group differences to a science of cultural processes. The goal of this book is to lay the theoretical foundation for this exciting development by proposing an original process model of culture. This new perspective discusses and extends contemporary social psychological theories of social cognition and social motivation to explain why culture matters in human psychology. We view culture as a loose network of imperfectly shared knowledge representations for coordinating social transactions. As such, culture serves different adaptive functions important for individuals’ goal pursuits. Furthermore, with the increasingly globalized and hyper-connected multicultural space, much can be revealed about how different cultural traditions come into contact. The authors discuss the psychological ramifications of these cultural interactions to illuminate the social and practical relevance of the proposed process model of culture.

Angela K.-y. Leung is an Assistant Professor of Psychology in the School of Social Sciences at the Singapore Management University (SMU). She received her Ph.D. in Social Psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in 2007. Her research seeks to understand how people participate actively in dynamic cultural processes in both intra- and intercultural contexts, as well as the psychological implications for multicultural competence (e.g. creativity and intercultural communication). She is also interested in the role of embodiment in the acquisition and endorsement of cultural values. Dr Leung has published close to 20 refereed book chapters and articles in journals such as Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, American Psychologist and Psychological Science. She has won several research awards, including the first honorable mention for the Otto Klineberg Intercultural and International Relations Prize from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) in 2009, the Lee Foundation Research Excellence Award, and the School of Social Sciences Research Excellence Award conferred by SMU. She also served as a reviewer for peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the Journal of Consumer Research and the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, and as a reviewer for social psychology grant proposals submitted to the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF).

Chi-yue Chiu is a Full Professor of Management and Marketing at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He was a Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois before joining Nanyang Technological University in 2008. His current research focuses on the social, cognitive, and motivational processes that mediate the construction and evolution of social consensus and on the dynamic interactions of cultural identification and cultural knowledge traditions. He has published nine books, more than 120 refereed journal articles and more than fifty book chapters. He received the Misumi Award from the Japanese Group Dynamics Association and Asian Association for Social Psychology in 2007, the Best Paper Award in Conflict Resolution from the Academy of Management in 2002, and the Otto Klineberg Prize from the SPSSI in 2001. Dr Chiu is currently the editor of two book series, associate editor of the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, and section editor of Social and Personality Psychology Compass.

Ying-yi Hong is currently a Professor at the Business School of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She has previously taught at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Her main research interests include culture and cognition, self, identity, and intergroup relations. She is particularly known for proposing the Dynamic Constructivist Theory to understand how individuals form mental models of multiple cultural knowledge systems and how they switch between cultural frames. Dr Hong has also tested social psychological theories in important social events, including the identity change of citizens of Hong Kong before and after the 1997 handover, bicultural experiences of Asian Americans, and identity and prejudice processes related to the Hurricane Katrina aftermath. She received the Otto Klineberg Intercultural and International Relations Award in 2001 and the Young Investigator Award (conferred by the International Society of Self and Identity) in 2004 and was elected Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and Associate of the Center for Advanced Study, UIUC. She has published more than 90 journal articles and book chapters and is currently the editor of Advances in Culture and Psychology and associate editor of the Asian Journal of Social Psychology.