Exploring the Significance of Cross-Cultural Research in Cognitive Development

Introduction

Cole (1995) states that the concept of culture used in psychology involves a conceptualisation of the past and the future in the present with a process-based study of human activities. Cross-cultural approach is a comparative research focused on a shift or a relational hypothesis. Gauvain, Beebe and Zhao (2011), whose work regarding application of cultural approach to cognitive development claims that the cross-cultural approach considers the contribution of culture in the understanding of cognitive development. This essay is an attempt to understand and proposes the importance of cross-cultural research in developmental psychology, particularly cognitive development.

Cross-cultural research and generalisation regarding psychological (cognitive) development

Culture is treated as a quasi-experimental variable. It impacts psychological function (Cole, 1995). As such, the cognitive development is considered a cultural process. This is reflected in the practice of cultural members and their practices and institutions that provide guidance and support for children while they develop their knowledge as well as thinking skills (Gauvain, Beebe, & Zhao, 2011).

Kornadt and Trommsdorff (1996) claims that the psychological research on events and development related to humans cannot be limited to one set of cultures. For example, the research in Western cultures may not be universally applicable as other cultures also provide facts and processes that are different and unknown. They supported their claims by observing that it is ethnocentric of the Western interpretation of achievement motivation that differentiates between achievement and affiliation motives. Such a distinction may be valid in the West. However, both the achievement motive and affiliation motive are related in other cultures, such as Japan where striving must be to serve the group rather than for individual achievement.

A cross-cultural comparison is necessary. Because the theory and data from a single culture is inherently uninterpretable. Thus, the Piagetian theory was developed based on a universal cross-cultural pattern (Petersen, 2017). It focuses on reflective and logical process rather than an immediate action. Accordingly, psychological development is similar to biological epigenesis, which involves casual sequence of events causing differentiation, organisation and complexity and emergence of something new at each step that grows into a series of stages (Brown & Desforges, 2013). In regard to cognitive development, Piagetian theory focuses on the manner in which a learner actively constructs development changes by deriving information from the surrounding environment and using such information to bring changes and elaborate their existing mental process. This means that there is a close relation between the current mental structure of the learner and the structure of the new experiences (Brown & Desforges, 2013, p. 21). Culture, as a form of environment, is related to the conception of intelligence.

Cross-cultural research offers a generalisation of human behaviours beyond a single culture by allowing higher variation regarding multiple variables. Cognitive development has a socio-cultural perspective. Thus, in terms of a child’s cognitive development, it depends on their immediate social world, which is their social and cultural experience (Vygotsky, 1962). for the development of the child. This demonstrates that cultural experiences are essential in children’s upbringing (Bandura, 1971). Chiu and colleagues (2010) observe that there is a widespread shared perspective of psychological characteristics in a culture. Such perception, also called the intersubjective perceptions, plays an important role in understanding the impact of culture in human behaviour. They are different from personal values and beliefs. They reconcile the impact of ecology on a person’s responses and adaptations. (Chiu, Gelfand, Yamagishi, Shteynberg, & Wan, 2010).

It could, therefore, be stated that cultures shape the manner of attention and cognitive processing. In support of this observation, the study conducted by Kuwabara and Smith (2012) is provided. They conducted three experiments to determine whether the generalised differences in attentional and cognitive processing shape the cognition of the US and Japanese preschool children. Firstly, they gave a relational match-to-standard task involving simple or richly detailed objects where attention to individual objects may hurt performance. They found that the rich objects limited the performance of the US children and not the Japanese children. Secondly, they have a visual search task to find a specific object in a cluttered scene that is organized where an object-centric attention may aid performance, but relational attention may harm performance due to the relational structure. Due to these findings, Kuwabara and Smith (2012) observed that there is a generalised difference in the cognitive and attentional processing regarding different cultures. The eastern culture has a more relational cognitive processing while the western culture is more object focused.

Cross-cultural research often focuses on understanding the development in cognitive and social domains. The aim of such cognitive-based research is to understand human cognition (Barrett, 2020). Whether or not such cognitive-based cross-cultural research is the right approach is the question. The adoption of such an approach is understandable given that human cognition involves different variations on a subject matter. Barett (2020), in this regard, states that human cognition is specific to typical capacities that are shaped by both culture and individual experiences. Thus, the approach offers an expanded understanding of the processes that define such human variation and cultural change to include the process of social learning and of cultural transmission. However, Barrett also states that there is less consensus regarding the cognitive foundations of human behaviour. This is possibly because of the need to be more inclusive of different populations (Barrett, 2020).

The non-inclusive of other populations is found in the comparative study conducted by Kathy Hall and Kamil Ozerk (2008). The study involved curriculum in England as compared with other countries. They found that other countries they studied gave more priority to their language than they did to Math and Science. This was not so with England, which was found to have given equal priority to English language, Science and Math (Hall & Ozerk, 2008, p. 10). They, therefore, observed that the official documentation on the English curriculum represents pluralism, diversity and multiculturalism (Hall & Ozerk, 2008, p. 7).

The reason why cross-cultural research is important regarding cognitive development is that it helps gain familiarity with the cognitive goals specific to a culture. It consequently avoids misinterpreting abilities. Thus, when Stengelin, Hepach and Haun (2020) studied the subject of children’s overimitation covering western and african children, they found a similar proportion of children across the population sampled demonstrating overimitation at some point. The study covered children from a hunter-gatherer population in Namibia and urban children Germany. The study involved minimal cognitive tasks. They found that the German children copied their elders of irrelevant actions more persistently across the tasks given. The study shows that there is cultural influence on cognitive development across populations. The main issue is determining the extent of the influence.

Without employing cross-cultural research, a psychological study cannot be completely appropriate. The conclusion of the studies mentioned earlier demonstrates how cross-cultural research helps to deduce a general finding regarding human cognitive behaviour. This can be elaborated by referring to the work of Baltes (1996) that concerned the influence of culture over the manner in which minds interact over the course of a person’s life span. The origin and development of a human life comprises simultaneous operation of processes concerning the cultural-historical, phylogenetic, and micro-genetic levels of structuration. All these levels are temporary. Baltes observes that culture sets up a unique human relationship with their past, present and future. Changes in a human life span are rapid when compared with the cultural change.

The difference in the culture, the time and social structure particularly social division of labour shapes the mental interaction at different points in a human’s lifespan. This can be elaborated by referring to a group of new-born babies where when one baby cries, the others are likely to cry. The outcome is different when a baby is with a parent. Here, culture influences the interaction between the parent and the child (Baltes, 1996). Thus, middle class American mothers are likely to have an animated discussion with their baby (Brazelton, Kozlowski, & Main, 1974). Papua New Guinea parents may consider attempting to communicate with the babies useless as they consider babies have no understanding (Ochs & Schieffelin, 1984). Such cross-cultural studies provide an opportunity for an inclusive, comparative understanding of human psychology.

Conclusion

The cross-cultural approach offers generalisation related to other cultures. It may not allow an intensive review of a single culture providing rich functional insight. However, it reduces the chances of misinterpretation relying on one culture to validate a finding. Studying experiences of various cultures offers better understanding of cognitive development. The study of cross-cultural psychology mitigates the risks of introducing bias and single-culture specific perspective in understanding human psychology.

Human beings inherently adapt to immediate culture. The difference in culture will, thus, produce different thinking processes. There will be better perception of a human when the cultural differences are studied and understood.

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