Cross-Cultural Psychology: Research and Applications

by John W. Berry, Ype H. Poortinga, Marshall H. Segall

Cross-Cultural Psychology is a comprehensive overview of cross-cultural studies in a number of substantive areas - psychological development, social behavior, personality, cognition, and perception - and covers theory and applications to acculturation, work, communication, health, and national development. Cast within an ecological and cultural framework, it views the development and display of human behavior as the outcome of both ecological and socio-political influences, and it adopts a 'universalistic' position with respect to the range of similarities and differences in human behavior across cultures. Basic psychological processes are assumed to be species-wide, shared human characteristics, but culture plays variations on these underlying similarities.

Genres: Psychology

475 pages, Paperback

First published January 31, 1992

Reviews

[Waltram · Rating 1 out of 5]

I frequently read books on various fields of science and academia, but it's been a while since I have read a book so poorly written. It is unnecessarily abstract and lacks examples. The whole book reads like a long bibliography, in which the authors essentially mention papers by other psychologists, but without explaining or summarising their findings. It takes energy to decipher their dense prose, and when I look back on the chapter I have read and look at my notes to see what I have learned, it turns out that there was very little content of interest. The book doesn't provide any statistical data, graphs or tangible comparisons about world cultures. They mention studies and books that do, but it would have been much more useful and enjoyable if they had tried to explain and summarise those other studies. It is supposed to be an educational book, but it feels like a book written solely to display the authors' knowledge of other people's work, without making any attempt to make the reader want to check those studies. Very disappointing.

[Sofia Babar]

amazing

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a course, I had to read this book. And as course material, there is way too much information on each and every page. It does give a good overview of what cross-cultural psychology is, but there is too much in there.
It would've been better if they had cut out some details and stuck to the bigger picture.

[Santi Sari · Rating 1 out of 5]

susaaaaaaah dan mbulet.