Understanding Cross-Cultural Psychology

Cross-Cultural Psychology: Final
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Cross-Cultural Psychology: Final
Reflection is a critical component in people's lives. It allows taking a close look at the efforts invested in accomplishing a certain objective, daily experiences, and what they have earned from the tasks they have completed. According to Soren Kierkegaard, people have to go through their past, correct any mistakes, and continuously learn from their past experiences to make them even better in the future (Gołębiewska, 2020). Therefore, it is important to look back and focus on the experiences to find insights that will serve as a guide in moving forward. In this paper, I will reflect on the course on cross-cultural psychology and write about what I have learned, what I found most interesting, and what I think I can apply in my own life moving forward.
In their book, "The Handbook of Culture and Psychology," Matsumoto and Juang (2016) examine the significance of culture in appreciating every aspect of human behavior. Among students and professors studying complex human behavior, the subject of culture is of utmost importance. The coursework covered different topics related to cultures, such as the unique aspects that define various cultures, ways of discovering and measuring cultural aspects of human behavior, the influence of culture on personality, cultural regulation of emotions, and schizoaffective disorder, a condition where people present with delusions, depression, and hallucinations (Matsumoto & Juang, 2016). Understanding concepts learned throughout the course is necessary for students, especially after joining the workforce, as they will learn how to relate with co-workers and their managers.
The initial section of the course introduced different aspects that define a culture, including the origin and definition of culture, whether culture is a uniquely human product, the difference between culture and society, different groups that have culture, as well as the contrasting cultures, personality, race, and popular culture. While psychology aims to build a body of knowledge about humans and apply the same knowledge into people's lives in a bid to improve lives, cultural psychology explores cultural foundations of human behaviors and psychological processes (Matsumoto & Juang, 2016). Learning about culture is essential as students can understand human behaviors within a global outlook. The study of culture also allows the testing of an individual's limited knowledge by examining whether principles and theories are universal or culture-specific. Therefore, as students work through the coursework on cross-cultural psychology, they will understand how culture influences human behavior and appreciate people from different cultures in the world.
As culture remains an important aspect of people's lives, the course examined how culture can influence personality. According to Matsumoto and Juang (2016), culture shapes an individual's personality because unique traits or behaviors are influenced by environmental, biological, and cultural factors. Children often develop certain behaviors based on the way they are brought up in a given culture. By observing children, cultural psychologists can understand how cultu...