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Cross-Cultural Psychology, Overview

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Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology

Introduction

Cross-cultural psychology is a subfield of psychology that is built upon a positivist model of science. Historically it has developed out of natural scientific studies in psychology and anthropology and stands in contrast to hermeneutic studies in these fields. Traditionally it has been caught in the ontological and epistemological debates of nature versus nurture and emics versus etics and has been criticized for its philosophical and methodological assumptions. It continues to develop alongside the complementary perspectives of cultural psychology and indigenous psychologies and has been applied internationally to numerous practical issues.

Definition

Cross-cultural psychology is an area of psychology that is concerned with uniformity and variation of psychological abilities, processes, and characteristics across cultures. It strives to be a scientific discipline that makes use of observation and measurement of psychological variables and seeks causal explanations for...

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Correspondence to Randal G. Tonks .

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Tonks, R.G. (2014). Cross-Cultural Psychology, Overview. In: Teo, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5583-7_370

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5583-7_370

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