Human beings have always been interested in understanding how culture influence psychology either through beliefs or customs. There have been studies on the links between culture and psychology since the 19th century. Psychology experts have come to learn that culture has a major role to play in the way psychology is shaped.
With people being ethnocentric this is usually a basic reality which reflects that we all grew up in specific cultures and we have learnt to believe that the standards, principles or even expectations that we acquire from our own culture reflects the way we approach the world.
The (traditional) psychology tries to first establish the problem and then coming up with ways on how to solve the same. It covers the past as well as the current happenings in an individual’s life. Thus, some cultural aspects of the Asians can be applied to traditional psychology.
For example when one looks into the life of many Asians, it is easy to find that there are a large number of people who feel trapped by the oppressive and repressive practices still practiced in their communities as can be reflected by the different castes system and the communist regimes.
As a matter of fact, it should be noted that the Asian culture is not homogenous and variations do exist but a good deal of the Asian culture is reactionary and anti-ethical and this has been specifically the cause of widespread socialism in the continent.
Much of the Asian culture originates from economically less developed societies with a super culture encompassing mysticism, intense fixation on castes and classes and the oppression of women, lack of individualism and the shunning of critical thinking.
What Are The Implications Of These Characteristics For Psychological Theory And Practice?
The implications of these cultural aspects of the Asians to the theory and practice of psychology theories are that they make the understanding of the human thought and behavior easily understandable to some degree.
For example, in case you want to apply the behavioral theory which is a learning process based upon an idea that all the behaviors were acquired through conditioning it would then be easier to predict the behavior of for example a lowly caste placed Indian to a highly caste placed Indian since their behaviors are different as expected from their own culture.
In the aspect of cognitive theories, Asian cultural aspects are better at observing the cognitive theories since they are concerned with the human internal states for example motivation, problem solving, and critical thinking to which we saw most of the Asian cultures not allowing.
This theory assumes that human beings are logical beings and thus most make choices that are suitable to them but to most of the Asian cultures, the decisions are usually made by those high in authority for everybody to follow.
Everyday we all try to describe and assess the personalities of people who live around us. The psychology tries to look at the patterns of opinions, feelings, and demeanors that signify individual uniqueness.
With most of the Asian communities practicing socialism, it would be hard to understand the practical application of personality theories since most of them tend to live in groups and socialism and it does not favor individualism (Cherry, Not Dated).
Reference
Cherry, K. (Not Dated). Psychological Theories. Web.