What is Cultural Psychology? And How Can We Apply It in Business Research?

How do you perceive the world? What are your values? How do they differ from those of your national neighbors?

What makes you happy? Sad? Angry?

What motivates you?

Each one of these answers can differ across cultures. And that’s where cultural psychology comes in.

Cultural Psychology

Cultural psychology is an exciting and rapidly-evolving field that has the potential to transform our understanding of human behavior and social practices across a range of disciplines. 

Cross-cultural business studies is one area in which cultural psychology is being applied. However, there is still a need to fully appreciate the theoretical and methodological convergence between cultural psychology and business-oriented studies.

Cultural psychology has primarily focused on basic processes such as emotion, cognition, and motivation.

Comparatively, social practices have been the focus of organizational and marketing behavior. 

The overlap between these fields can allow cultural psychologists to contribute valuable insights to applied business research.

In the following weeks, we will explore six cultural constructs that have gained significant traction in business research. 

These constructs move beyond basic psychological processes to examine the intricate interactions between culture and social practices. 

We’ve covered several of these in previous posts, but we’ll refresh our memories and look at these constructs from different angles.

What are these constructs, you ask?

Six Cultural Constructs

The six cultural constructs include:

• Individualism versus collectivism
• Independence versus interdependence
• Analytic versus holistic cognition
• Vertical versus horizontal orientation
• Tightness versus looseness
• Strong versus weak uncertainty avoidance

Integrating these cultural constructs into business research can provide a deeper understanding of how cultural factors shape everything from organizational structures to workplace dynamics to consumer behavior. 

Business challenges can be complex, particularly in a cross-cultural setting. This interdisciplinary approach has the potential to generate innovative solutions to cross-cultural communication, diversity management, and organizational performance. 

By leveraging the application of cultural psychology in business research, our understanding of human behavior in diverse settings will be transformed.