PSY 5740 - Cross Cultural Psychology

This course is designed to introduce the psychology major to the general area and basic concepts of Cross Cultural Psychology. Through readings and lectures the students will become familiar with the role culture plays in various indigenous psychologies including those commonly found in Western, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, and African cultures. This course is specifically not a course in American ethnicity. It will instead explore a variety of world cultures in search of an understanding of how human behavior is interpreted according to cultural tenets that are unique to a region’s history and evolution. The course will also examine the importance, especially in contemporary Western Society, of professional psychologists developing more than casual familiarity with predominant indigenous psychologies. The plight of persons undergoing increasingly forced and voluntary migration in today’s world provides one foundation for exploring the need for such understanding. The course will prepare the student to read and interpret the psychological literature from several cultures, to conduct library research addressing the influence of culture on the interpretation of human behavior, and to appreciate the importance of cultural considerations in the wide variety of psychological specialties.

Prerequisites/Corequisites: Prerequisites: Psychology majors; Psychology graduate students with permission of instructor.

Credits: 3 hrs.

Notes: Open to Upperclass and Graduate Students. May be repeated for credit, although the total number of hours in a degree program may not exceed five hours. All 5000-level courses in the Department of Psychology have a prerequisite of junior level status and of PSY 3300 and PSY 3600. Exceptions to this requirement must be approved by the course instructor.