Appraising the Human Developmental Sciences: Essays in Honor of Merrill-Palmer Quarterly

18. Why We Need to Explore Development in Its Cultural Context

18 Why We Need to Explore Development in Its Cultural Context Robert J. Sternberg and Elena L. Grigorenko 272 If children grew up in a world devoid of cultural context, the picture painted of children by developmental psychology textbooks might be quite accurate and therefore adequate. The problem is that not even children confined to so-called bubble worlds because of severely impaired immune systems grow up in such a world. The result is that students of developmental psychology, and even of psychology in general, acquire knowledge structures about development that are incomplete and, in many respects, wrongheaded. We, as developmental psychologists, thereby do our students an injustice . It is not surprising that much—and arguably, most—research in developmental psychology is done in an acontextual manner. Acontextual research is (a) more easily and quickly completed; (b) easier to divide into least publishable units; (c) highly rewarded because it is usually experimentally more elegant than the mess we confront when we attempt to study children in their natural and diverse sociocultural contexts; and (d) easier to interpret, even if the interpretation is limited to some imaginary microworld in which children do not really live. The thesis of this chapter is that, as developmental psychologists, we have a responsibility at the very least to teach, and ideally also to do our research, in a way that recognizes the complex sociocultural niches in which children live. If we do not do so, we risk coming to conclusions that are incomplete and often wrong. In this chapter we will describe culturally based research that questions the conclusions that would be reached were the same research conducted in an acultural manner. Because of limited space we shall give only a few brief examples, mostly from our own research program. Research from other groups supports the conclu- sions we describe here (e.g., Berry, 1974; Greenfield, 1997; Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition, 1982; Nisbett, 2003; Rogoff, 1990, 2003; Serpell, 2000). Implicit Lay Theories of Intelligence Around the World Many developmental psychologists, including some of the most famous , study intellectual development (Piaget, 1972; Vygotsky, 1978; see reviews in Chen & Siegler, 2000; Lutz & Sternberg, 1999; Sternberg & Berg, 1992). But are traditional Western views shared by other cultures? To a large extent, they are not. For example, at the mental level not many cultures share the Western emphasis on speed of mental processing (Sternberg, Conway, Ketron, & Bernstein , 1981). Other cultures may even be suspicious of the quality of work that is done very quickly. Indeed, other cultures emphasize depth rather than speed of processing. They are not alone: some prominent Western theorists have pointed out the importance of depth of processing for full command of material (e.g., Craik & Lockhart, 1972). Yang and Sternberg (1997a) have reviewed Chinese philosophical conceptions of intelligence. The Confucian perspective emphasizes the characteristic of benevolence and of doing what is right. As in the West, the intelligent person spends a great deal of effort in learning, enjoys learning, and persists in lifelong learning with a great deal of enthusiasm. The Taoist tradition, in contrast, emphasizes the importance of humility, freedom from conventional standards of judgment, and full knowledge of oneself as well as of external conditions. The difference between Eastern and Western conceptions of intelligence may persist even in the present day. Yang and Sternberg (1997b) studied contemporary Taiwanese Chinese conceptions of intelligence and found five factors underlying these conceptions: a general cognitive factor, much like the g factor in conventional Western tests; interpersonal intelligence; intrapersonal intelligence; intellectual self-assertion; and intellectual self-effacement. In a related study but with different results, Chen (1994) found three factors underlying Chinese conceptualizations of intelligence: nonverbal reasoning ability, verbal reasoning ability, and rote memory. The difference may result from different subpopulations of Chinese, differences in methodology, or differences in when the studies were done. The factors uncovered in both studies differ substantially from Why We Need to Explore Development in Its Cultural Context 273 Robert J. Sternberg and Elena L. Grigorenko 274 those identified by Sternberg, Conway, and colleagues (1981) in Americans’ conceptions of intelligence—practical problem solving, verbal ability, and social competence—although in both cases people ’s implicit theories of intelligence seem to go quite far beyond what conventional psychometric intelligence tests measure. Of course, comparing the 1994 Chen study to the 1981 study by Sternberg , Conway, and colleagues means comparing studies that vary in both language and culture. Chen and Chen (1988...