Conventional wisdom would have it that cross-cultural differences in perception are of minor significance. The universal similarities in the anatomy and the physiology of the sensory organs and the nervous system make it likely that sensory impressions and their transmission through the perceptual apparatus are invariant across cultures. In this chapter we shall show that while there are common processes in sensation and perception, there are substantial differences in the outcomes of these processes, and that there can be cross-cultural differences even in the way very simple figures are being perceived. This chapter reviews research mainly from a period before cross-cultural psychology became focussed on sociocultural variables. As argued in Chapter 1, we consider the ecological environment as an important aspect of human functioning in context; we see the topics discussed in this chapter as important for understanding human behavior and its ecocultural and sociocultural variations.

The first section gives a brief review of historical roots of contemporary cross-cultural psychology of perception. This is followed by a section on studies of sensory functions. Then we turn to perception in a more strict sense. When contrasted with sensation, perception implies stimulus selection and other forms of active engagement of the organism. Extensive research, mainly conducted in the 1960s and 1970s, concerns the perception of patterns and pictures.

Cross-cultural research on work and organizations is a large and active field that cannot be represented in scope and depth within a single chapter. We have selected topics with a clear history of cross-cultural psychological research. Several other topics could have been included (e.g., Bhagat and Steers, 2009; Gelfand, Erez and Aycan, 2007; Smith, Peterson and Thomas, 2008). Still, this chapter should provide you with an overview of major topics in cross-cultural research on work and organizations.

This chapter is organized in a hierarchical fashion from countries via organizations to individual-level variables. The first section discusses structural characteristics of organizations as they are found in various societies. The second section deals with organizational culture, which is based on the presumption that a work organization can be conceived of as a culture, on a smaller scale but otherwise in a similar sense as a societal culture. Next to organizational culture a more psychological concept is mentioned, namely organizational climate. The third section deals with values, a widely studied topic not only in cross-cultural organizational research, but also in the business and management literature. Although values are essentially psychological characteristics of individuals, much research has also dealt with values at the levels of countries (see Chapter 4), and work organizations. The fourth section focusses on managers, who are central to the functioning of work organizations.

All scientists will know the importance of experiment and observation and, equally, be aware that the results of some experiments depend to a degree on chance. For example, in an experiment to measure the heights of a random sample of people, we would not be in the least surprised if all the heights were found to be different; but, if the experiment were repeated often enough, we would expect to find some sort of regularity in the results. Statistics, which is the subject of the following chapter, is concerned with the analysis of real experimental data of this sort. In this chapter, however, we discuss probability, which, to a pure mathematician, is an entirely theoretical subject based on axioms and deductions from them. Although this axiomatic approach to probability is important, and we discuss it briefly, a treatment more in keeping with its eventual applications in statistics is adopted here.

We first discuss the terminology required, with particular reference to the convenient graphical representation of experimental results as Venn diagrams. The concepts of random variables and distributions of random variables are then introduced. It is here that the connection with statistics is made; we assert that the results of many experiments are random variables and that those results have some sort of regularity, which is represented by a distribution.

Differential equations are the group of equations that contain derivatives. Chapters 6–11 discuss a variety of differential equations, starting in this chapter with those ordinary differential equations (ODEs) that have closed-form solutions. As its name suggests, an ODE contains only ordinary derivatives (no partial derivatives) and describes the relationship between these derivatives of the dependent variable, usually called y, with respect to the independent variable, usually called x. The solution to such an ODE is therefore a function of x and is written y(x). For an ODE to have a closed-form solution, it must be possible to express y(x) in terms of the standard elementary functions such as x2, exp x, ln x, sin x, etc. The solutions of some differential equations cannot, however, be written in closed form, but only as an infinite series that carry no special names; these are discussed in Chapter 7.

Ordinary differential equations may be separated conveniently into different categories according to their general characteristics. The primary grouping adopted here is by the order of the equation. The order of an ODE is simply the order of the highest derivative it contains. Thus equations containing dy/dx, but no higher derivatives, are called first order, those containing d2y/dx2 are called second order and so on.

Ordinary differential equations may be classified further according to degree. The degree of an ODE is the power to which the highest-order derivative is raised, after the equation has been rationalized to contain only integer powers of derivatives.

Personality research is concerned with feelings, thoughts and behaviors that are typical of a person and distinguish that person from others. Personality in this sense is the outcome of a lifelong process of interaction between an organism and the ecocultural and sociocultural environment. The effects of these external factors make it likely that there are systematic differences in the person-typical behavior of people who have been brought up in different cultures. Thus, it is not surprising that many traditions in personality research have been extended cross-culturally.

A dominant theme in personality research concerns the question of how person-typical behavior can be explained in terms of more permanent psychological dispositions, and what could be the nature of such dispositions. A global distinction can be made between psychodynamic theories, trait theories and social-cognitive theories. The psychodynamic tradition which has the oldest and widest roots is presented on the Internet with Chapter 10 (Additional Topics, Chapter 10). Most research in this tradition, which goes by the name of psychological anthropology (formerly called culture-and-personality), has been carried out by cultural anthropologists with a psychoanalytic orientation.

In this chapter we first discuss research on relatively stable characteristics, referred to as personality traits. In trait theories the emphasis is on individual dispositions that are consistent across time and situations.

In the ecocultural framework (Figure 1.1), two major sources of influence on the development and display of behavior were postulated: ecological and sociopolitical. The latter involves contact with other cultures and sets in motion the process of acculturation. This chapter examines some core aspects of this process and some of its outcomes. Related to acculturation psychology is a field that has come to be known as intercultural psychology. These two branches of psychology are sometimes examined together because they both involve intercultural contact. However, they are clearly distinguishable: in acculturation, the focus is on how individuals change in order to live side by side with persons of different cultural backgrounds; and in intercultural work the focus is on how the two parties relate to each other. We are devoting separate chapters to these issues. In Chapter 14, intercultural relations are examined, and a further chapter (Chapter 15) is devoted to an important aspect of both acculturation and intercultural psychologies: intercultural communication.

In this chapter, we will first discuss the concept of acculturation and the different kinds of people undergoing acculturation. We also present a framework for understanding and studying acculturation.

This chapter focusses on health in relation to cultural context. It begins with an introduction to some conceptual issues including some definitions of central terms, how health problems can be compared, and a brief overview over how culture and health may be related. The chapter also examines possible links between culture and mental illness (psychopathologies), and how different societies attempt to relieve mental health suffering and problems (psychotherapies). The chapter also focusses on positive mental health, health behavior from the point of view of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and how ecology and population may be related to health.

Health has been defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not just the absence of disease or infirmity” (WHO, 1948). However, studies have shown that the very concept of health differs across cultures (Helman, 2008). From a western point of view, health is often conceptualized in a biomedical model, where health is seen in terms of disease. Disease in turn is seen as originating from a specific and identifiable cause within, or arriving from outside, the body. Views from other cultures regard health as an imbalance either between negative (yin) and positive (yang) forces as in the case of Chinese medicine, or elemental ingredients (bhutas) and waste products from food (vayu, pitta and kaph) in Indian Ayurvedic medicine.

This chapter seeks to portray comparative research and applications in the field of intercultural relations. It begins with an examination of the concept of intercultural strategies, which is parallel to that of acculturation strategies introduced in Chapter 13. One of these strategies (multiculturalism) is both contested theoretically and examined empirically; some of these ideas and findings are then presented. The chapter continues with a presentation of some core theories and concepts, and illustrates them with selected research and applications across cultures.

The study of intercultural relations can be viewed as a core part of cross-cultural psychology. It shares with the subfield of acculturation a focus on psychological phenomena that result from contact among cultural groups and their individual members. And like acculturation, intercultural relations research examines the ways in which people work out their lives while living together in culturally plural societies (Brewer, 2007; Sam and Berry, 2006; Ward, 2008). The various kinds of groups that share social space in plural societies have been described in Chapter 13 (including immigrants, refugees, ethnocultural groups, sojouners and indigenous peoples). However, somewhat different from acculturation, intercultural relations phenomena can take place without firsthand contact; they can be rooted in awareness from prior historical contact or from contemporary telecommunications.

The field of cross-cultural psychology can be briefly described as the study of the relationships between cultural context and human behavior. The latter includes both overt behavior (observable actions and responses) and covert behavior (thoughts, beliefs, meanings). As we shall discuss later in more detail, there are rather different interpretations even of this broad description, associated with different schools of scientific research. Most researchers studying behavior across cultures argue that differences in overt and covert behavior should be seen as culturally shaped reflections of common psychological functions and processes. In other words, they are postulating a “psychic unity” of the human species (e.g., Jahoda, 1992). This is the position adopted by the authors of this text. Other researchers, often belonging to a school referred to as cultural psychology, emphasize that psychological functioning is essentially different across cultural regions of the world. For example, Kitayama, Duffy and Uchida (2007, p. 139) argue that different “modes of being” are found in various cultures. Sometimes the two approaches are even presented as two distinct fields of science.

In this book we use the label “cross-cultural psychology” as the overarching name for the field. More specific terms, such as cultural psychology, culture-comparative psychology and indigenous psychology will be used when it is necessary to distinguish orientations within this broader field. The common designation is justified by the shared assumption that culture is an important contributor to the development and display of human behavior.

Throughout this book references have been made to results derived from the theory of complex variables. This theory thus becomes an integral part of the mathematics appropriate to physical applications. Indeed, so numerous and widespread are these applications that the whole of the next chapter is devoted to a systematic presentation of some of the more important ones and a summary of some of the others. This current chapter develops the general theory on which these applications are based. The difficulty with it, from the point of view of a book such as the present one, is that the underlying basis has a distinctly pure mathematics flavor.

Thus, to adopt a comprehensive rigorous approach would involve a large amount of groundwork in analysis, for example formulating precise definitions of continuity and differentiability, developing the theory of sets and making a detailed study of boundedness. Instead, we will be selective and pursue only those parts of the formal theory that are needed to establish the results used in the next chapter and elsewhere in this book.

In this spirit, the proofs that have been adopted for some of the standard results of complex variable theory have been chosen with an eye to simplicity rather than sophistication. This means that in some cases the imposed conditions are more stringent than would be strictly necessary if more sophisticated proofs were used; where this happens the less restrictive results are usually stated as well.