Globalización Estado Mexicano Y Educación

Cross-cultural psychology has two broad aims: to understand the differences between human beings who come from different cultural backgrounds, and to understand the similarities between all human beings. The similarities may be sought at all levels – from the physiological (our eyes are able to perceive colour) through the cognitive (we are also able to perceive perspective, or relative distance), to the personal (we can be both happy and sad, gentle or aggressive) to the social (we all relate to our parents and siblings), to the cultural (we all share cultural norms with others of the same cultural background).

These cultural norms can take a variety of forms. They may be quite concrete and specific, like the type of clothing we find acceptable on a given occasion, or extremely complex and abstract, as are our religious beliefs. An important type of norm is the concept we have of ourselves in relation to other objects and people. These may range from our belief about the nature of human nature (Wrightsman, 1992), to the opinions we hold (our political opinions, for instance) to the attitudes we have toward a variety of concepts which we hold. Attitudes have long been studied by psychologists – especially social psychologists. For the first half of the twentieth century, it was believed that if we could measure them accurately, they would enable us to predict human behaviour. And predicting behaviour is what all psychology is about.

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