Course Code: PSYC 1999
Academic Year: 2024-2025
If you were born somewhere else, would you be the same person you are today? Would you have a few different traditions but still have the same set of beliefs, attitudes and values? Alternatively, can the culture we are born into affect more than the languages we speak and religious rituals we practise? Can it fundamentally alter us, shaping the way we develop, think, reason and see the world? In the past 30 years, psychologists have begun to acknowledge the limitations in their previous assumptions that North American research would apply globally by examining the similarities and differences in human behaviour across societies. In this course, we aim to develop a more comprehensive understanding of ourselves by highlighting those behaviours that do appear across cultures and by purposefully seeking and examining those behaviours that vary widely across our diverse societies.