Daphna Oyserman

Last updated
Daphna Oyserman
Born
United States
Nationality American, Israeli
Alma mater University of Michigan
Known forCulture, Identity and Mindsets, Identity Based Motivation
AwardsFellow of W. T. Grant Faculty Scholar Award, Humboldt Scientific Contribution Prize of the German Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Fellow of the American Psychological Association, Association for Psychological Science, Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Society for Experimental Social Psychology
Scientific career
Fields Psychology, Culture, Education
Institutions University of Southern California

Daphna Oyserman is a Dean's Professor in the Department of Psychology and of Education and Communication at the University of Southern California. She is also a co-director of the USC Dornsife Mind and Society Center. Oyserman received a PhD in psychology and social work from the University of Michigan (1987). She was on the faculty of The Hebrew University, Jerusalem before joining the University of Michigan, where she last held appointments as the Edwin J. Thomas Collegiate Professor of Social Work, Professor of Psychology, and research professor in the Institute for Social Research. She has been recognized by several international organizations for her contributions to psychology—she is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, the American Psychological Association, the Society for Experimental Social Psychology, and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

Contents

Oyserman is interested in cultural differences in affect, behavior, and cognition – how people feel, act, and think about themselves and the world around them. She also examines racial, ethnic and social class gaps in educational achievement and health (see also work relating to gender and self-concept).

Across these domains of research and in different contexts, Oyserman investigates how changes in mindset can shape the perceived meaning of behaviors and situations and how these shifts can have significant effects on health and academic performance. Throughout her work, she examines how apparently “fixed”differences between groups may in fact mask highly malleable situated processes that can be profoundly influenced through small interventions that shift mindset.

Oyserman's research has direct implications for the classroom and goal attainment in other domains. And her work has received significant media attention for its novel theoretical and applied value. [1] [2] [3]

Culture and mindset

In 2002, [4] Oyserman and colleagues conducted a comprehensive meta-analysis to examine cross-country/region differences in cognitive processes. She found that differences in cognition mapped onto regional differences in collectivism and individualism. That paper alone has been cited over 3000 times in just over 10 years. [5] In fact this paper is honored on the ISI Web of Science ("Hot Topic in Psychology/Psychiatric" in July 2002 as the fastest increasing citation impact of that year, and in 2004 "Top 3 Hot Papers Published in the Last Three Years for Psychology/Psychiatry"). A few years later, [6] Oyserman observed that each culture benefits from independence and interdependence and that most people likely have access to both of these—essential—cognitive processes. Indeed, Oyserman found that people did not have to come from a particular culture in order to draw on an individualist or collectivist mindset. Rather, simply priming people to think from an individualist or collectivist perspective can produce effects that look just like cultural differences. For instance, getting people to circle “I” or “Mine” can make “individualist” Americans look just like “collectivist” Chinese or Koreans and vice versa.

Neither mindset is superior—the extent to which they enhance (or impair) performance depends on the task at hand. Once primed, people will draw on a mindset regardless of whether it helps or hurts them to complete an ongoing task. In the context of the SAT, a shift in mindset can alter performance from 10 to 15%.

Health and achievement

Mindsets exist beyond cultural contexts too. Oyserman has investigated how another set of mindsets influence persistent engagement in goals such as health or academic achievement. She started with the observation that there is often a mismatch between children's aspirations and their actual attainment. For instance, children generally have high aspirations for their education, but in reality, there attainment lags behind. Some groups are affected more by this mismatch in aspirations and actual attainment—boys, low income children, African American and Latino children, whose aspirations are similar to those of girls, high income children and children from other racial-ethnic backgrounds but whose attainments are more likely to lag behind.

Relatively rigid societal structures contribute to this mismatch. And although interventions to address these structural issues are intensive (large‐scale, long term and financially demanding) there is growing evidence that they might change children's opportunity structures. One reason they do this is because they influence children's perceptions of what is possible for them, and people like them, in the future. Accordingly, interventions that focus on this macro‐micro interface can help children overcome the constraints imposed by social structural variables. [7]

Identity-based motivation

A core way to intervene with aspiration-achievement gaps in academics is to make school success part of a child's perceived identity. Oyserman's theory of identity‐based motivation (IBM, Oyserman, 2007, 2009) [8] [9] has been used as a foundation for school interventions (and tests of those interventions) in public schools in Detroit, Chicago, and other locations in the U.S. as well as internationally in Singapore and England.

The IBM model assumes that identity is multifaceted and dynamically constructed in context. People interpret situations in ways that are congruent with their currently active identity and prefer identity‐congruent actions over identity‐incongruent ones. One way this plays out is that students are more likely to act on steps toward a future self goal (e.g. college) when their perceived future self feels congruent with their current self-identity. This feeling of congruence can set students on a path towards their future selves, and it can shape how they interpret experienced difficulty along the way. Two interpretations of experienced difficulty are highlighted. The first way to interpret experienced difficulty is that it reflects the importance of a task or of attaining a goal. Experienced difficulty in this case reflects that this is the path—as in the saying “no pain, no gain.” The second way to interpret experienced difficulty is that it reflects the possibility of succeeding in a task or of attaining a goal. Experienced difficulty in this case reflects that this not likely or even impossible. The same experience of difficulty can be interpreted either way depending on the momentary cues and what activated identities seem to mean for engagement. [10]

The elements of IBM were translated into activities for school-based intervention. [11] This identity-goal approach has real world consequences: randomized trials show significant improvement in academic outcomes. The intervention is available for use, [12] and the active ingredients can be used in other platforms (e.g., edugames) or as part of regular instruction techniques for teachers.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cultural psychology</span> How cultures reflect and shape their psychology

Cultural psychology is the study of how cultures reflect and shape the psychological processes of their members.

Psychological resilience is the ability to cope mentally or emotionally with a crisis or to return to pre-crisis status quickly. The term was popularized in the 1970s and 1980s by psychologist Emmy E. Werner as she conducted a forty-year-long study of a cohort of Hawaiian children who came from low socioeconomic status backgrounds. Resilience exists when the person uses "mental processes and behaviors in promoting personal assets and protecting self from the potential negative effects of stressors". In simpler terms, psychological resilience exists in people who develop psychological and behavioral capabilities that allow them to remain calm during crises/chaos and to move on from the incident without long-term negative consequences. A lot of criticism of this topic comes from the fact that it is difficult to measure and test this psychological construct because resiliency can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Most psychological paradigms have their own perspective of what resilience looks like, where it comes from, and how it can be developed. Despite numerous definitions of psychological resilience, most of these definitions center around two concepts: adversity and positive adaptation. Many psychologists agree that positive emotions, social support, and hardiness can influence an individual to become more resilient.

Attribution is a term used in psychology which deals with how individuals perceive the causes of everyday experience, as being either external or internal. Models to explain this process are called attribution theory. Psychological research into attribution began with the work of Fritz Heider in the early 20th century, and the theory was further advanced by Harold Kelley and Bernard Weiner. Heider first introduced the concept of perceived 'locus of causality' to define the perception of one's environment. For instance, an experience may be perceived as being caused by factors outside the person's control (external) or it may be perceived as the person's own doing (internal). These initial perceptions are called attributions. Psychologists use these attributions to better understand an individual's motivation and competence. The theory is of particular interest to employers who use it to increase worker motivation, goal orientation, and productivity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cross-cultural psychology</span>

Cross-cultural psychology is the scientific study of human behavior and mental processes, including both their variability and invariance, under diverse cultural conditions. Through expanding research methodologies to recognize cultural variance in behavior, language, and meaning it seeks to extend and develop psychology. Since psychology as an academic discipline was developed largely in North America and Europe, some psychologists became concerned that constructs and phenomena accepted as universal were not as invariant as previously assumed, especially since many attempts to replicate notable experiments in other cultures had varying success. Since there are questions as to whether theories dealing with central themes, such as affect, cognition, conceptions of the self, and issues such as psychopathology, anxiety, and depression, may lack external validity when "exported" to other cultural contexts, cross-cultural psychology re-examines them using methodologies designed to factor in cultural differences so as to account for cultural variance. Some critics have pointed to methodological flaws in cross-cultural psychological research, and claim that serious shortcomings in the theoretical and methodological bases used impede, rather than help the scientific search for universal principles in psychology. Cross-cultural psychologists are turning more to the study of how differences (variance) occur, rather than searching for universals in the style of physics or chemistry.

According to some theories, emotions are universal phenomena, albeit affected by culture. Emotions are "internal phenomena that can, but do not always, make themselves observable through expression and behavior". While some emotions are universal and are experienced in similar ways as a reaction to similar events across all cultures, other emotions show considerable cultural differences in their antecedent events, the way they are experienced, the reactions they provoke and the way they are perceived by the surrounding society. According to other theories, termed social constructionist, emotions are more deeply culturally influenced. The components of emotions are universal, but the patterns are social constructions. Some also theorize that culture is affected by emotions of the people.

Hazel June Linda Rose Markus is a social psychologist and a pioneer in the field of cultural psychology. She is the Davis-Brack Professor in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University in Stanford, California. She is also a founder and faculty director of Stanford SPARQ, a "do tank" that partners with industry leaders to tackle disparities and inspire culture change using insights from behavioral science. She is a founder and former director of the Research Institute of the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (CCSRE). Her research focuses on how culture shapes mind and behavior. She examines how many forms of culture influence the self, and in turn, how we think, feel, and act.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Face negotiation theory</span>

Face-Negotiation Theory is a theory conceived by Stella Ting-Toomey in 1985, to understand how people from different cultures manage rapport and disagreements. The theory posited "face", or self-image when communicating with others, as a universal phenomenon that pervades across cultures. In conflicts, one's face is threatened; and thus the person tends to save or restore his or her face. This set of communicative behaviors, according to the theory, is called "facework". Since people frame the situated meaning of "face" and enact "facework" differently from one culture to the next, the theory poses a cultural-general framework to examine facework negotiation. It is important to note that the definition of face varies depending on the people and their culture and the same can be said for the proficiency of facework.

Self-affirmation theory is a psychological theory that focuses on how individuals adapt to information or experiences that are threatening to their self-concept. Claude Steele originally popularized self-affirmation theory in the late 1980s, and it remains a well-studied theory in social psychological research.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helping behavior</span>

Helping behavior refers to voluntary actions intended to help the others, with reward regarded or disregarded. It is a type of prosocial behavior.

Goal orientation, or achievement orientation, is an "individual disposition towards developing or validating one's ability in achievement settings". In general, an individual can be said to be mastery or performance oriented, based on whether one's goal is to develop one's ability or to demonstrate one's ability, respectively. A mastery orientation is also sometimes referred to as a learning orientation.

Individualistic cultures are characterized by individualism, which is the prioritization or emphasis of the individual over the entire group. In individualistic cultures people are motivated by their own preference and viewpoints. Individualistic cultures focus on abstract thinking, privacy, self-dependence, uniqueness, and personal goals. The term individualistic culture was first used in the 1980s by Dutch social psychologist Geert Hofstede to describe countries and cultures that are not collectivist, Hofstede created the term individualistic culture when he created a measurement for the five dimensions of cultural values.

Allocentrism is a collectivistic personality attribute whereby people center their attention and actions on other people rather than themselves. It is a psychological dimension which corresponds to the general cultural dimension of collectivism. In fact, allocentrics "believe, feel, and act very much like collectivists do around the world." Allocentric people tend to be interdependent, define themselves in terms of the group that they are part of, and behave according to that group's cultural norms. They tend to have a sense of duty and share beliefs with other allocentrics among their in-group. Allocentric people appear to see themselves as an extension of their in-group and allow their own goals to be subsumed by the in-group's goals. Additionally, allocentrism has been defined as giving priority to the collective self over the private self, particularly if these two selves happen to come into conflict.

Decision-making is a mental activity which is an integral part of planning and action taking in a variety of contexts and at a vast range of levels, including, but not limited to, budget planning, education planning, policy making, and climbing the career ladder. People all over the world engage in these activities. The underlying 'cross-cultural differences in decision-making can be a great contributing factor to efficiency in cross-cultural communications, negotiations, and conflict resolution.

Cultural differences can interact with positive psychology to create great variation, potentially impacting positive psychology interventions. Culture differences have an impact on the interventions of positive psychology. Culture influences how people seek psychological help, their definitions of social structure, and coping strategies.

In social and developmental psychology, an individual's implicit theory of intelligence refers to his or her fundamental underlying beliefs regarding whether or not intelligence or abilities can change, developed by Carol Dweck and colleagues.

Naïve dialecticism is a collection of East Asian public beliefs characterized by the acceptance of contradiction and the expectation of change in everyday life. Within cultural psychology, naïve dialecticism explains some of the cultural differences observed between those who hold dialectical beliefs and those who hold more Westernized beliefs. Individuals who hold dialectical beliefs are primarily members of Confucian influenced cultures, such as in Japan, China, and Korea. Certain researchers have shown that specific aspects of naïve dialecticism have broad implications on cognition, emotion, and behavior. As well, it is sometimes regarded as being more contextual, flexible, holistic, and dialectical as compared with Western thinking and reasoning. Dialecticism is a perceptual framework that applies to all situations and guides all actions, which is called a domain-general thinking style. Naïve dialecticism is an expansion on this research; it is a whole collection of domain-specific beliefs, meaning that there is a tendency to understand a situation in terms of these beliefs but there is variation depending on the context and individual differences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Identity based motivation</span>

Identity-based motivation theory (IBM) is a social psychological theory of human motivation and goal pursuit, which explains when and in which situations people’s identities or self-concepts will motivate and to take action towards their goals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Parasite-stress theory</span> Theory of human evolution

Parasite-stress theory, illustrated by researchers Corey Fincher and Randy Thornhill, is a theory of human evolution proposing that parasites and diseases encountered by a species shape the development of species' values and qualities. The differences in how parasites and diseases stress people's development is what leads to differences in their biological mate value and mate preferences, as well as differences across culture. Parasites causing diseases pose potential ecological hazards and, subsequently, selection pressures can alter psychological and social behaviours of humans, as well as have an influence on their immune systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephanie Fryberg</span> American Indian psychologist

Stephanie Fryberg is a Tulalip psychologist who received her Master's and Doctorate degrees from Stanford University, where in 2011 she was inducted into the Multicultural Hall of Fame. In the same year, she testified before Senate on Stolen Identities: The impact of racist stereotypes on Indigenous people. She previously taught psychology at the University of Arizona, and at the Tulalip Community at Marysville School. She currently teaches American Indian Studies and Psychology at the University of Michigan, and is a member of the Tulalip Tribe. Her research focuses on race, class, and culture in relation to ones psychological development and mental health. She translated Carol Dweck's growth mindset; taking a communal-oriented approach. The students on her tribe's reservation who received her translation had significant improvement compared to the original version.

Eva G. T. Green is a political scientist and political psychologist. She studies variation in political attitudes and values across countries. Green uses experimental social psychology to measure the attitudes that people across many countries and groups hold towards members of other groups, as manifested for example through xenophobia, beliefs about immigration, and strength of national identity.

References

  1. ↑ "Are You A Procrastinator? Scientists Say This Brain Hack Can Help You Meet Your Goals". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 2015-07-10.
  2. ↑ Vonmax, Sarah (March 27, 2015). "The New Rules for Early Retirement". Money.com . Archived from the original on January 28, 2021. Retrieved 2015-07-10.
  3. ↑ "The Mechanics of Preventing Procrastination". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2015-07-10.
  4. ↑ Oyserman, D., Coon, H., & Kemmelmeier, M. (2002). Rethinking individualism and collectivism: Evaluation of theoretical assumptions and meta-analyses. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 3-72.
  5. ↑ "Daphna Oyserman - Google Scholar Citations". Google.com. Retrieved 2015-07-10.
  6. ↑ Oyserman, D., & Lee, S. W. S. (2008). Does culture influence what and how we think? Effects of priming individualism and collectivism. Psychological Bulletin, 134, 311-342.
  7. ↑ Oyserman, D. (2006). High power, low power, and equality: Culture beyond individualism and collectivism. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 16, 352-357.
  8. ↑ Oyserman, D. (2007). Social Identity and Self-regulation. In A.W. Kruglanski & E.T. Higgins (Eds.), Social Psychology: Handbook of Basic Principles (second edition). New York: Guilford Press.
  9. ↑ Destin & Oyserman (2009). From assets to school outcomes. Psychological Science
  10. ↑ Smith, G. C. & Oyserman, D. (2015). Just not worth my time: Experienced difficulty and time investment. Social Cognition, 33, 86-103
  11. ↑ "Education Is All in Your Mind". The New York Times . Retrieved 2015-07-10.
  12. ↑ "Pathways To Success Through Identity-based Motivation - Daphna Oyserman - Oxford University Press". Global.oup.com. 2015-03-27. Retrieved 2015-07-10.
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