Multicultural Psychology

This course focuses on multicultural issues and their influence on individual and group behavior. It explores how traditions and social customs shape the development of the individual’s behavior, cognition, motivation, emotion, gender roles, personality, and moral judgments across the lifespan. It examines how family, work, religion, language, artistic expressions, rituals, and clothing function as symbols of cultural identity. Cross-cultural comparisons of various psychological phenomena are reviewed, documenting similarities and differences across cultures in human behavior in an attempt to search for mediators of these differences. Topics of discussion include diversity in an increasingly pluralistic society and intercultural relations among African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, Native-Americans, and other cultural groups, with the option of focusing on a particular culture in any given semester. Field trips may be required. Transfer credit: CSU; UC.