Watch and learn! Carefully selected media links will help bring key concepts and theories to life, preparing you for your studies and exams. 

Click on the following links which will open in a new window.

Video Links

• Culture, Cognition and Tying Shoes
  Several students at Northwestern University discovered a difference in how shoes are tied. This could be an interesting discussion starter. Are these individual differences or cultural differences? Just because the five students come from different countries doesn’t mean that the differences are cultural.

• Uncanny Illusions & Their Implications about Reality
  If your students are having trouble with the explanation for the Müller-Lyer illusion given in the textbook, this video may help.

• Cultural Dimension: me or we
  This short video introduces the idea of individualism vs. collectivism in culture.

Audio Links

• Kenya’s Free Schools Bring a Torrent of Students.
  This report from All Things Considered focuses on the consequences of Kenya’s recent educational system changes, which provide free public education to students for the first time in Kenya’s history. The report could provide a good beginning to a class discussion of possible cognitive consequences for Kenyan youth.

• Providing Therapy Across Different Cultures.
  This Talk of the Nation report examines cross-cultural issues in psychotherapy, but could serve as the basis for a discussion of cognitive factors in cross-cultural miscommunications between therapists and clients.

• Studying Abroad: Is It Really Worth It?
  Are we overselling the potential benefits of studying abroad? Talk of the Nationdiscusses the reasons why some students don’t learn what we expect them to from visiting a foreign land, and how students need to be pushed out of their comfort zones in order to really experience another culture.

Web Resources

• What is cross-cultural psychology?
  This page summarizes the field of cross-cultural psychology and includes a number of useful links.
  Follow-up exercise: Ask students to read the page and focus particularly on the distinction between “etic” and “emic” approaches to research. Which parts of Chapter 14 support each of these approaches?