Cross-Cultural Features of Personality and Social Behaviour

The main purpose of this course is to study and identify the impact of culture on personality traits, socialization, personality development and pathology as well as interpersonal relations in order to apply this knowledge for development of your interpersonal and intercultural relations and communication.

How will taking this course help me in my everyday life? We hope that learning this course will help you better understand and interact with people from other cultures and countries. You will learn how to overcome cultural barriers and avoid misunderstandings. You will be able to improve your interpersonal and intercultural communication, that are necessary in today's global world!  

If you will listen to these short lectures attentively, read the texts carefully, and do all the assignments, you will find yourself not only at much higher level of contemporary knowledge and understanding on Culture and Personality interconnections, but feel essentially more assured in your ability for further cross-cultural learning and research, as well as in development of your interpersonal and intercultural relations and communication.

Course Outcomes

• To study and identify the impact of culture on personality traits, socialization, personality development and pathology as well as interpersonal relations in order to apply this knowledge for development of your interpersonal and intercultural relations and communication
• Better understand and describe a history, approaches and methods of the cross-cultural studies
• Identify and analyze the influence of culture on a personality and its social behavior
• Identify, describe and analyze modern concepts and models of personality within the framework of Western, Russian, and Indigenous Psychology
• Understand and identify universality and culturally specificity of personality traits, socialization, personality development, and pathology
• Apply understanding of communicative, interactive, and socially perceptual components the interpersonal relations for spot and overcome cultural barriers
• Actively build and develop your intercultural communications and relationship

About the author

Irina A. Novikova, Ph.D. in General Psychology, Personality Psychology and History of Psychology, Associate Professor of the Social and Differential Psychology Department, Philology Faculty, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University).