Commentary

Human Development 2006;49:122128

DOI: 10.1159/000091337

Multidimensional Culture and the Search

for Universals
Robin L. Harwood
Ruhr University, Bochum, Germany

Key Words
Culture
Individualism-collectivism
Latinos
Migration
Parental beliefs

All human societies consist of individuals living within groups. Because the
goals and needs of groups and individuals sometimes conict, all cultural communi-
ties must answer the question of how to negotiate and resolve these differences. Over
the past 25 years, cultural researchers have noticed that the varied solutions that dif-
ferent communities offer do not vary endlessly but are patterned. These patterns
have been identied, sorted, and categorized using terms such as independent, in-
terdependent, individualistic, and collectivistic. Generally, the argument has
been made that some of these patterned solutions underscore the sometimes conict-
ing goals and needs of groups and individuals and, as much as possible, try to resolve
these differences in favor of the individual, whereas other patterned solutions seek
to minimize differences and resolve them in favor of the group.
A central thesis of Raeffs paper (this volume) is that, given that societies every-
where are composed of individuals living within groups, every society will contain
concepts, activities, and developmental tasks relevant to both. Thus, using categori-
cal terms such as individualistic or collectivistic is misleading inasmuch as it may
lead some to construe that some societies recognize the individual or the group, but
not both. Raeffs argument is that human experience, so to speak, is thus attened
into just one dimension (self or group), when of course human experience every-
where includes both dimensions (selves living within groups). From her perspective,

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what is needed is a universal theory that integrates cultural understandings of self
and other, as well as links between shared beliefs and individual behaviors, across
societies into a unied whole.
Let me begin by attempting to place Raeffs paper, as well as the categories of
individualism and collectivism, within a larger debate, specically the long-standing
tension within the social sciences between the search for universal truths and the
celebration of particular, richly described contexts. To paraphrase Clifford Geertz
[1973], and in an intellectual tradition extending back at least to the writings of Wil-
helm Wundt [1916], is child development an experimental science in search of uni-
versals? Or is it an interpretive one in search of meaning? To what extent should we
seek to identify universal categories that will serve to organize our understanding of
child development everywhere? And to what extent does the rich, detailed content
of particular cultural meaning systems defy any attempt to categorize across cultur-
al groups? This tension is amplied by the fact that the universalizing point of view
is more familiar to researchers trained within the eld of psychology, whereas the
particularizing point of view is more strongly associated with the eld of anthro-
pology.
Those who seek to study culture and child development sit at the juncture be-
tween these two disciplines, increasing the need for insight into the long-standing
differences and tensions between them. If we are to better understand child develop-
ment in cultural context, is it necessary to identify transcultural categories based on
the principle that humans everywhere are fundamentally the same, and that the
variations we see are variations on a single theme? Or is it crucial instead that we
describe as richly as possible the unique contours of particular cultural contexts,
based on the premise that these shape human experience in primary and powerful
ways that cannot be captured in any universal set of categories?
Raeffs own answer to the issue seems to come down on the side of universals.
In her paper, she offers a classication system for understanding human behavior in
all societies. This system consists of two dimensions (separateness and connected-
ness), and eight developmental tasks, four of which relate to the individual (self-
direction, individuality, self-awareness, and subjectivity), and four of which concern
group relations (establishing and maintaining interaction, pursuing common goals,
joint attention, and perspective-taking). Although she acknowledges that these will
be particularized in culturally meaningful ways, she nonetheless proposes that these
dimensions are universal and will thus be useful in understanding child development
in all societies.
Unfortunately, from the particularists point of view, the devil is in the details,
and often when someone formulates a universal truth regarding a complex human
behavior, that truth exists at such an abstract level that it is essentially drained of
the rich and particular content that comprises culture [see Shweder & Bourne, 1984].
For example, it is a universal truth that all societies have a concept of morality. But
how does morality come together for a particular group of people as a set of mean-
ings that represents the world, relevant institutions that regulate human activities,
and cultural constructs that motivate behavior in specic ways and evoke certain
feelings? From an anthropological perspective, it is not enough to simply state that
morality exists everywhere; it is necessary instead to understand, analyze, and inter-
pret morality as it exists in all its rich, culturally saturated, and motivating detail
within particular cultural communities.

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Universals 2006;49:122128
 Similarly, it is not enough to state that individuals everywhere live in groups,
and that everyone must therefore use constructs and exhibit behaviors relevant to
both self and other (across two dimensions and eight specic domains) on a daily
basis. From a particularists perspective, the imposition of any such external classi-
cation system does injustice to the particular meanings that arise within a given
culture. It is not even enough to state that these universal truths will take unique
cultural shapes; only the rich, detailed examination of the cultural construction of
relations between self and other in particular cultural communities will do.
The need to categorize is, however, a human tendency, and the desire to reduce
particular details into easily digestible and transmissible chunks of information un-
derstandably possesses many researchers in the social sciences. I believe that the use
of categories such as independence and interdependence, or individualism and
collectivism also reects the human desire to classify, in this case to digest the var-
ied details about particular cultural meaning systems into larger, recognizable pat-
terns. To use a well-worn analogy, we want to be able not only to detail the indi-
vidual trees that a particular forest has, we also want to be able to make general
remarks about the characteristics of different types of forests. Similarly, researchers
such as those cited by Raeff who have used categories like independence and in-
terdependence to describe cultural meaning systems want to nd a tool for under-
standing the larger patterns that they have discerned within a myriad of cultural
details.
Unfortunately, these researchers nd themselves in the unhappy position of
pleasing neither the particularists (who believe that any such categorization rends
the rich, complex fabric of culture, reducing it or reifying it into a series of meaning-
less overgeneralizations), nor the universalists (who believe that these particular cat-
egories fail to recognize the ways in which human experience is, after all, universal).
How do we avoid the twin perils of, on the one hand, overessentializing differences
(Latinos are an interdependent people) and, on the other, subsuming those differ-
ences into empty abstractions that fail to capture the reality of lived experience (Ev-
eryone everywhere is an individual being who lives in groups and so must relate to
others)?
One important issue to consider in this discussion is how we dene and iden-
tify cultural groups. When culture is used as a term equivalent to national group
membership or ethnic or racial background, then the perils of overessentialization
increase, and the need for studying and understanding within-group differences
also increases. In our own work, my colleagues and I have dened culture as a shift-
ing continuum of shared commonality among individuals [Harwood, Handwerker,
Schlmerich, & Leyendecker, 2001; Harwood, Leyendecker, Carlson, Asencio, &
Miller, 2002; Harwood, Schlmerich, & Schulze, 2000; Harwood, Wilson, & Schulze,
1995]. A person may thus be a member of multiple groups, each with its own par-
ticular morally enforceable conceptual scheme instantiated in practice [Shweder,
1996]. For example, a person may share a common ethnic heritage with other Lati-
nos, but she may also share practices and discourse relevant to a cultural commu-
nity of ivy-educated psychologists, of middle-class New England suburbanites, and
of avid Red Sox fans.
Conversely, any identiable social group is comprised of individuals who also
participate in multiple other social groups. For example, the Latino Cultural Center
on a college campus may contain some members who are active in the local gay and

124 Human Development Harwood

2006;49:122128
lesbian community, while other members of this Latino community may participate
in conservative religious groups that decry homosexuality. Any identiable social
group thus carries within it, by denition, elements of diversity. According to this
approach, a cultural community is not a bounded, static entity, but a group of indi-
viduals who co-construct a shared reality in one or more domains of life, and who
involve themselves in discourse and activities appropriate to an agreed-upon level
of commonality [Harwood et al., 2000, 2001].
Denitions of culture, and who may be included as a member of a particular
cultural group thus becomes, to some extent, an empirical question. For example,
in our own research with middle-class European American and Puerto Rican moth-
ers of 12-month-old infants, we have examined long-term socialization goals using
consensus analysis techniques [see Handwerker & Borgatti, 1998, for a description
of consensus analysis], as well as beliefs and practices regarding feeding using cluster
analyses [Harwood et al., 2001; Harwood, Miller, Carlson, & Leyendecker, 2002]. In
this research, it is noteworthy that we did not discover either: (a) uniformity across
groups based on the universal importance of feeding or of specic child-rearing goals,
(b) strict conformity based on ethnic group membership, or, for that matter, (c) end-
less variety based on individual differences. Instead, we found that specic patterns
of beliefs and practices emerged, with nearly 80% of European American mothers
falling into one of two consensus groups that were patterned around the usage of self-
maximization and self-control as long-term socialization goals, and nearly 60% of
Puerto Rican mothers falling into one of two consensus groups that were patterned
around the importance of decency and proper demeanor as long-term socialization
goals [Harwood et al., 2001]. With regard to maternal feeding practices, we found
that the majority (75%) of middle-class European American mothers in Connecticut
could be identied as sharing a common set of beliefs and practices centered around
the importance of early self-feeding, whereas roughly 86% of middle-class island
Puerto Rican mothers shared beliefs and practices centered around the importance
of continued spoon- and/or bottle-feeding through the age of 12 months. Thus, we
can conclude that: (a) mothers long-term socialization goals, as well as beliefs and
practices regarding feeding, are culturally patterned, and so neither randomly nor
uniformly distributed across different populations, and (b) ethnic group member-
ship provided one important cultural context for the patterning of these beliefs and
practices.
With these statements, we attempt to highlight that culture is both primary in
its power to shape perceptions and experiences, as well as patterned in recognizable
ways. At the same time, we recognize that the variables we use to dene cultural
group membership (in this case, ethnicity) are imperfect and cannot capture either
the complexity or the multiplicity of cultures that all individuals participate in. Un-
fortunately, we nd again that we please neither the particularists (who believe that,
by reducing culture to a variable in a quantitative analysis, we have destroyed the
very phenomenon that we seek to study), nor the universalists (who are likely to
point out such obvious truths as, both the European American and Puerto Rican
mothers demonstrate the universal importance of interpersonal connectedness by
interacting with their infants during feeding). Yet, we continue to seek the via media
within cultural research, maintaining our belief in the primacy and power of cul-
tural meaning systems to shape our perceptions and experiences in fundamentally
different ways, while at the same time persisting in our conviction that a variety of

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Universals 2006;49:122128
research tools and methods, both qualitative and quantitative, can be useful in help-
ing us to better understand culture as a phenomenon.
It is crucial to note, however, that categories like independence and interde-
pendence provide only rough tools for understanding the primacy and patterning of
cultural meaning systems; some cultural researchers would state that, inasmuch as
such categories have been (mis)used in an absolutizing or essentializing fashion, they
have distorted the very cultural meanings they claim to illuminate [see Miller, 2002].
We wholeheartedly agree with Raeff that independence and interdependence are not
conceptualized the same way in all cultures. In our own research on mothers long-
term socialization goals, my colleagues and I have sought to understand the multiple
dimensions that exist within complex constructs such as proper demeanor and self-
maximization [Harwood, Miller, & Lucca Irizarry, 1995], and the ways in which
different cultural groups may place differential emphases on these dimensions. For
example, in our study of rst- and second-generation Puerto Rican and Turkish mi-
grant mothers in Connecticut and Bochum, Germany, we have identied three sep-
arate but interrelated dimensions of proper demeanor (or respect) that were present
among each of these groups [Harwood, Yalcinkaya, Citlak, & Leyendecker, in press]:
(1) proper interpersonal behavior, (2) role relations and obligations within the fam-
ily, and (3) a dimension that implicitly acknowledges the extent to which ones life
is lived publicly in relation to a larger community. The groups not only placed dif-
ferential emphases on these three dimensions, they also conceptualized these dimen-
sions into different coherent wholes. For example, maintaining religious traditions
and ties emerged as a strong component of the community esteem dimension among
rst-generation Puerto Rican and second-generation Turkish mothers, while declin-
ing for second-generation Puerto Rican but increasing for second-generation Turk-
ish mothers.
Why would these generational differences be evident? A closer examination of
the content of mothers answers provides one possible answer. In particular, the
Puerto Rican mothers were primarily Christian, and so had religious traditions
which, although distinctive (e.g., the celebration of Three Kings Day on January 6,
or the enjoyment of specic holiday foods during the Christmas season), did not set
them apart as markedly different from mainstream US culture. Turkish mothers, on
the other hand, were virtually all Muslim, a fact that is reected in the traditional
robes and head scarf that many choose to wear. As both groups encounter structural
racism as well as instances of prejudice and discrimination within their respective
host countries, (Muslim) religion is more likely to become a point of resistant iden-
tity for Turkish than it is for (Christian) Puerto Rican mothers. In this way, the im-
portance of teaching Muslim religious traditions to their children emerged as a strong
and central theme among second-generation Turkish mothers.
Thus, although rst- and second-generation Puerto Rican and Turkish mothers
could all be characterized as placing a great deal of emphasis on the various dimen-
sions associated with the construct of proper demeanor, these dimensions in fact
took different shape and formed different conceptual wholes across these groups,
reecting not only initial differences in Turkish and Puerto Rican mothers cultural
meaning systems, but also differential change and transformation based on each
groups experience in different host cultures. Similarly, our preliminary research on
specic dimensions that we have identied within the construct of self-maximiza-
tion (emotional well-being, fulllment of personal potential, economic success, and

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psychological independence) suggests that being a German autonomous self is not
identical to being an American autonomous self [Karom, Harwood, Leyendecker,
Schlmerich, Kirkland, & Bimler, in preparation].
In sum, as work in the area of social cognition has taught us, the tendency to
classify and to categorize is human. When it comes to cultural research, however,
this human tendency has become the center of an at times polarizing debate. To
what extent can we import any classication system across cultural groups when our
primary goal should be, as Geertz [1984] prompted us, to try to understand the
natives point of view? That is, what do members of a given cultural community
think, feel, and perceive about a particular domain of life? Does the use of any stan-
dard set of categories violate our obligation to seek the particular meanings of par-
ticular cultural communities? On the other hand, how many particular contexts can
we richly describe before our desire to draw general principles leads us to seek com-
mon categories with which we can compare beliefs, practices, and experiences? As
Shweder [1996] notes, it seems unlikely that human life and human cultural catego-
ries are so multiplex and so varied that we can nd no commonalities across cul-
tural groups.
How then do we create categories that will illuminate rather than obscure the
unique patterns of different cultural meaning systems, and that will appreciate the
primacy and power of culture to shape human experience, rather than attempt to
subsume cultural variation within a set of universal categories? Kenneth Pikes
[1954] well-known and time-honored coining of the terms emic and etic, and con-
comitant recognition that derived etics are possible, offers one reasonable solution.
In fact, it is possible that the derived etic offers a fertile path across rocky terrain for
cultural researchers who wish to nd common ground between universalizing agen-
das and particularizing purists on either side.

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