Doing Psychology With a Cultural Lens: A Half-Century Journey

Early Beginnings

That was before cultural or cross-cultural psychology as a discipline appeared on the scene. What was it that led me in this direction of using a cultural lens in my approach to psychological phenomena? First and foremost, I was a foreign student in the United States (Berkeley) far away from my native Turkey. I was out of my own culture, living another culture. Berkeley in the 1960s was a haven of multiculturalism. I stayed at the International House and had friends from many different countries. This experience brought culture into even sharper relief for me. While thus experiencing significant differences and new forms in human behaviors and values, I was also reading universalist claims in psychology. Personality theory occupied a prominent place in psychological thinking of the time. More specifically, I was intrigued to realize that some of the aspects of the then popular authoritarian personality syndrome were social norms in Turkey. I started questioning the explanation of a political outlook (fascism) by personality dynamics in The Authoritarian Personality (Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950). I found myself asking, “Personality or society?” Thus the previously quoted introductory sentences were followed by, “An example of findings that seem likely to be culturally specific are those in support of a general syndrome of ‘authoritarianism.’ In cultures in which social norms bear differentially on the components of this syndrome, one should expect different patterns of relationship to obtain” (Kagitcibasi, 1970, p. 444).

One such component was respect for authority. With a psychoanalytic perspective, the authoritarian personality theory (Adorno et al., 1950) construed respect for authority basically as submission to authority. This was considered to be a deep-lying personality characteristic that, in cohesion with other aspects of the authoritarian personality syndrome such as anti-intraception, ethnocentrism, and so on, constituted a fascistic outlook. Thus, as a syndrome, when one of the aspects of the authoritarian personality was found to exist in a person, the other aspects would also be expected to exist, forming a cohesive pattern. I reasoned, however, that in traditional collectivistic culture respect for (legitimate) authority is a social norm, even a matter of decency, such as seen in respect for elders. Therefore if a social norm, then this feature should be seen in most people, not only in those with other authoritarian features, thus decreasing the overall cohesion of the syndrome.

In my doctoral dissertation research I carried out one of the first cross-cultural studies in psychology, comparing attitudes and worldviews of last-year high school students from the United States and Turkey, as well as their retrospective perceptions of their family contexts. I noted that the famous F Scale (Fascism; Adorno, et al., 1950), which was being used to assess authoritarianism, included items that tapped norms and values, which are culture bound. I therefore devised a core authoritarianism scale that tapped a rather rigid and dogmatic orientation but did not have any items involving social norms or values. It was similar to the Dogmatism Scale of Rokeach (1960). I then compared the two groups on this variable, as well as on variables related to social norms such as respect for authority. I found that while the two groups did not differ on core authoritarianism, Turkish youth scored significantly higher than American youth on respect for authority. Indeed, I found that the authoritarian personality syndrome, as a coherent pattern of personality characteristics and values, did not have universal validity (Kagitcibasi, 1970). I could not have drawn attention to the culture bound aspects of the assumedly universal “authoritarian personality syndrome” if I had not ventured into a cross-cultural study in my early academic career. This result pointed to the value of culture-comparative analysis for testing the external validity or the generalizability of theory. It has guided my perspective on psychological science ever since.

Another finding of that study concerned family and perceived parenting. At the time (and still), Western middle-class child-rearing orientations tend to involve less strict discipline and more autonomy granting than those in the Majority World. ¹ Again especially from a psychoanalytic perspective, strict parental discipline has been understood to reflect lack of affection toward or even rejection of the child. This was not what I had experienced or observed in Turkey. So I questioned this universalistic claim also and asked the respondents retrospective questions regarding parental discipline and parental affection they had experienced while growing up. American and Turkish respondents indeed differed in the parental discipline they had experienced, Turks having experienced significantly more discipline, but there was no difference between the groups regarding parental affection or warmth they had experienced (Kagitcibasi, 1970). So I proposed that parental control (discipline) and warmth are two separate dimensions of parenting, challenging the prevalent views in the field (Adorno, et al., 1950; Schaefer & Bell, 1958). It appears that parental discipline tends to be influenced by social norms and conventions more than parental warmth, the latter having an evolutionary survival basis. Later on, other researchers came up with similar findings comparing Korean and American (Rohner & Pettengill, 1985) and Japanese and German (Trommsdorff, 1985) children and adolescents. They showed that while perceived parental control was associated with perceived parental rejection in the United States and Germany, it was associated with perceived parental warmth in Korea and Japan.

Continuities

What these different studies showed was that Turkish, Korean, and Japanese adolescents, comparing their parents with their peers’ parents, see that they are no different, since strong parental control is commonplace, and therefore “normal.” In fact, Trommsdorff (1985) noted, “Japanese adolescents even feel rejected by their parents when they experience only little parental control” (p. 238). This early research was important in drawing attention to the role of cultural conventions and values regarding what is “normal” or “good” or even “real.” Indeed this is the time-old issue of individual-group or individual-society relations underlying social psychology and social thought in general. As early as the 1930s Sherif (1936) experimentally demonstrated the power of the group in defining reality for the individual, and later Festinger (1954) pointed to “social comparison process” again in defining social reality. My dissertation research and others following it brought culture into the picture.

It is noteworthy that these issues are still quite important in parenting research. Decades after my dissertation research, much attention has been recently drawn to different ecologies or cultures of parenting. For example, research conducted with Chinese parents concurs with the earlier findings. Chao has shown that the so-called Chinese authoritarian parenting is a socially valued parenting orientation to “train” the child toward moral maturity in the context of Confucian morality (Chao & Tseng, 2002). Similarly, Dekovic, Pels, and Model (2006), studying several immigrant ethnic groups in the Netherlands, found that the mothers in these groups used strong discipline, but they were also warm in their child rearing. The researchers called this “an unlikely combination” in their book, Unity and Diversity in Child Rearing: Family Life in a Multicultural Society. They asked me to write a preface for their book. I accepted and asked in that preface “Why unlikely?” I reiterated the point there that warmth and control are two separate dimensions of parenting; therefore, just as warmth and mild or relatively permissive discipline combination is possible, so is a warmth-strong discipline combination possible. In fact, the latter tends to be more common in the Majority World.

These early beginnings pointed to the importance of cultural norms and values that might affect interpretations of events and thus behavioral responses. This is relevant for both the “subjects” studied and also the researchers studying them. I believe that researchers still often ignore the “social reality” that gives meaning to the individual case. Furthermore, researchers’ own thinking, and thus psychological theory, is not exempt from cultural influence. In fact, it could be claimed that psychology, itself, is a product of the Western worldview.

A Contextual Approach

After my doctoral studies I went back to Turkey and started an academic career in the early 1970s. The “cultural lens” I had developed from the start in observing human behavior further expanded into a fuller contextual approach focusing also on socioeconomic structural factors in addition to culture. Thus, I began to develop a social scientific outlook together with a psychological one in attempting to understand human phenomena. Being together with sociologists at a social sciences department, rather than a psychology department, also contributed to this process. ² In particular, I was intrigued by the psychological aspects or concomitants of social change, as I was observing striking social change in a society that was going through significant urbanization and socioeconomic development.

I carried out a study with last-year high school students in Turkey to understand the differences between modernizing and traditional families and the behavioral and attitudinal outcomes in youth (Kagitcibasi, 1973). Two different patterns emerged where background factors were socioeconomic status (SES) and rural to urban mobility. The key family characteristics were parental warmth and control, and youth characteristics pointed to openness to change. Openness to change was a positive outlook including belief in internal control, optimism about personal future, and achievement motive. The opposite outlook included an anomic stance, religiosity, belief in external control (fatalism), authoritarianism, and pessimism about personal future. The family mediated between the background and the youth outcome such that two patterns of relationships emerged: Higher SES and/or urban mobility was associated with familial warmth, which was in turn associated with openness to change in youth. The opposite pattern was also found among those with lower SES and/or static rural/small town life conditions. Thus, family mediated between the social structural factors and youths’ attitudes and outlooks.

This study further reinforced the contextual approach in my understanding of human development. Urban culture, education, and increased SES create social environments and lifestyles that are strikingly different from those characteristic of rural traditional milieu. What I found in this study was the psychological aspects of an instance of a worldwide pattern of social change, that is, urbanization. It is a global phenomenon of great significance. For example, an estimation by the United Nations Population Fund (2011) showed that the rural youth population (ages 10–19) in developing countries in 1990 was twice the urban youth population. The two figures became equal in 2015, and in 2025 the urban youth is projected to surpass the rural youth substantially.

Thus, a contextual approach to the study of individual-society dynamics has been important in my work from the beginning. In this respect, my outlook has been quite different from the mainstream perspectives in psychology, focusing on the individual. Recently, it is good to see a new, or renewed, interest emerging in a more inclusive contextual approach to psychological phenomena, as for example in cultural psychology and in Oishi’s (2014) socioecological psychology.

The Value of Children Study

In 1973 I was invited to join an international and interdisciplinary team of researchers to carry out the Value of Children (VOC) Study. This was a major cross-cultural project investigating motivations for childbearing and a first study to use a psychological perspective to understand fertility behavior and population dynamics. This study was very much in line with my growing interest in the contextual analysis of behavior. After my dissertation research, the VOC Study proved to be a turning point in my theoretical outlook.

As an interdisciplinary team of psychologists, economists, and demographers, we undertook to study values attributed to children by parents and thus motivations for childbearing, aiming to understand fertility behavior and “population explosion” in the world. Extensive interviews were conducted with more than 20,000 adult respondents in nine countries. ³ I carried out the Turkish study involving a survey of more than 2,300 respondents with a nationally representative sample.

We found that even when social structural and economic variables (SES, etc.) were controlled, values attributed to children by parents explained some of the variance in fertility behavior. This had not been recognized earlier by demographers and economists. We also found that psychological variables mediated between the background socioeconomic factors and the resultant fertility (Bulatao, 1979; Fawcett, 1983; Kagitcibasi, 1982a). This was another instance of relating psychological factors to contextual factors. The main finding of the VOC Study was that different motivations underlying childbearing are reflected in two main types of values attributed to children, economic (utilitarian), and psychological. The economic VOC is prevalent in low levels of socioeconomic development where children contribute to family economy and survival through the family life cycle, especially as sources of old-age security for their elderly parents. Because economic VOC is number based (more children providing more material support), it is associated with high fertility. With increased material well-being and urbanization, lifestyles change so that children stop being economic assets but become economic costs. In the absence of children’s material value, their psychological value becomes salient for childbearing. However, psychological VOC is not number based (even few children providing optimum love, pride, etc.), so fertility decreases (Kagitcibasi, 1982a, 1982b).

As apparent from this very brief summary, these complex interrelated variables point to family dynamics in cultural context, as well as the place and the role of the child in family and society. With socioeconomic development, family culture changes too. The decrease in economic VOC was striking both within countries (among urban, higher SES, educated respondents living in more developed regions, compared with less affluent, less educated ones) and across countries (much less important in the United States and Germany than in the others). Much future dependency on adult offspring was expected in less developed contexts, whereas such dependency was rejected in the more developed contexts. Initially, I interpreted these findings in line with the modernization theory prediction of a shift or convergence toward the “Western” pattern, that is, from interdependent family relationships to independent ones involving separation, nucleation, and individualism (e.g., Doob, 1967; Inkeles & Smith, 1974).

A Paradigm Shift

However, was this assumed convergence toward the Western pattern of nucleation/individuation with socioeconomic development really taking place? Both my own observations and also other researchers’ work in Turkey and other Majority World countries were pointing to continuing family interdependencies. Thus again using a cultural lens, questioning and further analyzing the VOC Study results, I realized that our questions regarding intergenerational dependencies had concerned mainly economic/utilitarian matters. When the answers pointed to a decrease in these, I had concluded a family pattern change from interdependence to independence.

This realization led to a conceptual breakthrough, as I came to see that we can, and should, differentiate two different dimensions of interdependencies—material and emotional (psychological). The VOC Study results were pointing to decreasing material but continuing (even increasing) emotional dependencies with socioeconomic development, as reflected in decreasing economic VOC, but continuing or increasing psychological VOC. In fact, culture, which had not been emphasized in the VOC Study, was emerging here together with socioeconomic development (living conditions) as a key contextual variable. I found this complex transformation in all the VOC samples from the developing countries with collectivistic “cultures of relatedness” where close-knit human ties were prevalent.

This cross-cultural study and my reinterpretation of its findings thus generated another questioning of a generally accepted theoretical perspective, that is, the “convergence hypothesis” of the modernization theory, stating that with socioeconomic development the diverse human patterns in the world would converge toward the Western pattern. It paved the way toward a theory of family change in the context of social change. The VOC Study results, my other work and experiences, as well as other social scientists’ work pointed to a great deal of global social structural change. Urbanization was the key to this change, resulting in lifestyle changes. Marked socioeconomic development was taking place; however, in most cases culture was not changing but enduring, and this was the culture of relatedness. Therefore, a different pattern of resultant change was emerging than modernization prediction of independence and individualism. I elaborated this pattern in my family change theory.

Family Change Theory

Three prototypical family models are distinguished in family change theory (Kagitcibasi, 1990, 2017). The first one, the “interdependent” family model, is prototypical of preindustrial, less developed, rural, agrarian contexts with collectivistic cultures of relatedness, where closely knit human/family relations prevail. Children are economic assets throughout the family life cycle. While young, they can work to support the family and later on provide old-age security to their elderly parents. Obedience-oriented child rearing ensures dependency of the child on the parent, this dependency to be reversed later on as the dependency of the elderly parent on grown up offspring for old-age security. Autonomy of the growing child is seen as a threat to family livelihood because an autonomous youth can separate from the family and look after his or her own needs rather than those of the elderly parents. Thus, the family is a self-sustaining system of interdependent relations.

The second, contrasting model of “independence” is prototypical of affluent urban industrial/postindustrial, individualistic Western (middle-class) society. The self-boundaries of family members are clearly defined and nonoverlapping, upholding individual independence. Intergenerational relations are characterized by relative independence in both material and emotional realms. Child rearing encourages autonomy and self-reliance.

In contrast to the general modernization assumption of a shift from the interdependent to the independent family model, family change theory proposes a shift toward a third model, which is a synthesis of the first two (Kagitcibasi, 1990, 2017). This is the model of “psychological/emotional interdependence.” While material interdependencies have decreased in this family pattern, given urbanization and socioeconomic development, psychological/emotional interdependencies continue, supporting close-knit family ties. While the independent family shows independence in both the material and the emotional realms, and the interdependent family shows interdependence in both realms, the third family model is characterized by intergenerational interdependence in the emotional realm, but not in the material realm. This model is prototypical of contexts with urban, relatively affluent lifestyles but with collectivistic cultures of relatedness, which are common in the Majority World.

In this third family pattern, autonomy granting enters into child rearing because the offspring’s autonomy is no longer a threat to family livelihood, since material dependence on adult offspring has decreased with increased affluence. Autonomy is also highly adaptive in urbanized lifestyles, especially in higher education and specialized employment requiring individual decision making. However, the value of close-knit ties, that is relatedness, and parental control are maintained, since the separation of the growing child is not valued. The combination of autonomy with relatedness leads to the emergence of the autonomous-related self in the offspring. There is increasing research evidence for this model emerging from various countries (e.g., U. Kim, Park, Kwon, & Koo, 2005; Koutrelakos, 2004; Lubiewska, 2008; Mayer, 2013; Mayer, Trommsdorff, Kagitcibasi, & Mishra, 2012; McShane, Hastings, Smylie, & Prince, 2009; Schwarz, Trommsdorff, Albert, & Mayer, 2005; see Kagitcibasi, 2017, for an extensive review).

Autonomous-Related Self Theory

Thus family change theory led the way toward the “autonomous-related self” theory (Kagitcibasi, 2005, 2011, 2013, 2017; Mayer, 2013; Pickren, 2014, p. 502). From a psychological perspective, the shift toward the third model, the family model of psychological interdependence and the autonomous related self, is a healthy one. This is because “relatedness” and “autonomy” are two basic human needs, as commonly accepted for some time (Bakan, 1966; Guisinger & Blatt, 1994; Ryan, Deci, & Grolnick, 1995; Ryan & Lynch, 1989). However, notwithstanding the general acceptance of these two needs, they have also been considered as conflicting ever since the conflict theories of personality (Bakan, 1966), psychoanalytic perspectives (Blos, 1979; Freud, 1958), and object relations theories (Mahler, Pine, & Bergman, 1975). This view is still continuing in theory and practice, as for example in the individuation perspective in adolescence (e.g., Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 2002; Noack & Buhl, 2004; Noom, 1999), which has been recently defined as a process of an “increase in autonomy and a parallel decrease in relatedness . . . with parents” (Inguglia, Ingoglia, Liga, Coco, & Cricchio, 2015, p. 2). The general assumption underlying these theories is the separation-individuation hypothesis, formulated in various ways, which claims that for autonomy to develop, separation (from parents/close others) is necessary.

Again culture becomes relevant here, both the culture of the psychological phenomenon studied and also the culture of the researcher studying it. To take up the former first, claiming that separation is necessary for autonomy to develop, by implication, questions the importance, even the existence of autonomy in closely knit collectivistic societies (Iyengar & Lepper, 1999; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Oishi, 2014; Rothbaum, Pott, Azuma, Miyake, & Weisz, 2000). Once again, my observations, experiences, as well as my reading of the literature clearly did not concur with this claim. As for the latter, such a claim reflects the individualistic outlook (culture) of the researcher, which confounds autonomy with separation/independence from others, as I discussed earlier.

Informed by the analyses of the VOC Study results and family change theory based on those results, I proposed two distinct dimensions of self, “interpersonal distance” and “agency/autonomy” (Kagitcibasi, 1996, 2005, 2007). “Interpersonal distance” reflects the degree to which the self is connected with others, and the extent to which the self boundaries are well-defined or diffuse and permeable. Autonomy, on the other hand, is construed as willful human agency. Interpersonal distance spans separateness to relatedness, and agency spans autonomy to heteronomy. This construal of autonomy does not imply more or less relatedness; autonomy can coexist with both separateness and relatedness, which constitute the distinct “interpersonal distance” dimension.

Pursuing the distinction of the two dimensions of agency and interpersonal distance and considering their four-fold combination, I further proposed four prototypical self configurations: the “autonomous-separate,” “autonomous-related,” “heteronomous-separate,” and “heteronomous-related” selves. The underlying theoretical reasoning is that, given the distinction of the interpersonal distance and agency dimensions, either pole of each dimension can coexist with either pole of the other one. Thus, it is not necessary for autonomy to mean separateness. This conceptualization renders viable the “autonomous-related self” (Kagitcibasi, 1996, 2005, 2017).

Research Support

Several theoretical views have made similar proposals regarding the distinctness and compatibility of autonomy and relatedness. For example, self-determination theory (Chirkov, Kim, Ryan, & Kaplan, 2003; Ryan & Deci, 2000) proposed autonomy and relatedness (as well as competence) as distinct needs. Using this theoretical perspective, Y. Kim, Butzel, and Ryan (1998) found a stronger positive association between autonomy and relatedness than between autonomy and separateness among American and Korean adolescents. Attachment theory also endorsed the distinctness and compatibility of autonomy (agency) with relatedness, rather than with separateness, and proposed that secure attachment (relatedness) fosters agency (Grossmann, Grossmann, & Keppler, 2005; Meeus, Osterwegel, & Vollebergh, 2002).

A growing body of research conducted in different countries provides empirical support to the existence of distinct dimensions of autonomy and relatedness. For example, studies in Europe showed relatedness-separation and agency (autonomy) to be independent dimensions (e.g., Beyers, Goossens, Vansant, & Moors, 2003; Huiberts, Oosterwegel, Vandervalk, Vollebergh, & Meeus, 2006). Kwak (2003) noted the common preference among adolescents in the United States for both autonomy and relatedness with parents. Phinney et al. (2005) studied distinctive expressions of autonomy and relatedness in adolescent-parent disagreements in families from diverse American ethnic backgrounds. In Germany, Phalet and Schönpflug (2001) found Turkish immigrant parents’ autonomy goals for their adolescent children to entail relatedness rather than separateness. Research from several countries pointed to parent-adolescent separateness as a risk factor for healthy development (Aydin & Oztutuncu, 2001; Beyers & Goossens, 1999; Chou, 2000; Garber & Little, 2001), and Inguglia et al. (2015) showed parental support to lead to the development of both autonomy and relatedness.

Studies of parenting and family relations provide further insights. Keller et al. (2003) distinguished different patterns of mother-infant interaction in Germany and Greece, leading to autonomy-separateness and autonomy-relatedness patterns of self, respectively. Keller and Lamm (2005) studied different manifestations of autonomy and relatedness in mothers’ ethno-theories regarding child care across five cultural communities in Germany, India, and Cameroon. McShane et al. (2009) found parenting themes of urbanizing Inuit in Canada to evidence both autonomy and relatedness, and Lubiewska (2008) found similar family patterns in Poland. Celenk, van de Vijver, and Goodwin (2011) examined autonomy and relatedness in their study of relationship satisfaction among Turkish and British adults, and Gungor, Phalet, and Kagitcibasi (2012) studied developmental pathways of autonomy and relatedness among Turkish and Belgian adolescents. Thus, autonomy and relatedness are finding general acceptance in the field as important constructs for understanding cultural variations. Finally, in The Psychology Book, Pickren (2014, p. 502) presented my “autonomous-relational self” construct as the major contribution in psychology in 1996.

Why Autonomy and Relatedness?

As I explained above, the autonomous-related self construct emerged from family change theory. It is the self pattern nourished in the emotionally interdependent family where there is close-knit relatedness and where autonomy is also granted to the growing child. With changing lifestyles in the Majority World, this pattern is becoming more prevalent. Is it limited to those contexts? I propose that such a shift may also be coming about in the Western (Minority) World (Kagitcibasi, 2013, 2017). This is because both autonomy and relatedness are basic human needs. It appears that in the individualistic cultures, the need for autonomy is well recognized and supported, but the need for relatedness appears to be ignored to some extent. In the collectivistic cultures the opposite is the case—while relatedness is supported, autonomy is not. Both leave something to be desired. The family model of psychological interdependence, which combines relatedness with autonomy, is the more optimal family model, and the autonomous-related self is the more optimal self model.

While on theoretical grounds such an expectation may make good sense, whether it is likely to actually materialize is another issue. In this article I have presented evidence mainly from the Majority World, showing shifts from the model of interdependent family to the model of emotional interdependence with autonomous-related self. There is also some evidence emerging in the Western Minority World, though slight, of a shift toward this model. For example, some American and European research from the 1980s was already pointing toward a desire for the “community” (e.g., Ekstrand & Ekstrand, 1987; Etzioni, 1993). More recently studies of “postmodern” and “postmaterialistic” values point to the increasing importance of humanistic and relational values rather than competitive individualistic values (Inglehart, 2003, 2008). Nevertheless, the individualistic worldview is strong and persistent and may prevent such a shift. Similarly, the shift from the traditional interdependent family pattern to the emotionally interdependent one in the Majority World with rural to urban and international migration may also be halted or slowed down by the persistence of traditional culture. Psychological research may have a role here in increasing general knowledge and mindfulness to help support changes toward more optimal human patterns.

Autonomy and relatedness are also valuable constructs for culture comparative studies. Starting in 1980s, expanding cross-cultural research has made use of the individualism-collectivism framework to explain systematic differences across cultures (Hofstede, 1980; Triandis, 1995). It was replaced by independence-interdependence, its individual-level counterparts (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). These constructs have been used interchangeably, and the meanings attributed to them have been broad and highly inclusive. Studies found them to be multifactorial (e.g., Beyers et al., 2003; Hardin, Varghese, Tran, & Carlson, 2006; Oyserman, Kemmelmeier, & Coon, 2002; Raeff, 2004). A significant problem with most scales used to assess them is that independent self is conceived and measured as autonomous, but not related, and interdependent self is conceived and measured as related but not autonomous. In other words, many individualism/independent self scales tap autonomy but also separateness, and collectivism/interdependent self scales tap relatedness but also lack of autonomy. Clearly this is the problem of confounding the agency and interpersonal distance dimensions I discussed earlier. Quite a bit of conceptual confusion and debate have resulted from this work. So, with colleagues I have devised unifactorial scales of autonomy solely as volitional agency and relatedness solely as close interpersonal distance (Kagitcibasi, Cemalcilar, Baydar, & Aydinli-Karakulak, 2017). This conceptualization and assessment promises to contribute to a better understanding of culture-individual dynamics.

Beyond my theoretically based academic research, I have also carried out a number of applied research projects with teams. This other work, applied intervention research, has also benefited from a sensitivity to culture, but in a different way. For example, in our work with women, mothers, fathers, young children, and early adolescents in Turkey, we have always made sure to maintain cultural relevance and cultural validity. This was in the sense that whatever intervention was devised has made sense to the people involved, and they have always been active participants in the process (Kagitcibasi, Sunar, Bekman, Baydar, & Cemalcilar, 2009). We often devised original materials that had cultural validity rather than translating Western materials. This applied research has led to large-scale implementations of support programs both in Turkey and abroad and has even influenced social policies in Turkey. So cultural validity has also been a key to this applied work (Kagitcibasi, 2013, 2017).

To conclude this half century journey, let me reiterate that throughout my academic life I have always been cognizant of culture and have used a cultural lens in looking at psychological phenomena. However, my culture sensitive stance has not led to a cultural relativist outlook (Kagitcibasi, 2000). Rather, I have always been interested in both similarities and differences to understand systematic patterns of human behavior and their “hows” and “whys.” In this quest, cultural context has been of key importance. With regard to psychological science, I have tried to search for “integrative syntheses,” combining cultural contextualism with universal patterns (Kagitcibasi, 2017, chap. 11). This approach has helped reveal what we can learn about human behavior only if we study it culturally.