Lauren Shapiro Crane, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor

Samuel Mather Hall 302
740-427-5373
shapirol@kenyon.edu

My first faculty position was in the English Department of Nagasaki Junior College, on the Japanese island of Kyushu (1992-1994). While teaching English and American Culture to Japanese undergraduates, I simultaneously was working to teach myself about Japanese language and culture. Probably as a result of my years living and traveling in East Asia, my broad interest in cross-cultural and cross-linguistic issues narrowed to a sharper focus on how language-use contributes to cross-cultural differences between “East” and “West.”

Prior to Kenyon, I also taught summer courses at Stanford University (1999-2001) and held a Developmental Psychology position at Williams College, in Massachusetts (2003-2005). In my view, developmental and cultural psychology are closely related, as both sub-disciplines view the human mind from a dynamic, process-oriented perspective.

In addition, I also conducted social science research & development work in a corporate setting at Sociometrics Corporation (www.socio.com), in California (2001-2003). My experiences there gave me the opportunity to learn how Ph.D.-level psychology skills are put to use by individuals who wish to focus their energies on improving public health challenges.

My favorite courses to teach explore how culture and language reflect and support human psychological functioning. This includes courses like Cultural Psychology; Psychology of Language; Culture, Language, & Mind; and related research methods courses.

In the past, I’ve also enjoyed teaching Developmental Psychology, Experimentation & Statistics, a senior seminar entitled Perspectives on Psychological Issues, and, of course, Introductory Psychology. Actually, I’ve found that teaching most any psychology course is fun when students come to class with an engaged, inquisitive attitude!

Across all the classes I’ve taught, what I find to be the most interesting and most rewarding is when the students take an active role in developing and presenting original research. For this reason, most of my classes include some research component.

As a cultural psychologist, I am interested in looking beyond broad cultural assertions like “Americans are friendly” or “Japanese are polite.” It’s not very informative to explain someone’s psychology by saying, “She thinks that way because she’s from Korea.” In fact, this kind of assertion really has no more explanatory power than saying, “She thinks that way because she’s an Aries.” It assumes, in effect, that people living in different cultures are simply different kinds of creatures.

But why do striking cross-cultural differences exist in the first place?

“Culture” is an abstract construct that can’t influence us directly; the only way it can infuse our psychology is through the concrete, real-world experiences that we have in everyday life, within a given cultural setting. As a cultural psychologist, the studies that I conduct typically investigate whether engaging in a particular real-world activity supports a certain culturally favored way of thinking, feeling, or behaving. The real-world activity that interests me most is language-use.

I have conducted research in this vein with both adults and children. To date, I have collected data in the U.S., Japan, and South Korea, usually with the help of undergraduate research assistants.

• Shapiro, L. J., & Azuma, H. (2004). Intellectual, attitudinal, and interpersonal aspects of competence in the United States and Japan. In R. J. Sternberg & E. L. Grigorenko (Eds.), Culture and competence: Contexts of life success. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

• Card, J. J., Shapiro, L. J., Amarillas, A., McKean, E., & Kuhn, T. (2003). Broadening public access to data through the development of tools for data novices. Social Science Computer Review, 21, 352-359.

• Mashima, M., Shapiro, L., & Azuma, H. (1998). Sakubun kadai ni yoru mokuhyou kouzou to shourai tenbou ni kansuru kenkyu: Mokuteki wo motte doryoku shita koto no nichibei hikaku (chuukan houkoku). [Goal structure and future time perspective in an essay task: A U.S.-Japan comparison of conscious goal-directed efforts (an interim report).] Hattatsu Kenkyuu  [Human Developmental Research], 13, 106-118.

My interdisciplinary research and teaching interests mean that I maintain a number of different professional affiliations, including:

• International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology
• Society for Research in Child Development
• Society for Personality and Social Psychology
• American Psychological Society
• American Psychological Association

Over the past year, students have contributed to my research in various ways:

One line of my research compares Americans, Japanese, and South Koreans with regard to their use of conceptual categories. I am especially interested in the role of language-use in categorization. Kenyon students in my lab recently have helped to transcribe and translate audiotapes of English and Japanese speech used during categorization tasks, and also have contributed to preliminary analyses of speech content.

Another line of my research compares how American and Japanese college students describe their future lives, and how their descriptions are perceived by other people. Recently, I have been investigating how their self-descriptions are viewed by professional psychotherapists. Culture Lab students recruited participants for this study by phone, carried out data collection by mail, and soon will help with data analysis and interpretation. The students also have been contributing to the conceptual development of future follow-up studies.

Recently, I also have launched a new line of research investigating how religious language contributes to the enculturation of Self across cultures. The first study in this vein was developed and conducted in collaboration with the students of my Cross-Cultural Research Methods course (PSYC 424), investigating the relationship between concept of God and sense of Self among college students. The second study, in collaboration with a Kenyon Summer Science Scholar student, investigates the relationship between religious ideology and how people treat the natural environment. Thus far, we have collected data at Catholic churches, Methodist churches, and Buddhist temples around Columbus. In addition, with the help of a Japanese exchange student, a third study investigating these questions with native Japanese-speakers also is underway.