ELF – Engelsk läsförståelse (HPHOST2025P5)

In the following text there are gaps which indicate that something has been left out. Look at the four alternatives that correspond to each gap and decide which one best fits the gap. Then mark your choice on your answer sheet.

Student Earnings

One in five students would be financially better off if they skipped higher education, according to groundbreaking research that compares the lifetime earnings of graduates and non-graduates.

Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) found that __1__  about 80% of former students gained financially from attending university, 20% earned less than those with similar school results who did not attend, highlighting how some subjects, such as creative arts, offer negative financial returns. The IFS research – which uses tax data to measure the earnings of those who went to university from the mid-90s onwards – also found that after accounting for taxes and student loans, men gained on average £130,000 and women £100,000 over their careers, compared with their __2__ who didn’t enter higher education.

As well as the total “graduate premium” being different between the sexes, it is also unevenly distributed over time, with women reaching a glass ceiling on earnings growth in their 30s and 40s, even among Oxbridge graduates. The premium also differed  __3__ the subject studied.

Michelle Donelan, the universities minister, said that while the benefits of higher education included “unquantifiable experiences and friendships,” she was still concerned about value for money. “It is no surprise our universities attract students from all over the world. That __4__ is built on quality and my role is to safeguard that, while ensuring students and the taxpayer are getting the value they would expect for their investment,” Donelan said.

However, Joe Grady, the general secretary of the University and College Union, said: “It is vital to recognise that education is about much more than just financial benefit. Focusing on future income following university __5__ the wider benefits that education brings to individuals and to society.”

Richard Adams, The Guardian

The gap corresponding to one of the following four alternatives is marked 2.

The gap corresponding to one of the following four alternatives is marked 3.

The gap corresponding to one of the following four alternatives is marked 4.

The gap corresponding to one of the following four alternatives is marked 5.

Cross-Cultural Psychology

The academic discipline of psychology was developed largely in North America and Europe. Some would argue that it has been remarkably successful in understanding what drives human behavior and mental processes, which have long been thought to be universal. But in recent decades some researchers have started questioning this approach, arguing that many psychological phenomena are shaped by the individual cultures in which we live.

Experimental psychologists typically study behavior in a small group of people, with the assumption that any findings can be generalized to the wider human population. However, for decades, psychologists have disproportionately relied on undergraduate students to serve as subjects for their studies, simply because they are readily available to researchers at universities. More dramatically still, a 2010 study by evolutionary psychologist Joseph Henrich and his colleagues found that more than 90 percent of participants in psychological studies come from a very particular portion of the human population: the inhabitants of countries that are WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic). Clearly, the people who live in these countries are not a random sample.

Here’s a thought experiment that suggests the extent to which our mental processes are shaped by the society in which we grow up: When asked to consider which two of the following objects go together – a panda, a monkey, and a banana – respondents from Western cultures routinely select the monkey and the panda, because both are animals. This is indicative of an analytic thinking style, in which objects are perceived, for the most part, independent of their context.

In contrast, participants from Asian countries will often select the monkey and the banana, because they belong in the same environment and share a relationship (monkeys eat bananas). This is a holistic thinking style, in which object and context are perceived to be interrelated.

In a classic demonstration of cultural differences in thinking styles, Takahiko Masuda and Richard E. Nisbett presented participants from Japan and the United States with a series of animated scenes. Each lasting about 20 seconds, the scenes showed various aquatic creatures, vegetation, and rocks in an underwater setting. In a subsequent recall task, both groups of participants were equally likely to remember salient objects, such as the larger fish. But the Japanese participants were better than the American participants at recalling background information, such as the color of the water. Thus, the holistic mode of thinking tends to focus on background and context just as much as foreground. This principle accounts, too, for Masuda and Nisbett’s observation that in a follow-up experiment, the Japanese participants “recognized previously seen objects more accurately when they saw them in their original settings rather than in novel settings, whereas this manipulation had relatively little effect on Americans.”

Numerous studies have shown that cultural differences in thinking styles are pervasive in cognition and that they affect memory, attention, perception, reasoning, and even how we talk and think. For example, if you were asked to describe yourself, what would you say? Would you list your personal characteristics, such as being intelligent or funny, or would you use preferences, such as “I love pizza”? Or perhaps you would instead mention social relationships, such as “I am a parent”? Social psychologists have long maintained that people are much more likely to describe themselves and others in terms of stable personal characteristics than they are to describe themselves in terms of their preferences or relationships.

However, in a landmark 1991 paper, social psychologists Hazel R. Markus and Shinobu Kitayama put forward the idea that self-construal is culturally variant. They noted that individuals in some cultures understand the self as independent, a view more prevalent in Europe and North America, whereas those in other cultures perceive it as interdependent, a view more prevalent in Asia, Latin America, and Africa.

Another domain that was originally dominated by studies of WEIRD samples is mental health. However, culture can affect our understanding of mental health in different ways. Because of the existence of cultural differences in behavior, the conceptual framework – based on detecting deviant or nonnormative behaviors – isn’t complete. What may be seen as normal in one culture (for example modesty) could be seen as deviating from the norm in another, and might be treated as a disorder or a social phobia.

Clearly, culture has a massive effect on how we view ourselves and how we are perceived by others. Only by knowing about these effects will we ever be able to identify the core foundations of the human mind that we all share.

Nicolas Geeraert, American Scientist

What is stated in the first paragraph?

What is implied about the field of experimental psychology?

What is said in relation to memory effects associated with the two thinking styles in Masuda and Nisbett’s study?

Which of the following statements represents what social psychologists have often considered the conventional way to describe oneself?

 What is the main point in the discussion of ‘deviant behavior’?