Shweder,+et.+al+(WK8)

=__**An Anthropological Perspective by Richard A. Shweder**__= =__**Notes:**__=

__**Summary**__
This article is a historical account of the revival of cultural psychology. (P. 821) “Cultural psychology is a field of psychology which contains the idea that culture and mind are inseparable. Cultural psychology has its roots in the 1960s and 1970s but became more prominent in the 1980s and 1990s”

The [|cultural psychology] revival, according to Shweder, goes back to the 1960s. (p. 822). From a publication in //American Anthropologist// in 1964 of an article entitled: "Transcultural Studies in Cognition"

"Cultural psychology refers to the study of ethnic and cultural sources of diversity in emotional and somatic functioning, self-organization, moral evaluation, [|social cognition], and human development." "In other words, cultural psychology is the study of the specific conceptual content that renders meaning-full behavior (or actions) intelligible" (p.827)

__**Quotes/ Statements**__
“Cultural psychology is distinct from cross-cultural psychology in that cross-cultural psychologist generally use culture as a means of testing the university of psychological processes rather than determining how local cultural practices shape psychological processes” (p.821)

“Cultural psychology research informs several fields within psychology, including [|social psychology], [|developmental psychology], and[| cognitive psychology]” (p.822)

D'Andrade and Romney believed the differences between what anthropologists and psychologists think about culture are:
 * "Anthropologists...tend to study socially learned codes, rules, and meanings for the interpretation of a behavior; and for the anthropologist 'behavior' is treated as a symbol or message that requires interpretation of its meaning, often in relation to codes, rules and norms of some sort." (p. 823)
 * "Psychologists...tend to study individual processes such as categorization, inference, or memory and view socially learned codes, rules and meanings as mere content (or even as noise) that should be ignored or filtered out in any study of the basic elements of mental functioning." (p. 823) To me, this isn't necessarily psychology. I believe that all of the aspects listed that psychologist apparently ignore according to Shweder, would lessen the full picture of a persons psyche.
 * "Culture and psyche make each other up." (p. 823)

"research designed to discover the empirically uniform features of human mentalities is likely to bracket the existence of (and hence underestimate the behavioral significance of) the local, socially learned "codes" that define social life in human groups and dismiss them as mere content, thereby ignoring one of the great sources of mental differences between the members of different code-dependent groups (cultures)." (p. 823)

“Speaking as an Anthropologist, this emphasis on starting one’s research in cultural psychology with an immersion experience makes great sense and places some emphasis on field research, the observation of real world practices and behavior (including language use), and the investigation of the native’s point of view (content, meaning, and context). (pg 832) What Shweder is saying here is that the effects of culture are important and that it interweaves with psyche, and, for this reason, culture should not be ignored as a factor in psychology. He also stresses the importance of being interdisciplinary in or when discussing these fields.

"**The Culture Theory Project** was an attempt to draw out the implications of a symbols-and-meaning-centered or interpretive conception of culture for the study of mental functioning across groups, with special attention to certain key formulations, for example, the work of Geertz on local forms of mental functioning and culturally parochial ideas about the self." (p. 824)

"I realize of course, that it is hazardous to interpret the significance of this basic fact." (p. 829) then why do it, I can't help but find this both helpful and demeaning: helpful as it defines different types of psychology, demeaning as it puts that same psychology in boxes. not sure if that made any sense.

"The main (and perhaps obvious) point to be made here is that there are many different pictures of the world or cultural mentalities that might be brought to the table when 'playing an experimental game' (of course, that very way of describing the interaction or event is itself a discretionary and not mandatory way of understanding the stimulus situation), and 'thick description' is a way of rendering behavior intelligible in terms of local and socially shared meaning" (p. 833).

"thick description is a way of rendering behavior intelligible in terms of local and socially shared meanings" (p.833)

__**Vocabulary**__
Anthropology: **"**the science of human beings; //especially// **:** the study of human beings and their ancestors through time and space and in relation to physical character, environmental and social relations, and culture" (Merriam-Websters.com).

Social Psychology: "the study of the manner in which the personality, attitudes, motivations, and behavior of the individual influence and are influenced by social group" (Merriam-Websters.com).

Cultural Psychology: " is concerned with the relationship between culture and mind, i.e. with such questions as:- //how mind is shaped by culture, how culture is shaped by mind//. Mind and culture are viewed as fundamentally interdependent, and Cultural Psychology, therefore, is concerned with some of the very basic issues about human nature" ([|Cultural Psychology]).(You can also read: [|Wikipedia- Cultural Psychology] )

Developmental Psychology:" Branch of [|psychology] concerned with changes in cognitive, motivational, psychophysiological, and social functioning that occur throughout the human life span. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, developmental psychologists were concerned primarily with [|child psychology]. In the 1950s they became interested in the relationship between child rearing and adult personality, as well as in examining adolescence in its own right. By the late 20th century they had become interested in all aspects of [|psychological development] and change over the entire life span" (Merriam-Websters.com).

Cognitive Psychology: " a branch of psychology concerned with mental processes (as perception, thinking, learning, and memory) especially with respect to the internal events occurring between sensory stimulation and the overt expression of behavior—compare [|behaviorism] " ( Merriam-Websters.com).

Linguistics: " the study of human speech including the units, nature, structure, and modification of language" ( Merriam-Websters.com).

__**Questions/Comments**__
I like how in the conclusion Shweder takes a paragraph to appreciate how far social psychologists have come in the field; as far as recognizing the different cultural codes and how “culture and psyche make up each other” (p.833)

Did any one else have a hard time reading the charts? maybe I should have just printed them.