Cultural Models

A multidisciplinary collaboration exploring the role of cultural knowledge in everyday language and understanding.

Why do people do what they do? The authors attempt to show how shared cultural knowledge comes to motivate, or fail to motivate, individuals.

This book is about cultural models. Cultural models are defined as molar organizations of knowledge. Their internal structure consists of a 'core' component and 'peripheral' nodes that are filled by default values. These values are instantiated, i.e., changed to specific values or left at their default values, when the individual experiences 'events' of any type. Thus, the possibility arises for recognizing and categorizing events as representative of the same cultural model even if they slightly differ in each of their specific occurrences. Cultural models play an important role in the generation of one's behavior. They correlate well with those of others and the behaviors they help shape are usually interpreted by others as intended. A proposal is then advanced to consider cultural models as fundamental units of analysis for an approach to culture that goes beyond the dichotomy between the individual (culture only in mind) and the collective (culture only in the social realm). The genesis of the concept of cultural model is traced from Kant to contemporary scholars. The concept underwent a number of transformations (including label) while it crossed and received further and unique elaborations within disciplines like philosophy, psychology, anthropology, sociology, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science. A methodological trajectory is outlined that blends qualitative and quantitative techniques that cross-feed each other in the gargantuan effort to discover cultural models. A survey follows of the extensive research about cultural models carried out with populations of North Americans, Europeans, Latino- and Native-Americans, Asians (including South Asians and South-East Asians), Pacific Islanders, and Africans. The results of the survey generated the opportunity to propose an empirically motivated typology of cultural models rooted in the primary difference between foundational and molar types. The book closes with a suggestion of a number of avenues that the authors recognize the research on cultural models could be traversing in the near future.

This volume explores the Cultural Models of Nature found in a range of food-producing communities located in climate-change affected areas.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling and Prediction, held in College Park, MD, USA, March 29-31, 2011. The 48 papers and 3 keynotes presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 88 submissions. The papers cover a wide range of topics including social network analysis; modeling; machine learning and data mining; social behaviors; public health; cultural aspects; and effects and search.

This book provides a multidisciplinary overview of cultural models of emotions, with particular focus on how cultural parameters of societies affect the emotional life of people in different cultural contexts. Going beyond traditional dichotomy of West-East comparison and related parameters of culture, such as individualism-collectivism and power distance, it also examines many other cultural dimensions that have received less attention in mainstream research. Among the topics covered: Basic emotional processes in cultural contexts Cultural complexity of emotions Survival and self-expression cultural values Facial expressiveness of emotion across cultures Cultural Models of Emotion is a comprehensive review of international perspectives on cross-cultural exploration of emotions, and will be a useful resource for researchers in anthropology, sociology, psychology, and communication studies.

"In addition to providing an extensive analysis of strategies for changing performance and the factors that can impact coaching effectiveness, this book offers what may be a unique value: instead of promoting one approach as the best, Dr. Lennard guides readers through a highly customized process of developing our own individualized coaching model. As a result of the book's thought-provoking activities, I strengthened my own sense of personal authenticity and saw new ways to coach and collaborate fully with employees who may have very different perspectives." — Tita Theodora Beal, Learning & Development, Pfizer, Inc. "This is a wise book. The essential take-away is simple and profound. Develop, refine, and apply your own (as in ownership) personalized coaching model. Much is provided; nothing is imposed. Readers are invited to reflect on unique and defining experiences, strengths, values, perspectives and style and to begin creating their own ‘work in progress.’ Coaching Models will be a compelling read for experienced coaches and new coach practitioners alike." — Bethene LeMahieu, Ed.D.; Professional Coach and Conversation Conservationist Coaching Models: A Cultural Perspective encourages and assists students and practitioners of business coaching to develop and apply their own coaching models. The entire field of coaching will benefit from having coaches who use their models to continually improve their practice. The first part of this book presents the model development process by looking at the relationship among culture, beliefs, and behavior in the coaching context. It explains the importance of identifying cultural factors that influence the way coaches approach coaching interactions, and their coaching models. The second section provides coaches with information and strategies for developing personalized coaching models, applying them to specific contexts, and reflecting on their interactions to refine their core coaching practices. The third part describes the evolution of the author’s own coaching model—the Performance Coaching Model—and illustrates how one coach incorporates unique perspectives and sets of skills, knowledge, and experience in her coaching practice.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling and Prediction, held in College Park, MD, USA, in April 2012. The 43 revised papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 76 submissions. The papers cover a wide range of topics including economics, public health, and terrorist activities, as well as utilize a broad variety of methodologies, e.g., machine learning, cultural modeling and cognitive modeling.