Psychology And Culture

Using an engaging storytelling approach, Culture and Psychology introduces students to culture from a scientific yet accessible point of view. Author Stephen Fox integrates art, literature, and music into each chapter to offer students a rich and complete picture of cultures from around the world. The text wholly captures students’ attention while addressing key concepts typically found in a Psychology of Culture or Cross-Cultural Psychology course. Chapters feature personalized, interdisciplinary stories to help students understand specific concepts and theories, and encourage them to make connections between the material and their own lives.

This thought-provoking treatise explores the essential functions that culture fulfills in human life in response to core psychological, physiological, and existential needs. It synthesizes diverse strands of empirical and theoretical knowledge to trace the development of culture as a source of morality, self-esteem, identity, and meaning as well as a driver of domination and upheaval. Extended examples from past and ongoing hostilities also spotlight the resilience of culture in the aftermath of disruption and trauma, and the possibility of reconciliation between conflicting cultures. The stimulating insights included here have far-reaching implications for psychology, education, intergroup relations, politics, and social policy. Included in the coverage: · Culture as shared meanings and interpretations. · Culture as an ontological prescription of how to “be” and “how to live.” · Cultural worldviews as immortality ideologies. · Culture and the need for a “world of meaning in which to act.” · Cultural trauma and indigenous people. · Constructing situations that optimize the potential for positive intercultural interaction. · Anxiety and the Human Condition. · Anxiety and Self Esteem. · Culture and Human Needs. A Psychology of Culture takes an uncommon tour of the human condition of interest to clinicians, educators, and practitioners, students of culture and its role and effects in human life, and students in nursing, medicine, anthropology, social work, family studies, sociology, counseling, and psychology. It is especially suitable as a graduate text.

A collection of readings relevant to the development of an intercultural psychology which takes into account the different circumstances, needs, values, constructions of reality, and worldviews and belief systems that significantly shape the experience and behavior of cultural groups. The 34 papers and introductory essay are arranged in four parts: the politics of difference; development, adaption, and the acquisition of culture; self and other in cultural context; and diagnostic assessment, treatment, and cultural bias. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

As the speed of globalization accelerates, world cultures are more closely connected to each other than ever before. But what exactly is culture? It seems to be involved in all psychological processes, but can its psychological consequences be studied scientifically? How can cultural differences be described without reifying culture and reinforcing cultural stereotypes? Culture and mind constitute each other, but how? Why do humans need culture? How did the evolution of the mind enable the development of human culture? How does participation in culture transform the mind, and how does the mind process and apply culture? How may culture become a resource for pursuing valued goals, and how does culture become part of the self? How do culture travelers navigate cultures and negotiate multiple cultural identities? The authors of this volume offer a refreshing theoretical perspective and organize seemingly disparate research evidence into a coherent body of psychological knowledge. With its accessible language and lively narrative, this volume engages its readers in an intellectual journey through the fascinating research literatures in psychology, anthropology, and the cognate disciplines. This book will make an ideal textbook for senior undergraduate and graduate courses on psychology and culture, cultural studies, cognitive anthropology, and intercultural communication.

The most contemporary and relevant introduction to the field, Cultural Psychology, Fourth Edition, is unmatched in both its presentation of current, global experimental research and its focus on helping students to think like cultural psychologists.

Introduction to Psychology and Culture: Why Culture Matters helps students increase their multicultural competence by understanding how culture influences thoughts and behaviors. The anthology mixes carefully curated readings with inspirational quotes, tables, embedded video links, and personal reflection opportunities to create a text that not only provides rich content, but allows students to consider how new knowledge relates to and matters to them. An introduction outlines main concepts and pertinent research, and each article has been chosen for the quality of the research behind it. Highlights from authors' writing on a specific topic have been compiled to demonstrate diverse perspectives. Personal experiences and vignettes have been included to exemplify and clarify specific concepts. Supplemental articles and documentaries allow readers to access additional information using QR codes and their smart devices. The second edition features a new, innovative chapter on the cultural influence of death and dying. Introduction to Psychology and Culture has been thoughtfully developed so the content is accessible and includes explanations and vocabulary presentation that supports English Language Learners. It is well suited to courses in cultural, cross-cultural, and multicultural psychology, as well as those in global awareness. Mia Palmer earned her bachelor's degree from Arizona State University and her M.S. in psychology, with an emphasis in chemical dependency and substance abuse at California Coast University. Professor Palmer is an instructor at Mesa Community College in Arizona, where she teaches courses in introductory psychology, psychology and culture, the psychology of death and dying, and developmental and research statistics. Additionally, Professor Palmer has taught psychology and culture in the college's study abroad program to England, France, and Scotland.

This book is a landmark in contemporary cultural psychology. Ernest Boesch’s synthesis of ideas is the first comprehensive theory of culture in psychology since Wilhelm Wundt’s Völkerpsychologie of the first decades of the twentieth century. Cultural psychology of today is an attempt to advance the program of research that was charted out by Wundt—yet at times we are carefully avoiding direct recognition of such continuity. While Wundt’s experimental psychology has been hailed as the root for contemporary scientific psychology, the other side of his contribution— ethnographic analysis of folk traditions and higher psychological functions— has been largely discredited as something disconnected from the scientific realm. As an example of “soft” science—lacking the “hardness” of experimentation—it has been considered to be an esoteric hobby of the founding father of contemporary psychology. Of course that focus is profoundly wrong—the opposition “soft” versus “hard” just does not fit as a metalevel organizer of any science. Yet the rhetoric discounting the descriptive side of Wundt’s psychology is merely an act of social guidance of what psychologists do—not a way of creating knowledge.

Cross-Cultural Psychology: Why Culture Matters addresses both established and very recent research in cultural and comparative cross-cultural psychology. The book is written by Professor Krum Krumov of Sofia University in Bulgaria and Professor Knud S. Larsen from Oregon State University. The authors are long-term colleagues with extensive research experience in cultural, cross-cultural and international settings. The book starts with a discussion of the tentative nature of cultural information given the forces of globalization and communication integration. Weighing these issues still permits for some powerful conclusions about differences that matter as well as human universals based on our communalities. The reader is also provided with a through grounding in relevant research approaches and critical thinking that provides the basis for an evaluation of the research literature. Further, the book reports on what we know about the origin of culture, especially the forces of cultural transmission and the evidence for socio-cultural evolution. The impact of culture and psychology on human development is contrasted and evaluated. A chapter on language stresses the importance of evolutionary forces and the relationship to socio-culture. In turn that discussion sets the stage for reporting the relevant research on cognition that yields information on the impact of genetics, but also the affect of cultural evolution. A distinct contribution is the evaluation of human happiness and emotions. The book demonstrates tangible relationships to both the universal expressions of emotions, but also the impact of cultural values on well-being. A consideration of personality theory follows in the systematic and progressive discourse in the book. Research is reported on Western, Eastern and Indigenous conceptualizations and research approaches. The discussion on the self is considered next and the authors evaluate cultural, social and comparative cross-cultural dimensions. Finally, a discussion of sex and gender follows as associated with salient cross-cultural dimensions. The book concludes with a discussion of the affect of cultural values in organizational behavior and a consideration of the relationship between culture and human health.