Cultural psychology studies how cultures reflect and shape the psychological processes of their members, on the premise that mind and culture are inseparable and mutually constituted: individuals are shaped by their culture, and culture is in turn shaped by the individuals within it. The field is centrally concerned with defining the nature and function of culture in relation to psychological phenomena. As the anthropologist Gerd Baumann put it, culture is not a real thing but an abstract analytical notion that does not itself cause behavior but abstracts from it, functioning as a heuristic for explaining how people understand and act on the world rather than as something normative or predictive. Richard Shweder, a major proponent of the field, has defined cultural psychology as the study of how cultural traditions and social practices regulate, express and transform the human psyche, producing not psychic unity for humankind but ethnic divergence in mind, self and emotion.
Facts
Disputed
Key DebateA central debate concerns W.E.I.R.D. sample bias: because most published psychological findings come from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic populations, critics argue that results treated as universal human psychology often reflect only one culturally specific pattern. 1 Central QuestionCultural psychology studies how cultural traditions and social practices regulate, express and transform the human psyche, treating mind and culture as inseparable rather than assuming psychological processes are the same everywhere. 1 Connections
Associated With
His cultural-historical theory of development is a foundational influence on cultural psychology.
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Cultural psychology
Wikimedia FoundationLead section, quoting Richard Shweder
Cultural psychology is the study of how cultural traditions and social practices regulate, express, and transform the human psyche. This results less in psychic unity for humankind than in ethnic divergences in mind, self, and emotion.
Importance, Need for expanded cultural research section
Findings from psychology research utilizing primarily W.E.I.R.D. populations are often labeled as universal theories and are inaccurately applied to other cultures.
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