The Psychological Foundations of Culture

by Schaller, Mark; Crandall, Christian S.; Crandall, Christian S.; Greenberg, Jeff

• ISBN13: 9780805838398
• ISBN10: 0805838392
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-08-01
• Publisher: Lawrence Erlbau

Summary

How is it that cultures come into existence at all? How do cultures develop particular customs and characteristics rather than others? How do cultures persist and change over time? Most previous attempts to address these questions have been descriptive and historical. The purpose of this book is to provide answers that are explanatory, predictive, and relevant to the emergence and continuing evolution of cultures past, present, and future. Most other investigations into "cultural psychology" have focused on the impact that culture has on the psychology of the individual. The focus of this book is the reverse. The authors show how questions about the origins and evolution of culture can be fruitfully answered through rigorous and creative examination of fundamental characteristics of human cognition, motivation, and social interaction. They review recent theory and research that, in many different ways, points to the influence of basic psychological processes on the collective structures that define cultures. These processes operate in all sorts of different populations, ranging from very small interacting groups to grand-scale masses of people occupying the same demographic or geographic category. The cultural effects--often unintended--of individuals' thoughts and actions are demonstrated in a wide variety of customs, ritualized practices, and shared mythologies: for example, religious beliefs, moral standards, rules for the allocation of resources, norms for the acceptable expression of aggression, gender stereotypes, and scientific values. The Psychological Foundations of Culturereveals that the consequences of psychological processes resonate well beyond the disciplinary constraints of psychology. By taking a psychological approach to questions usually addressed by anthropologists, sociologists, and other social scientists, it suggests that psychological research into the foundations of culture is a useful--perhaps even necessary--complement to other forms of inquiry.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION	1	(12)
1. The Psychological Foundations of Culture: An Introduction	3	(10)
Mark Schaller, Lucian Gideon Conway, and Christian S. Crandall
PART I: HOW CULTURES EMERGE AT ALL	13	(110)
2. Human Awareness of Mortality and the Evolution of Culture	15	(26)
Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Jeff Schimel, Jamie Arndt, and Tom Pyszczynski
3. Cultural Elements Emerge From Dynamic Social Impact	41	(36)
Helen C. Harton and Martin J. Bourgeois
4. Language, Cognition, and Reality: Constructing Shared Meanings Through Communication	77	(24)
Ivy Y.-M. Lau, Sau-lai Lee, and Chi-yue Chiu
5. Motivated Closed Mindedness and the Emergence of Culture	101	(22)
Linda Richter and Arie W. Kruglanski
PART II: HOW SPECIFIC CULTURAL NORMS ARISE	123	(102)
6. Biological Foundations of Moral Norms	125	(24)
Dennis Krebs and Maria Janicki
7. Cognitive and Emotional Processes in the Cultural Transmission of Natural and Nonnatural Beliefs	149	(22)
Ara Norenzayan and Scott Atran
8. Self-Organizing Culture: How Norms Emerge in Small Groups	171	(30)
Holly Arrow and K.L. Burns
9. Scientists and Science: How Individual Goals Shape Collective Norms	201	(24)
Christian S. Crandall and Mark Schaller
PART III: HOW CULTURES PERSIST AND CHANGE OVER TIME	225	(108)
10. The Microgenesis of Culture: Serial Reproduction as an Experimental Simulation of Cultural Dynamics	227	(32)
Allison McIntyre, Anthony Lyons, Anna Clark, and Yoshihisa Kashima
11. Sustaining Cultural Beliefs in the Face of Their Violation: The Case of Gender Stereotypes	259	(22)
Deborah A. Prentice and Erica Carranza
12. When Believing Is Seeing: Sustaining Norms of Violence in Cultures of Honor	281	(24)
Joseph A. Vandello and Dov Cohen
13. Move the Body, Change the Self: Acculturative Effects of the Self-Concept	305	(28)
Steven J. Heine and Darrin R. Lehman
EPILOGUE	333	(28)
14. Toward a Conception of Culture Suitable for a Social Psychology of Culture	335	(26)
Glenn Adams and Hazel Rose Markus
Author Index	361	(16)
Subject Index	377