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Cultural Psychology Chapter 37 Cultural Psychology S TEVEN J. H EINE We are members of a cultural species. That is, we depend the mind can be said to be mutually constituted (Shweder, critically on cultural learning in virtually all aspects of our 1990). An effort to understand either one without consider- lives. Whether we are trying to manage our resources, woo ing the other is bound to reveal an incomplete picture. a mate, protect our family, enhance our status, or form a Although psychologists have been studying culture at political alliance — goals that are pursued by people in all least since Wilhelm Wundt published his 10 - volume tome cultures — we do so in culturally grounded ways. That is, Elements of Folk Psychology in 1921, the study of cultural in all our actions we rely on ideas, values, feelings, strat- psychology has had its most impactful influence on main- egies, and goals that have been shaped by our cultural stream psychology over the past 20 years. Around 1990, experiences. Human activity is inextricably wrapped up in several seminal papers and books emerged that articulated cultural meanings; on no occasions do we cast aside our how cultural experiences were central to and inextrica- cultural dressings to reveal the naked universal human bly linked with psychological processing (Bruner, 1990; mind. To be sure, much regularity exists across humans Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Stigler, Shweder, & Herdt, from all cultures with respect to many psychological phe- 1990; Triandis, 1989). Since then, much empirical research nomena; at the same time, there remain many pronounced has demonstrated the cultural foundation of many psycho- differences (for a review, see Norenzayan & Heine, 2005). logical phenomena that had hitherto been viewed largely Yet the point is that all psychological phenomena, whether as invariant across the species. largely similar or different across cultures, remain entan- This chapter reviews various ways in which culture gled in cultural meanings. The challenge for comprehend- shapes people ’ s thoughts and behaviors. The term “ cul- ing the mind of a cultural species is that it requires a rich ture ” is used in two contexts. First, culture refers to any understanding of how the mind is constrained and afforded kind of information that is acquired from members of one ’ s by cultural learning. The field of cultural psychology has species through social learning that is capable of affect- emerged in response to this challenge. ing an individual ’ s behaviors (Richerson & Boyd, 2005). Cultural psychologists share the key assumption that Second, culture refers to groups of people who exist within not all psychological processes are so inflexibly hardwired a shared context, where they are exposed to similar institu- into the brain that they appear in identical ways across cul- tions, engage in similar practices, and communicate with tural contexts. Rather, psychological processes are seen one another regularly. This chapter explores how culture to arise from evolutionarily shaped biological potentials is uniquely implicated in human nature; how research- becoming attuned to the particular cultural meaning system ers can study cultural effects on psychology; how people within which the individual develops. At the same time, are enculturated as they develop; and how culture shapes cultures can be understood to emerge through the pro- people ’ s self - concepts, personalities, relationships, moti- cesses by which humans interact with and seize meanings vation, cognition and perception, language use, emotions, and resources from their cultures. In this way, culture and and moral reasoning. This chapter was funded by a grant from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (410 - 2008 - 0155). I am espe- cially grateful to the extremely helpful feedback that I received from Emma Buchtel, Adam Cohen, Carl Falk, Takeshi Hamamura, Sheena Iyengar, Will Maddux, Yuri Miyamoto, Beth Morling, Dick Nisbett, Ara Norenzayan, Shige Oishi, Jeffrey Sanchez - Burks, Rick Shweder, and Jeanne Tsai. 1423 CCH37.inddH37.indd 11423423 112/22/092/22/09 5:06:095:06:09 PPMM 1424 Cultural Psychology HUMANS AS A CULTURAL SPECIES nonhuman primates), and the values for other species of primates are considerably larger than those for other mam- Humans are unique in the extent of their dependence on mals (Aiello & Wheeler, 1995). The unusually large brains culture. In this section, human cultural learning is contras- of primates appear to be an adaptation to the complex ted with that of other species. Further, some implications social environments in which many species of primates live of the cultural nature of humans are discussed in terms of (Dunbar, 1993). In contrast to the social nature of many generalizing findings from particular cultural contexts to other primate species, humans appear to be “ ultrasocial ” the species at large. (Boyd & Richerson, 1996). This is evident in experiments One defining characteristic of humans is that they engage contrasting the cognitive capacities of human children with in cultural learning — that is, they acquire information from those of other great apes. Whereas chimpanzees, orang- conspecifics through social transmission (Richerson & utans, and 2.5 - year - old human children perform similarly Boyd, 2005). Engaging in cultural learning, by itself, is on various cognitive tasks, the children significantly out- not a uniquely human characteristic, as many diverse spe- perform both species of apes on social tasks involving cies show evidence for cultural learning; for example, rats communication, theory of mind, and in particular, social (Galef, 1988), pigeons (Lefebvre & Giraldeau, 1994), and learning (Hermann et al., 2007). guppies (Lachlan, Crooks, & Laland, 1998) engage in Hence, although many species have cultural learning, some kinds of learning from conspecifics. In some spe- no other species is able to learn as well from conspecifics cies, such as chimpanzees (Whiten et al., 1999) and orcas as do humans. With the possible exception of various spe- (Whitehead, 1998), the degree of cultural learning is quite cies of matrilineal whales (in which the extent of their cul- substantial. Humans are thus not unique in the animal king- tural learning is not yet well understood; Whitehead, 1998), dom for engaging in cultural learning, although they are humans are the only species with evidence for substantial unique in the fidelity of their cultural learning. No other cultural evolution (Boyd & Richerson, 1996; Tomasello, species have shown the capacity to learn from conspecifics 1999). Cultural learning in humans is of high enough fidel- as well as humans do (Hermann, Call, Hernandez - Lloreda, ity that cultural information tends to accumulate over time (a Hare, & Tomasello, 2007). process known as the ratchet effect; Tomasello et al., 1993), The high-fidelity cultural learning of humans is fos- whereby cultural ideas are learned by an individual, they tered by two unique human capabilities. First, humans are subsequently modified, and the modified ideas are have unrivalled linguistic abilities (e.g., Pinker, 1994), then learned by others, ad infinitum. This cultural evolu- which allow for precise communication and transmission tion tends to accelerate over time, as there are a growing of cultural ideas. Second, humans have a well - developed number of ideas that can be modified or connected, pro- theory of mind (e.g., Tomasello, 1999), which allows them vided there is open communication among individuals to consider the intentions of their compatriots and thus (Henrich, 2004; Nolan & Lenski, 2004). Consequently, engage in true imitative learning. In imitative learning the humans live in vastly more complex cultural worlds than learner internalizes the model ’ s goals and behavioral strat- any other species, and their experiences vary widely egies and works to reproduce them. Other species, such from culture to culture. as chimpanzees, can also engage in social learning from The point that humans are unique in having significant conspecifics. However, because chimpanzees are less able cultural evolution is important for understanding their psy- to attend to other ’ s perspectives or intentions, and in par- chology. Unlike other species, humans do not just inhabit ticular, have difficulties engaging in joint - shared attention, physical and social worlds; they also exist within cultural their learning is not fully imitative (Tomasello, Carpenter, worlds constructed on a foundation of cultural information Call, Behne, & Moll, 2005). Rather, the social learning of that has accumulated over time (Luria, 1928). For exam- chimpanzees is better characterized as emulative, in which ple, contemporary American undergraduates (the sample they attend to the affordances of the objects in the envi- on which most of the empirical database of social psychol- ronment (e.g., they learn that termites will stick to twigs ogy is based; Arnett, 2008) live in a world that includes inserted in termite mounds) but do not attend to the goals culturally evolved products such as technologies that they of the model, and this significantly limits the fidelity of use (e.g., cars, fast food, and printed paper), institutions the information that can be learned (Tomasello, Kruger, & in which they participate (e.g., democratic governments, Ratner, 1993). higher education, and medical care), and ideas that are Humans ’ sophisticated cultural learning skills are surely championed (e.g., being unique, justice and individual the
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