July
22
Exploring links between neurology and human consciousness via art, culture, technology, music, design, and sciencehttp://sciencefactionnyc.blogspot.com/
January
07
A Social Psychology of Cultural Dynamics: Examining How Cultures Are Formed, Maintained, and Transformed
Source: Social and Personality Psychology Compass
Social psychological research on culture has mainly focused on differences in psychological processes between cultural groups. However, in the globalizing world today, a complementary approach to culture, a social psychology of cultural dynamics, is emerging as a critical research program. Adopting a neo-diffusionist meta-theory of culture, it regards culture as emerging from the processes of cultural transmission in situated social activities, and examines the dynamics involved in the formation, maintenance, and transformation of culture over time. The paper reviews recent research on culture in this perspective and makes suggestions about future directions.
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November
08
Climates Create Cultures
Source: Social and Personality Psychology Compass
The circumstances in which societies adapt their cultural values and practices to cold, temperate, and hot climates include the availability of money to cope with climate. Country-level studies have shown that feeling good, doing good, altruistic volunteering, intrinsic work motivation, cooperative enculturation, and democratic leadership are least prevalent in poorer countries with more demanding climates, moderately prevalent in poor and rich countries with temperate climates, and most prevalent in richer countries with more demanding climates. The common denominator is that inhabitants of lower-income countries in more demanding climates emphasize survival values at the expense of self-expression values, whereas the inhabitants of higher-income countries in more demanding climates emphasize self-expression values at the expense of survival values. These findings have practical implications for the cultural consequences of global warming and economic growth, and for the effectiveness of financing for human development.
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November
08
Social Psychology and Multiculturalism
Source: Social and Personality Psychology Compass
Questions of multiculturalism give rise to lively and important debates in many countries and in many spheres of life. Diversity is considered desirable and necessary for the development of secure ethnic identities and positive intergroup relations, but is also challenged for being inequitable and a threat to social cohesion. After considering conceptions of multiculturalism and relevant country differences, the paper discusses social psychological research on multicultural attitudes and the effect of multiculturalism on intergroup relations. Subsequently, three issues are addressed that are central in debates about multiculturalism and that present additional topics for social psychological research. The first concerns the importance of intragroup processes, the second the nature of religious identity and Islam in particular, and the third issue relates to tolerance and civil liberties.
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August
15
Culture & the mind is a five-year interdisciplinary research
project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). The
project seeks to "investigate the philosophical consequences of the
impact of culture on the mind and the cognitive and evolutionary
foundations of culture." The project has three main areas of
investigation, each of which have short summaries on the website: 'Folk
Psychology & Folk Epistemics'; 'Norms & Moral Psychology'; and
'Artefacts & Material Culture'. The website has profiles of the
Project Director and members of the Organising Committee, and
hyperlinks to their external websites. The project will run until 2009,
and there are plans to place publications online on the website in
future.
http://www.philosophy.dept.shef.ac.uk/culture&mind/
From Intute.ac.uk