Bridging sociology with anthropology and cognitive science perspectives to assess shared cultural knowledge

Abstract

Following the cognitive revolution of the 1960s, cultural variation in behavior and knowledge has been a long-standing subject in social sciences. The “cognitive turn” in sociology brought to light many interesting issues and complex questions. The present publication addresses both theoretical and — to some extent — methodological challenges faced by the sociologists engaged in researching shared cultural variation within the culture-and-cognition research agenda, and compares it with the status quo in cousin social sciences that share the same cognitive perspective on culture. I specifically focus on the conceptual junctures that follow from the assumptions of shared cultural knowledge and intersubjectively shared cultural worldviews to highlight the important features of culture which can be effectively used for quantitative assessment of complex cultural processes. While I discuss various aspects of the findings and failings attributable to the culture-and-cognition research direction, my principal concern centers on encouraging more enhanced and sensitized interdisciplinary communication, as well as maximized intersections between cognitively oriented studies of culture in different social sciences, to bring the sociological studies of culture and cognition to full fruition.