Bridging the Vocabularies of Dual-Process Models of Culture and Cognition

Abstract

Abstract Much research has demonstrated that human behavior can never be fully accounted for by deliberate rationality, as much of what happens in the human mind occurs outside of our awareness and beyond conscious control. Contemporary dual-process theories attempt to detail this duality of the human mind by distinguishing between two fundamentally different types of cognitive processes: on the one hand the nonconscious, automatic, and intuitive; and the conscious, deliberate, and rational on the other. These models also attempt to describe how the two types of processes interact with each other, and how various contextual factors influence their relationship. Dual-process models of cognition have proven useful in many fields of study, yet sociological use of these models to understand the micromechanisms of culture have been largely limited until very recently. This chapter aims to provide insight into dual-process models of cognition and their close resemblance with many core cultural theories, which already employ dual-process reasoning without recognizing or integrating their insights with each other or those of the cognitive sciences. It is argued that by developing a more integrated and interdisciplinarily accessible vocabulary, we can readily integrate and make better use of insights from dual-process models of cognition. Finally, important implications for our understanding of culture and for future research are discussed.