Psychological science in cultural context.

Abstract

For the psychological sciences cultural processes have traditionally served as but a single entry into a considerable list of phenomena under study. Until recent years, such study has not been richly realized. There are many reasons for the secondary role of a culturally focused psychology. Most prominently, there are two chief ways in which culture figures in the logic of psychological science, and neither of these favors a major professional investment. If one views cultures in terms of a field of differences, then culture largely serves the same scientific role as the study of personality, that is, as a moderator or qualifier for theoretical propositions of a more general scope. Thus, the vigorous scientist will propose a general theory (potentially true for all human organisms) of learning, motivation, memory, perception or the like, in which case cultural variations serve only to qualify the character of the process in varying contexts. Typically, because of the greater scientific stakes in documenting the general as opposed to the particular, cultural variations are either de-emphasized or simply bracketed for later study. In the second mode of study, culture furnishes the proving ground for the universality of the general theory. Thus, for example, a host of investigators has sought to demonstrate the universality of emotional categories. On this model, culture itself is of secondary interest; cultural distinctiveness is but an impediment to achieving the broader goal of research. Although a sturdy and expanding band of psychologists have nevertheless generated volumes of research on cultural universals and variations (see for