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In this paper, I examine what it means for culture, in both its personal and public forms, to be implicit. I begin by considering a recent attempt to develop a descriptive taxonomy of other people's views of practices developed by Stephen Turner. A key result is that a specific combination of claims about the properties of practices yields an ontologically problematic category, which is a candidate for elimination. Following Turner's lead, I provide my own refurbished taxonomy of practical culture that does not contain ontologically problematic members. Another key result of the initial analysis is that implicitness is a relational property presupposing at least one agent with awareness (or unawareness) of the cultural element in question. This epistemic dependence implies that only personal culture internalized by people can be coherently thought of as 'implicit' (to them). Finally, I conclude that using mentalistic versions of implicitness to characterize public culture, such as texts, language, monuments, tools, and classifications on paper, yields the same ontologically incoherent category eliminated in the first step. Following from this, I argue that it is desirable to conceptualize 'implicit' in a way that makes sense for public culture without stirring up the ghosts of collective minds and related conundrums. I propose one such (weak) version of implicitness when speaking of public culture that does not run afoul of this issue. I then return to personal culture, considering whether 'implicitness' is a unitary property of this kind, answering in the negative. This conclusion requires us to develop a principled taxonomy of the distinct ways personal culture can be ‘implicit,’ yielding personal culture that is implicit because it acquired 'automatic' status, versus personal culture that is implicit because it lacks (access) consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper brings the thought of philosopher and world‐class chemist Michael Polanyi to bear on psychologists' study of honor cultures. After reviewing some fundamentals of Polanyi's outlook on science and persons, the paper develops a heuristic involving two dimensions to the process of knowing others—one that is integrative, another that is affective—in which seeing with honor cultures only characterizes one side of the intersection between these dimensions. This leads on to consideration of the Honor Ideology for Manhood scale (Barnes, Brown, & Osterman, 2012), an operationalization of honor in the southern U.S. that misses understanding because of impairments it naturally suffers as an instrument of detachment. The possibility follows that understanding as seeing with another culture most readily succeeds when that culture's way of life is personally indwelt so that the psychologist directly encounters what its members can speak of and only convey by showing. The distinction Polanyi makes between explicit and tacit knowledge informs this proposal, and his vision of apprenticing—such as occurs between masters and pupils in the training of a science or an art—is presented as an exemplary form of such encounters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As field change is often explained by recourse to agentic efforts of a few or revolutionary turbulence of many, this paper provides a complementary explanation of change grounded in the quotidian dynamics of physical objects and settings. Using the culinary and mountaineering fields, we demonstrate how attending to the materiality of objects and settings offers analytical leverage into the ways fields conflict and change. More specifically, we argue field instability is normal because, at the level of social action, mass and energy are inherently finite. As a result, actors responding to effects from distal fields may nevertheless collide over the objects and settings in which they are compelled to act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to introduce the mimetic theory of René Girard to explore the connection between culture and religious violence to deal with some critical problems in international affairs. It challenges the narrow conceptualization of the issue of religion and violence as an issue of religious violence. As often as the issue of religion and violence is structured in such a manner, allegedly to pick religion seriously without considering politics or culture seriously. The conception is limited because, as an idea, religion is always contested, negotiated, and developed socially, culturally, or politically. It is a biased interpretation of a world actuality, which under certain conditions grounds violence. Furthermore, this narrow definition of religion suits what critical scholars describe as a problem‐solving strategy to theory. This study demonstrates mimetic theory challenges and reconfigures the conventional interpretation of the issue of religious violence and critically analyse the causes of the hidden, exposed violence as well as the scapegoat mechanism that functions in both domestic cultures as well as in international affairs, maintaining political and cultural order of any society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Affect Theory of Social Exchange (ATSE) research program has produced cumulative insights on how instrumental exchanges lead to the development of affectual attachments. With its focus on task responsibilities, ATSE leaves space to interrogate how factors not related to task execution are at play in the production of interpersonal bonds. In this paper, we integrate insights from social psychology, cultural sociology and organizational research to develop a theoretical framework suggesting (a) why and how cultural tastes contribute to social cohesion and (b) the conditions under which cultural tastes remain a source of strategic advantage or, worse, symbolic exclusion. Our theory rests on the basic proposition that shared cultural tastes increase the likelihood of experiencing positive emotions, which in turn are key in the development and maintenance of affectual attachments. Variations to this proposition are subsequently introduced, considering culture in declarative and nondeclarative forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The visualization of social theory is an important part of the development and communication of our theoretical ideas. While most theorists use figures of some kind, few if any have formal training, or guiding rules or principles for the representation of theory. This has often led to poor visualization efforts, and the visual culture of sociology continues to lag behind the natural sciences. The intent of this paper is to serve as a practical and empirically aided guide for social theorists, by providing insights surrounding the cognitive and perceptual properties of certain elements and figures. Through these properties we identify four major problems in theory visualization: vagueness, reduction, unwanted spatial inferences and unwanted metaphorical inferences. We offer solutions to these problems, and to improving theory visualization more generally. Our hope is that this paper will serve as a resource for more thoughtful and informed visualization for practicing social theorists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses cultural psychology and psychological training in football (soccer). Self‐Determination Theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 1980) has shown to be pragmatically successful in sport and suggests that being regulated by autonomous forms of motivation leads to better psychological outcomes. Cultural psychologists would be tempted to dismiss SDT because it is predicated on an a‐cultural approach to mind. It is possible to nurture a stronger and more effective team culture by reframing SDT in a cultural direction. As such, this paper outlines a cultural approach that reconceptualizes SDT in a way that retains the latter's pragmatic value while not approaching mind in a self‐contained individualist manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family obligation, which has an exceptionally high salience in traditional Chinese society, continues to be significant in contemporary China. In family relations in particular sentiments and practices morphologically similar to those associated with xiao (filial piety) remains intact in so far as an enduring set of expectations concerning age-based obligation continues to structure behavior toward others. Researchers pursuing the theme of 'individualization' in Chinese society, on the other hand, argue that family obligations and filial sentiments have substantially weakened. The present paper will show that under conditions of cultural and social change in China filial behavior through family obligation continues to play an important role even though the conventions associated with the relevant expectations, attitudes and emotions have undergone significant change. The paper argues that the culture-system develops not merely through an internal dynamic and that family obligation must be understood in terms of the social and material context in which it operates and the nature of the motivations and imagery of the people that practice it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dualism of emic and etic plays a crucial role in the emergence of three culturally informed approaches of psychology: cross-cultural psychology ( CCP), cultural psychology ( CP) and indigenous psychologies ( IPs), a distinction largely accepted nowadays. Similarities and/or differences between these positions are usually discussed either on the level of phenomena (data) or theory. In this paper, however, the discussion takes place on a meta-theoretical or epistemological level, which is also emerging elsewhere. In following several earlier papers of the author, first, four perspectives are distinguished that underlie present day psychology. Second, these are used as a framework for linking them to the three 'camps'. This analysis will show that these perspectives are characterized by different underlying worldviews, interests as well as methodical preferences. Third, it is claimed that this level of discussion is quite fruitful for the ongoing discourse on the three camps, but also helps one to understand, why the duality between emic and etic approaches is-implicitly or explicitly-at the core of these discussions, because their relevance turns out to differ in the three camps. In that sense, the emic/etic duality is used here as a 'litmus test' to exemplify these deeper differences between the camps, thereby highlighting them. Fourth, in order to overcome not only the dilemma between the unique and general in psychology, but also to clarify the relation between the individual and culture it is proposed that psychology should take human action as its unit of analysis, thereby connecting historically to the early beginnings of psychology at the end of the 19th century. It will be argued that a culture inclusive action theory may overcome this tension and may help to integrate western and other indigenous psychologies, and hence it could be advantageous to integrate CP and IPs as well. This is possible because the proposed theory hopefully provides a universal framework for psychological concepts, yet allows for their culture specific expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The morphogenetic approach as powered by analytical dualism offers an appealing account of the processes whereby people – through their reflexivities – reflect back on structures and cultures during the double and triple morphogenesis of agency. However, in order to further specify an account of social change, this paper argues that it would be helpful to provide an account of what occurs in the other direction as well: from the direction of structures and cultures, between each other and towards people, also at the points of double and triple morphogenesis of agency. This article is therefore a theoretical piece that proposes a reading of the morphogenetic model imbued with an enlightened understanding of immanent causality, driven by the Spinozian doctrine of parallelism and operationalized by his understanding of the two expressive roles of ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to contribute to the sociology of nations, a literature that is only starting to carve out its place in the social sciences. The paper offers a reconceptualization of 'nations' as 'national cultures', employing an evolutionary perspective and a systemic framework in which 'nations' are understood as cultural systems of a special kind. National cultures are intimately tied to natural languages, and the acquisition of a national culture occurs as part and parcel of the acquisition of a natural language. Acquiring a natural language is a prerequisite for learning other cultural systems (artefactual languages as well as other natural languages). National cultures function as metacultures. They are also the reference cultures for modern states and their citizens, a political dimension of nations that is of paramount importance, though it will only be touched on in this paper. National cultures should be considered as the most fundamental type of cultural system today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What role does 'discursive consciousness' play in decision-making? How does it interact with 'practical consciousness?' These two questions constitute two important gaps in strong practice theory that extend from Pierre Bourdieu's habitus to Stephen Vaisey's sociological dual-process model and beyond. The goal of this paper is to provide an empirical framework that expands the sociological dual-process model in order to fill these gaps using models from cognitive neuroscience. In particular, I use models of memory and moral judgment that highlight the importance of executive functions and semantic memory. I outline each model as it pertains to the aforementioned gaps in strong practice theory. I then use the models from cognitive neuroscience to create an expanded dual-process model that addresses how and when conscious mental systems override and interact with subconscious mental systems in the use of cultural ends for decision-making. Finally, using this expanded model I address the sociological debate over the use of interview and survey data. My analysis reveals that surveys and interviews both elicit information encoded in declarative memory and differ primarily in the process of information retrieval that is required of respondents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accepting Cole's the premise that, 'cultural-inclusive psychology has been ... an elusive goal' (1996, pp. 7-8) but one worth striving to attain, I first set out to identify my domain of interest and competence as an intellectual. Deciding it to be social interaction between individuals, I then searched out theoretical approaches to this domain that encompassed as many approaches to this trans-historical concern that have emerged from cultural traditions bequeathing us their legacies. Doing this search comprehensively required me to move outside my Judeo- Christian, Greco- Roman, Renaissance heritage and its international diffusion via the European Empires since the 1500's, embodied most recently the American dominance of intellectual discourse since the Second World War. In my case, this journey has taken me in to Chinese culture and psychology where I have worked towards integrating the Chinese worldview and its psychological measures into the discipline of social psychology. Striving for a more inclusive culture-view, I am now using multi-cultural data bases to transcend this two-cultural focus and incorporate wider measures of cultural variation into our theorizing and empirical validation of universal models for social interaction. This paper describes my current procedures for such culture-mapping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Life story methods in Europe commonly belong to the field of biographical sociology. This paper points out that biographical sociology is missing from American sociology and describes in-depth two well-known methods in this field in Europe, the narrative interview and objective hermeneutics. The absence of biographical sociology from U.S. sociology should be remedied, it is argued, for the following reasons: First, an analysis of biographical patterns could counteract the heavy emphasis on social structure in American sociology and enrich certain subfields within it. For example, some of the concepts used in European biographical sociology, such as the concept of the 'trajectory' can be related to conceptions of agency set forth by American and British sociologists and thus enrich sociology overall. Second, biographical sociology can help counteract the heavy orientation towards quantitative research in American sociology without falling into the pitfalls of purely interpretive methodologies. And third, biographical sociology can significantly enrich the still missing link between culture and cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses some widespread but often not fully articulated views concerning the possible roles of biology and evolution in the social sciences. Such views cluster around a set of intuitions that suggest that evolution's role is 'ballistic': it constitutes a starting point for mind that has been, and is, superseded by the role of culture and social construction. An implication is that evolved and the socially constructed aspects of mind are separable and independent, with the latter being the primary driver of mind. I outline four variants of the ballistic view. I then show how current findings and arguments in evolutionary thinking as related to mind contradict those ballistic views. The contrary view-that evolutionary and social factors are interdependent in the generation of social psychological capacities-is proposed as a consequence. This view is able to respect some insights of theories that make ballistic assumptions, whilst avoiding those assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociological propositions about the workings of cognition are rarely specified or tested, but are of central relevance to studies of culture, social judgment, and social movements. This paper draws out lessons of recent work from sociological theory, cognitive science, psychology, and neuroscience on the embodied nature of knowledge and thought, and develops implications of these lessons for cultural and cognitive sociology. Knowledge ought to be conceived of as fundamentally embodied, because sensory information is a fundamental component of experience as it is stored in long-term memory, and because bodily responses and intuitions often precede reflexive or strategic thought. I argue that the challenge of embodied knowledge for cultural sociology is threefold: to develop cultural theories of motivation; to specify the ways in which the body structures discourses endogenously; and to specify how embodied motivations and embodied discourses interact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural relativism is supposed to be a bold and provocative thesis. In this paper we challenge the idea that it is an empirical thesis, i.e., one that is supported through anthropological and historical examples. We focus on mathematical relativism, the view that a mathematics from another culture or time might be so radically divergent from our mathematics that "theirs" would stand in direct conflict with "ours" (and in that sense constitute an alternative mathematics). We question in what sense the examples given to support the general thesis are relativistic about mathematics and argue that on close inspection they are not, and certainly not in any radical sense. We do not contest the fact that there can be great mathematical diversity between cultures, but wonder whether it makes sense to talk of "the same" mathematical forms in heterogeneous mathematical environments. Finally, while relativists see the later Wittgenstein as providing support for their own thesis, we claim that Wittgenstein argues against both realism and relativism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to balance the conceptual reception of Bourdieu's sociology in the United States through a conceptual re-examination of the concept of Habitus. I retrace the intellectual lineage of the Habitus idea, showing it to have roots in Claude Levi-Strauss structural anthropology and in the developmental psychology of Jean Piaget, especially the latter's generalization of the idea of operations from mathematics to the study of practical, bodily-mediated cognition. One important payoff of this exercise is that the common misinterpretation of the Habitus as an objectivist and reductionist element in Bourdieu's thought is dispelled. The Habitus is shown to be instead a useful and flexible way to concep-tualize agency and the ability to transform social structure. Thus ultimately one of Bourdieu's major contributions to social theory consists of his development of a new radical form of cognitive sociology, along with an innovative variety of multilevel sociological explanation in which the interplay of different structural orders is highlighted. In keeping with the usual view, the goal of sociology is to uncover the most deeply buried structures of the different social worlds that make up the social universe, as well as the "mechanisms" that tend to ensure their reproduction or transformation. Merging with psychology, though with a kind of psychology undoubtedly quite different from the most widely accepted image of this science, such an exploration of the cognitive structures that agents bring to bear in their practical knowledge of the social worlds thus structured. Indeed there exists a correspondence between social structures and mental structures, between the objective divisions of the social world . . . and the principles of vision and division that agents apply to them (Bourdieu, 1996b[1989], p. 1). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive sociology has been split into cultural and interdisciplinary traditions that position themselves differently in relation to the cognitive sciences and make incompatible assumptions about cognition. This article provides an analysis and assessment of the cognitive and methodological assumptions of these two traditions from the perspective of the mechanistic theory of explanation. We argue that while the cultural tradition of cognitive sociology has provided important descriptions about how human cognition varies across cultural groups and historical periods, it has not opened up the black box of cognitive mechanisms that produce and sustain this variation. This means that its explanations for the described phenomena have remained weak. By contrast, the interdisciplinary tradition of cognitive sociology has sought to integrate cognitive scientific concepts and methods into explanatory research on how culture influences action and how culture is stored in memory. Although we grant that interdisciplinary cognitive sociologists have brought many fresh ideas, concepts and methods to cultural sociology from the cognitive sciences, they have not always clarified their assumptions about cognition and their models have sketched only a few specific cognitive mechanisms through which culture influences action, meaning that they have not yet provided a comprehensive explanatory understanding of the interactions between culture, cognition and action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russi (2021) suggests 'eavesdropping' as a way to appreciate the practical implications of Shotter's (2015) stance that social inquiry is an art/craft beginning with experience, rather than a technique pre‐determined by theory and methods. Following Russi's instruction to eavesdrop on his eavesdropping, I explore his concepts of experience and listening. Contrary to Russi I issue a plea for theory, as theoretical frameworks are key for tracking the politics of knowledge surrounding social inquiry. Illustrating the process theoretical character of Russi's concepts of experience and listening, I argue for the possibility of theory as emergent within experience. Here my concept of cultures of listening is relevant, as it helps to consider eavesdropping as a form of dark listening (Motzkau & Lee, forthcoming). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What can sociology learn about the logic of social behaviour from the field of cultural evolution? How can sociology enrich cultural evolutionary theory? In this article, I present and examine cultural evolutionary theory by specifying its various proposed mechanisms, such as cultural drift, biased transmission and cultural selection (including cultural group selection), and by investigating concrete examples of social phenomena to which the theory has been applied. My findings are three‐fold. First, cultural evolutionary mechanisms should not be dismissed by sociologists but instead, given their strong explanatory power in certain cases, incorporated into their basic theoretical toolkit. Second, one mechanism, i.e. cultural selection, can even underpin a more nuanced and micro‐founded sociological functionalism that avoids some of the errors of structural functionalism. This, however, should not be celebrated too soon as the applicability of cultural selection is more limited than cultural evolutionists acknowledge. Third, drawing on historical sociology and comparative politics I also uncover further important sociological limitations of the cultural evolutionary approach that should be heeded by the latter. I focus on two: (1) its inapplicability to cases of intentional decision‐making and strategizing, and (2) its inability to subsume the phenomenon of social power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this piece, I argue against the Cartesian trend of seeing persons, selves and mind as something distinct from the body. It is claimed that Descartes realized the importance of the link between body and mind, but never pursued this connection, and this then becomes the aim of the paper. Another effect of Cartesian modes of thinking is to divorce human knowledge from its material contexts, driving a wedge between mind and matter. Some forms of social constructionism appear to fall into this latter trap and instead I argue for a view of persons as embodied beings whose selves are intimately connected to the body. Using the work of Bourdieu, Elias, Merleau-Ponty, and Ilyenkov, I also suggest that thought cannot be disengaged from a human body active in its world and that knowledge not only partly separates us from the materiality of existence, but connects us to it in deeper ways, as another dimension of human existence. Human beings can then be regarded as bodies of knowledge - active thinkers and persons engaged with the multi-dimensional world around them and capable of producing change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several explanations of the current syndrome affecting advanced democracies make reference to a process of cultural change that has been triggered by the complex and interrelated phenomena known as globalization. The rise of populist‐authoritarian parties, the advent of post‐truth politics and the increasing dissatisfaction with democracy are seen by many political scientists as rather direct consequences of social and economic transformations which had changed the context in which the democratic process takes place. The main limitation of this literature is that it treats culture as a black box receiving inputs from the social context and translate them into political consequences. By doing so it cannot explain why the same conditions produce different consequences in different contexts and it is silent on the criteria to develop anti‐crisis policies. This article argues that some of the insights offered by the Semiotic Cultural Psychology Theory, most notably the idea that cultural evolution is moved by the need to find affect‐laden, simplified interpretations of the reality to restore the capacity of making sense on an uncertain socio‐political context, can enhance the ability of political scientists to understand the current political phenomena and to develop methodological criteria to counteract the current scenario of democratic crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand themselves as playing a social role, individuals must understand themselves to be contributing to a cooperative endeavor. Psychologically, the form of cooperation required is a specific type that only humans may possess, namely, one in which individuals form a joint or collective agency to pursue a common end. This begins ontogenetically not with the societal level but rather with more local collaboration between individuals. Participating in collaborative endeavors of this type leads young children, cognitively, to think in terms of different perspectives on a joint focus of attention ‐ including ultimately an objective perspective ‐ and to organize their experience in terms of a relational‐thematic‐narrative dimension. Socially, such participation leads young children to an understanding of self‐other equivalence with mutual respect among collaborative partners and, ultimately, to a normative (i.e. moral) stance toward "we" in the community within which one is forming a moral role or identity. The dual‐level structure of shared endeavors/realities with individual roles/perspectives is responsible for many aspects of the human species' most distinctive psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article engages with two meta‐theoretical approaches to social analysis, 'morphogenetic theory' and 'constructivist institutionalism', and specifically explores how the former fares under the critical scrutiny of the latter. The key proponent of constructivist institutionalism, Colin Hay, has offered two detailed critiques of morphogenesis that criticise its position on the foundational sociological issues of structure‐agency and material‐ideational. Although Hay's critiques are largely rejected in an overall defence of the morphogenetic approach, the process of engagement is seen to be particularly useful for morphogenetic theory because it allows a number of important clarifications to be made and it also opens up space for theoretical development. In the course of this debate, accessible introductions are given to both theories, and the similarities and differences between them are outlined, providing clarity to both. Therefore, although this article ultimately operates as a defence of morphogenetic theory, especially in the form proposed by Margaret Archer and Douglas Porpora, it finds a great deal of fruitful discussion in the constructivist institutionalist challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We demonstrate in this article how critical realism can be used to explain indeterminacy in role behaviour systematically. In so doing, we both rebut various criticisms of critical realism made recently by Kemp and Holmwood and attempt to illustrate the weaknesses and absences of approaches that concentrate unduly on the collection of expectations of (different groups of) actors concerning roles and the behaviour of incumbents. Within a framework that recognises that structure and agency are ontologically distinct but necessarily empirically related entities, we argue that structures should be seen as sources of indeterminacy within role behaviour for at least four reasons: the co-determination of roles through the intersection of structures; conflicting role expectations caused by contradictions inhering within structures; asymmetries of power within social relations; and asymmetric repetition within structural reproduction/transformation. In light of this discussion of structural sources of indeterminacy, we then go on to demonstrate how critical realism is also able to analyse systematically the agential sources of indeterminacy within role behaviour and expectations through theories of psychobiography and reflexivity. We thus conclude that critical realism contains the conceptual tools required to illuminate the point(s) of intersection between structure, culture and agency which is central to understanding both role behaviour and the plurality of expectations concerning such behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In view of the fact that culture-inclusive psychology has been eluded or relatively ignored by mainstream psychology, the movement of indigenous psychology is destined to develop a new model of man that incorporates both causal psychology and intentional psychology as suggested by Vygotsky (1927). Following the principle of cultural psychology: 'one mind, many mentalities' (Shweder et al., 1998), the Mandala Model of Self (Hwang, 2011a,b) and Face and Favor Model (Hwang, 1987, 2012) were constructed to represent the universal mechanisms of self and social interaction that can be applied to any culture; both models can be used as conceptual frameworks for analyzing mentalities of people in any given culture. Taking research works from Foundations of Chinese Psychology: Confucian Social Relation as exemplars (Hwang, 2012), this article illustrates how to construct culture-inclusive theories of Confucianism by multiple philosophical paradigms. The mechanism of culture-inclusive theory can be applied to explain qualitative research findings on lifeworld events of people in a particular society. It can also be utilized to predict results of quantitative research conducted to verify theoretical propositions in the scientific microworld by empirical methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The three approaches for conducting psychological research across cultures proposed by Berry (1989), namely, the imported etic, emic and derived etic approach are critically examined for developing culture-inclusive theories in psychology, in order to deal with the enigma left by Wilhelm Wundt. Those three approaches have been restricted to a certain extent by the pan-cultural dimensional approach which may result in the Orientalism of psychology in understanding people of non-Western cultures. This article is designated to provide the philosophical ground for an alternative cultural system approach to construct culture-inclusive theories in psychology. Following the principle of cultural psychology: 'one mind, many mentalities' (Shweder et al., 1998), the alternative strategy contains two steps: First, based on Bhaskar's (1975, 1978) critical realism, all universal mechanisms should seek to represent the operation of the human mind. Second, based on Archer's (1995) analytical dualism, the mechanisms of the universal mind may be used as frameworks for analyzing any cultural tradition. The culture-inclusive theories thus obtained represent the synchronic morphostasis of a cultural system, which may be used as theoretical frameworks for conducting either qualitative or quantitative empirical research in studying the diachronic morphogenesis of socio-cultural interaction in a particular culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My agenda is to ground psychological science in culture by using complex rather than overly simple models of culture and using indigenous categories as criteria of a translation test to determine the adequacy of scientific models of culture. I first explore the compatibility between Chinese indigenous categories and complex models of culture, by casting in the theoretical framework of symmetry and symmetry breaking (Bolender, 2010) a series of translations performed on Fiske's (1991) relational models theory. Next, I show how the dimensional approach to culture, prevalent in mainstream psychology, fails the translation test. Ethical implications of this analysis for cross cultural psychology are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalization has changed almost every facet of life for people around the world, and today the flow of influence is no longer uni-directional. It is argued that East Asian (and especially Chinese) societies are anchored in an indigenous form of hierarchical relationalism where social structure is produced by relational obligations of an ethical and normative nature that have slowed its traditional culture 'melting into air' as prophesied by Marx. The successfully modernization of East Asia has involved hybridization, compartmentalization, and sequencing of traditional psychological features of Confucianist societies such as delay of gratification and respect for education, paternalistic leadership, filial piety, and beliefs in harmony or benevolence. Features of hierarchical relationalism are adaptable to creating niches for East Asian societies that thrive under globalization as characterized by the paradoxical coupling of economic inequality in fact with discourses of equality in principle. Moral, ethical demands for enlightened leadership constrain East Asian elites to at least attempt to protect subordinates and protect societal (rather than merely individual or familial) well-being. A fundamental contribution of East Asia to global society may be in the articulation of how to ameliorate economic inequality using Confucian principles of hierarchical relationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Culture is acknowledged to be a critical element in the construction of an individual's identity; however, in today's increasingly multicultural environments, the influence of culture is no longer straightforward. It is now important to explore cultural identity clarity-the extent to which beliefs about identity that arise from one's cultural group membership(s) are clearly and confidently understood. We describe a novel theoretical model to explain why having a clear and confident understanding of one's cultural identity is important for psychological well-being, as it clarifies one's understanding of personal identity. We propose that a clear cultural identity clarifies one's personal existence, by providing a clear normative template, reducing personal uncertainty, providing an individual with a sense of continuity, and buffering an individual against the fear of death. We discuss the implications of this model within our complex cultural worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What political, economic, religious, and emotional factors are involved in a person's decision to kill civilians and military personnel through the sacrifice of his or her own life? Data for this research were secondary analyses of interviews with Islamic martyrs, as well as their leaders’ speeches. This investigation into the cultural-psychological explanations for Islamic martyrdom leads to a model explaining a person's decision to carry out the mission as resulting from a combination of four factors: the historical-cultural context, group processes, immediate and anticipated rewards, and mechanisms to eradicate possible doubts and guilt regarding this decision. Compared to existing models, this model is more integrative and focused on the psychological processes involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ludwig Wittgenstein imagines a variety of eccentric social practices—like a tribe trained “to give no expression of feeling of any kind”. But he also speaks of “the common behavior of mankind” that is rooted in “natural/primitive reactions”. This emphasis on the uniformities of human behavior raises questions about the plausibility of some of his imagined language games. Indeed, it suggests the claim of evolutionary psychologists that there are biologically based human universals that shape social practices. But in contrast to E.O. Wilson's belief that “genes hold culture on a leash”, Wittgenstein sees culture as a mediator—rather than a conduit—of “natural reactions”. This suggests that social science can incorporate the claims of evolutionary psychology without scanting the centrality of culture in action and allows that nature can be overwhelmed by culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the perfection of cultural regulation mechanisms in conformity with developing instrumental intelligence. Relationship discovered among technological potential, cultural regulation quality and social sustainability; Information on the law of technohumanitarian balance; Comparison of internal and external sustainability.

Frédéric Vandenberghe, The Nature of Culture. Towards a Realist Phenomenology of Material, Animal and Human Nature, pp. 461–475 In an ironic rejoinder to the postmodern politics of nature, I will adopt an anthropological perspective on culture, which is conspicuous by its absence in the latest wave of science studies, and reformulate the distinction between nature and culture as a reflexive distinction within culture that emerges with modernity. In order to countering the hypertextualism of the (de)constructivists, I will next sketch out a realist theory of nature. Combining the transcendental realism of Roy Bhaskar with the transcendental phenomenology of Edmund Husserl, I will then try to outline the contours of a realist phenomenology of the ontological regions of physical, animal and human nature. Resuming my anthropological considerations on culture, I will finish the article with a progressive account of how the opposition between regional ontologies and regional typologies could be overcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the relation of agency and culture. Definition of agency as a personal trait designed to liberate an individual from cultural constraints; Claims of regression to asocial individualism; Alternative conception of agency as a cultural phenomenon; Agency as an element of culture.