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This paper theoretically examines how the psycho-pathological concept of hysteria has evolved since its emergence in antiquity, what causes contributed to it and how nowadays meaning-making systems of clinical psychology are mirrored through it. As has been shown, the transformation of hysteria is more closely related to the cultural psychology of feminism than any other disease before it. The 20th century in particular marked a significant change in the conceptualization of hysteria. From a highly sexist and paternalistic it became a political diagnose and finally was used, after getting banished from the psychological dictionary as an everyday pejorative personality adjective. It underwent a transformation within its gender classification, which was initially limited exclusively to women. Later, it became a psychiatric diagnosis, which was no longer durable nowadays and has finally changed into the concept of histrionic today. The analysis shows how, on the one hand, medical and biopsychological findings and, on the other hand, especially political movements and their cultural psychological processes of change form the basis of psychopathological concepts. It will be shown to what extent hysteria is exceptionally exemplary for this change in psychological meaning-making. In this context, the close connection between hysteria and the emancipatory development of our society could be emphasized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Culturally and racially responsive practice continues to be a common challenge among Mental Health Practitioners (MHPs). To the authors' knowledge, this systematic review was the first to collate and synthesize clients' perspectives of MHPs' cultural and racial awareness and responsiveness from around the world. Original studies that were published between 2010 and 2021 reporting on qualitative data about clients' perspectives regarding MHPs' cultural-racial awareness and responsiveness were included in the review. The studies' key findings that addressed this review's question were synthesized and analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. This review found 48 papers that met inclusion criteria, which represented the views of 652 clients across 10 countries. Three major themes and eight subthemes were established that concerned characteristics of the MHP, the client, and the therapeutic alliance. The results of this review indicate individual and systemic factors that influence mental health access for people from culturally and racially marginalized groups. Ongoing training of MHPs, increased racial and cultural representation among MHPs, inclusive physical settings, and reduced discrimination by MHPs are among the key findings and directions based on the results of this review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is an editorial introducing a collection of articles that explore the intersection of cultural psychology and neuroscience. The articles cover various topics, such as the impact of digital technologies on brain function, the role of culture in donation behavior, and the use of machine learning to predict cognitive functions. The authors emphasize the importance of understanding cross-cultural differences in cognition and perception in a rapidly changing world. The aim of this research topic is to provide new insights and theoretical frameworks for understanding these differences in a post-pandemic world. [Extracted from the article]

Identifying a future occupation is an important achievement during adolescence, a process particularly complex for Peruvian adolescents. Perú is a postcolonial country with many forms of inequality, and one of them is the opportunity gap to attend a college. However, most adolescents aspire to go to university as a way out of poverty, and, since Perú is a collectivist society, this is a family task: it is adolescents' responsibility to go to college in order to give a better life to their families. Theories developed for WEIRD societies (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic) do not provide an accurate explanation of Peruvian adolescents' occupational projects because they envision a person with autonomy and resources to choose a career. Thus, our goal is to analyze adolescents' occupational plans considering the role adolescent–caregivers relationships play in this configuration. This study is part of the project "Being an adolescent in Perú" (PUCP‐UNICEF) which characterized Peruvian adolescence by studying 14 variables through a qualitative study with 66 participants. In depth interviews were conducted and the data was analyzed using thematic analysis. Results of the thematic analysis are organized in three topics that explain the relationship between occupational plans and adolescent–caregiver relationship (1) adolescents have occupational aspirations rather than achievable projects that are that are built alone, without adult support; (2) attending college as an occupational aspiration belongs to the family, not to the individual operating also a kind of "debt" to pay to their caregivers for being financially supported to be able to study in high school; and (3) caregivers do not have the possibility or resources of being able to accompany their adolescent's occupational plans. We conclude that Peruvian adolescents think about their future within the framework of their family's needs, rather than linked to personal and occupational goals, impeding adolescents from exploring and selecting a realistic occupational goal consistent with their interests. The results allow us to discuss the relevance of studying adolescent development taking into account the particularities of the adolescents' cultural and socioeconomic contexts as well as the core role that relationship with caregivers plays in this process in Perú. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The materialist conception of art understands art in relation to the material conditions within and by which art is produced and consumed. For cultural psychology, the materialist conception of art has been useful for developing insights into how individual perceptions are shaped, and are shaped by, culture as a collectively produced and historically embedded site of meaning-making. However, in much of cultural psychology, the relationship between progressive politics and the materialist conception of art remains under-appreciated. In this article, I consider how cultural psychologists might strengthen this relation through artistic shock, that is, a subjective, perceptual, and/or historiographical rupture brought about through the experience of art. In particular, I outline how Bertolt Brecht and Walter Benjamin theorised and practiced artistic shock, and examine what the work of these thinkers could mean for cultural psychologists working with political collectives to grapple with psychopolitical questions related to subjectivity, contradiction, and memory. I conclude by reflecting on how future work that seeks to politicise cultural psychology might engage with the materialist conception of art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Positivity resonance, defined as a co-experienced kind-hearted positive emotion, is commonly observed to strengthen relationships in the United States. However, it is unclear whether levels of positivity resonance differ across cultures. Prior research suggests that in cultures that are perceived as offering more freedom and choice in social ties (defined as high relational mobility cultures), individuals more frequently engage in adaptive strategies to build relationships. We hypothesized that positivity resonance, achieved via such adaptive strategies, might be similarly linked to cultural variation in relational mobility. Across two studies (N = 5,711) we found supportive evidence for our prediction that, compared with European American participants, East Asian participants showed lower levels of positivity resonance with strong social ties. Such differences were in part explained by lower levels of perceived relational mobility among East Asian participants. Comparable effects were not present for weak social ties. Implications for theories of culture and emotion are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, there have been several calls for psychologists to dismantle systemic racism within the field (e.g., Buchanan et al., 2021; Dupree & Boykin, 2021; Wilcox et al., 2022). In this article, we discuss why incorporating critical histories into psychology curricula can be beneficial to this effort. We focus on three potential pathways: critical histories provide counterstories that challenge racist narratives, critical histories promote contexts that encourage antiracism practices (antiracist affordances), and critical histories can signal identity safety and belonging. To adequately integrate critical histories into psychology curricula, we make three recommendations. First, create and support a departmental curriculum that engages critical histories in the field of psychology at the undergraduate and graduate level (we offer some example topics and readings). Second, based on our own training experiences, we recommend that psychology graduate programs facilitate opportunities to take interdisciplinary courses that cover the history of race and racism in domestic and/or global contexts. Finally, we recommend funding research and supporting student projects that produce critical histories in psychology to expand the knowledge base of our field. Public Significance Statement: In this article, we discuss why incorporating critical histories into psychology curricula can be beneficial to dismantling racism in the field. We describe three key ideas: critical histories provide counterstories that challenge racist narratives, critical histories promote contexts that encourage antiracism practices (antiracist affordances), and critical histories can signal identity safety and belonging. This article provides a psychologically informed basis for why scholar–teachers should adapt critical histories into the curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between theory and practice in teacher training has been discussed extensively in the world of education. Both theoretical and practical knowledge are fundamental to teachers' engagement in educational activities. However, the question of where this knowledge comes from and how it develops over time has yet to be answered. As such, there is an enduring need to revisit this discussion in light of a series of works that address, from a socio-cultural perspective, the importance of the meanings associated with this knowledge. We propose that knowledge held by teachers arises and evolves as a consequence of the narrative construction of certain subjective learning experiences. These experiences enable the emergence of meanings associated with identity positions, facilitating or hindering alignment or fit between theoretical and practical knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we consider prosociality through the lens of an Indigenous ethics of belonging and its two constitutive concepts: kin relationality and ecological belonging. Kin relationality predicates that all living beings and phenomena share a familial identity of interdependence, mutuality, and organization. Within the value system of ecological belonging, an individuals identity is constituted in relation to the natural environment, centered on the sentiments of responsibility and reverence for Nature. We detail how Indigenous perspectives upon prosociality differ from Western scientific accounts in terms of the motives, scope, and rewards of altruistic action. Grounded in this understanding, we then profile three self-transcendent states, compassion, gratitude, and awe, and their similarities across Indigenous and Western approaches, and how kin relationality and ecological belonging give rise to cultural variations. We consider convergent insights across Indigenous and Western science concerning the role of ritual and narrative and the cultural cultivation of kin relationality and ecological belonging. We conclude by highlighting how these two core concepts might guide future inquiry in cultural psychology.

Although the study of migration has shifted its focus from an individual perspective (on those who emigrate) to also include their integration networks in the country of destination, it is also necessary to consider the dynamics with their families in the country of origin. With an integral focus on the analysis of Portuguese transnational families, this paper aims to reflect on how the connection between those who emigrate and those who stay can promote greater resilience, presenting best practices for interventions among these dynamics and generations. Using a post-positivist paradigm and semi-structured interviews, we developed a qualitative approach with three exploratory studies: (1) Portuguese young adults living abroad (N = 22); (2) parental figures living in Portugal with adult children living abroad (N = 20); and (3) experts in the fields of academic and psychosocial work with similar people (N = 8). The data were analyzed using N-Vivo software (ed.11 and 14). The general results lead us to reflect on the dynamics of relationships, where digital and face-to-face spaces participate simultaneously, even though there are different challenges and ways of using digital means. We also found a change in expectations regarding the norms and values perceived by this generation of emigrants, which leads us to consider the importance of intercultural values since transnational families greatly increase transculturality, which can promote resilience among these groups. The data also alert us to the need to train intervention professionals in multidisciplinary areas, always taking the cultural context into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article is a psychogram about Marion Gräfin Dönhoff. I am deciphering the life of the countess on the basis of Boesch's symbolic action theory. By the psychogram I am exploring the action field (needs and goals) of Dönhoff that I argue can only be understood while drawing on her relation to her socio-cultural environment. Born in a noble family in Königsberg – in a castle – she is a child of a highly politicized family with a moral ethos. Very early on she comes in contact with the general history or the history of her family both intertwined one with the other, goes to Frankfurt for her studies in the 1930ies, completes her dissertation in Basel (1936), leads castle Friedrichstein economically in the 1940ies, joins the inner-German resistance, flees from castle Friedrichstein in 1944 and becomes a journalist in the post-war decade in Germany. I argue that Dönhoff was exposed to specific cultural life-patterns catalyzing the ground-theme of her life, the political, practical and social involvement with the people's lives which helps them to preserve meaning. By the notion of interrelated action fields – directed towards a common ground-theme – I am also proposing an extension of Boeschian Cultural Psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why is it important for cultural psychology to look attentively and inspirationally into the depths of the problem of friendship? Focussing on the cultural empowerment of a man, the search for meaning in life, but also in the art of life which binds ars bene vivendi with ars bene moriendi, cultural psychology should not lose sight of the art of friendship, but also of its connection with mobile practices of the contemporary world, for in this space of encounters friendship constitutes a philosophical recommendation and a cultural challenge. I propose therefore turn to the philosophical and cultural space in order to analyse the experience of friendship with a place, interpretively extracting those elements of experience that are crucial for in-depth and contextual thinking about man. Here cultural psychology can find inspiration. I deliberately refer to the transcultural space to indicate the possibilities of experiencing the problem of being in a place. Philosophy of friendship anchored in a transcultural context helps to bring out the multi-dimensionality of the experience of self and the Other, which complements psychological research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to develop a critical sociocultural understanding on the epistemological and historical analysis of evidence-based (EB) paradigm in contemporary psychological knowledge-production (research) and knowledge-application (practice). It firstly retraces the emergence of EB in medical disciplines, its paradigmatic status, and its subsequent adoption by mainstream psychological sciences. The description of EB historical roots and key concepts leads to the second part, where the paper reflects on key epistemological criticalities scholars have raised toward the EB paradigm. Then, we develop our sociocultural perspective to enrich the epistemological analysis and critique of EB. Specifically, we propose a hermeneutic and interpretative understanding which frames EB as a re-enactment of the positivist scientific research ambition to reach for a complete formalization of biological/psychological phenomena (endo-genetical dynamics), and of new socioeconomic, political, and individual needs posed by contemporary Western societal institutions to scientific knowledge (exo-genetical dynamics). Furthermore, building on such understanding, we suggest that EB works as a contemporary epistemic indicator and threshold, serving two functions: selective filtering and exclusion. Finally, we speculate that EB endo-genetical and exo-genetical developmental dynamics can be interpreted as an expression of the contemporary presentist regime of temporality and as a shift towards the regime of performative techniques instead of context-specific and future-oriented relational competences, also tracing a determining factor that has directed, directs and will continue to direct scientific research in psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common challenge people face in today's cross-cultural world is how to solve a series of adaptation problems caused by cultural conflict. Exploring Bruce Lee's successful cross-cultural experiences through psychobiography offers some inspiration and thoughts. How did Bruce Lee successfully integrate martial arts, symbolising the Eastern culture, with films representing the Western culture, finally propelling kung fu films onto the international stage? Numerous publicly available materials about Bruce Lee were collected for this study, and the research data were evaluated using thematic analysis. Bruce Lee's success benefitted from reconstructing cultural environment information and exercising his initiative to shape a new cultural environment. His life experiences reflect individual cognition behaviour and social and cultural environments as two aspects of a dynamic circulation system and show that the two have reached internal and spiralling harmony through mutual integration. In the context of the Oriental collectivism culture's family narrative, Chinese adults' personality development features the unique theme of 'inheritance and innovation'. Dealing with the relationship between self-actualisation and familism is another important and challenging task in developing the Chinese personality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Culture is typically studied as socialized and learned. Yet lay intuitions may hold that culture is associated with biology via perceptions of race, presenting a problem for those who study culture: There may be a mismatch between how psychologists study culture and how their research is interpreted by lay audiences. This article is a call to researchers to recognize this mismatch as a problem and to critically evaluate the way we study culture. We first describe evidence that laypeople tend to associate culture with notions of folk biology. Next, we propose three suggestions for researchers: explicitly address whether biological processes are, or are not, relevant for studying culture in their work; consider using multiple methods because different methods for studying culture may come with assumptions about culture as more tied to socialization or biology; and represent all people as cultural by studying multiple forms of culture and by contextualizing all psychological research. Last, we provide an example for how researchers can implement these suggestions to encourage more accurate interpretations of findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A naturalistic approach to expert-identification begins by asking, 'how do novices pick out putative experts?' Alvin Goldman and Elizabeth Anderson, representing a fairly common approach, consider agents' psychological biases as well as social situatedness. As good as this is, culture's role in shaping cognitive mechanisms is neglected. An explanatory framework that works well to accommodate culturally-sensitive mechanisms is Peircean semiotics. His triadic approach holds that signs signify objects to interpreters. Applying the triadic model to expert-identification: novices interpret signs of expertise as pointing to particular experts. The main advantage of the framework is that it is significantly more nuanced than the Goldman-Anderson model in describing how agents identify experts. It explicitly accommodates cultural and agential differences in expert-identification. It also explicitly admits the possibility of rational disagreement in assessment of evidence for expertise. But these advantages come at a cost. Namely, it's difficult in theory – as well as practice – to make one's way into the semiotic system of someone from another culture to help guide them away from fraudulent experts. Even so, it's a trade-off worth making since it organizes relevant details for expert-identification, which is a first step in sketching a better normative theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores a naturalistic and culturally situated perspective on the ontogeny of cooperative cognition and fairness norms in distributive dilemmas involving the allocation of resources. According to this approach, the decision-making process in distributive dilemmas is grounded on general considerations about others' well-being and respecting everyone's interests and rights in conflictive interactions. The sense of fairness is also conceived as the outcome of social interactions and is modulated by contextual factors. However, I claim that the human sense of fairness in distributive dilemmas is certainly bounded by concrete principles that govern its expression and guide the establishment of reasonable, generalizable, and prescriptive solutions in cooperative situations. This logic is broadly confirmed by multiple pieces of evidence from evolutionary-informed and cross-cultural studies within behavioral sciences. Finally, I suggest that cooperative cognition and fairness norms in distributive dilemmas must be explored as scientifically relevant issues independent of ideological assumptions that usually result in problematic interpretations of the empirical data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' (UNHCR) seven-decade mandate, Afghan refugees have faced some of the largest and most protracted experiences with forced displacement. This intergenerational exposure to forced migration has had innumerable consequences for the mental health of this population across different stages of their displacement. Afghan refugees who have resettled into Western nations face a unique set of challenges as they must navigate resettlement into societies that are linguistically, culturally, and spiritually distinct from their own backgrounds. This systematic review explores the (a) effectiveness and (b) cultural adaptation of interventions that have addressed the mental health of Afghan refugees resettled into Western countries since the year 2000. This systematic review will employ the Cultural Treatment Adaptation Framework (CTAF) to organize the extent of cultural adaptations. Through the systematic search of four databases, 1709 studies emerged from our search terms, seven of which met the criteria for this review, for example, study includes more than 2/3 Afghan participants; study includes outcome variables. Studies included programs in Germany, Serbia, Sweden, and Austria. The most common outcomes that interventions addressed included posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (n = 5), depression (n = 3), and quality of life (n = 3). Program modalities ranged between Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (n = 4), emotion regulation (n = 1), family therapy (n = 1), and multimodal interventions (n = 2). Most studies only incorporated peripheral changes to interventions in the service of cultural adaptation, and only one intervention included core changes. This program reported the highest effect sizes in reducing PTSD and depressive symptoms when compared with the rest of the studies. These findings provide a direction for future studies as they consider whether the extent of cultural adaptations can influence the effectiveness of programs for Afghan refugee populations. We provide recommendations for mental health practice with this population, including a special attention to the role of daily stressors, the significance of faith and culture-based meaning making in the service of coping, and the salience of isolation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the following paper, we aim for an extended understanding of the most crucial phenomena itself, the generation of meaning in the interaction with—what we describe as reality. The cultural psychological core principles are re-introduced and connected to a new more holistic construction, elaborating the generation of new meaning. In the same context, new terminology will be introduced, crucial for the understanding of the from phenomenology generated perspective toward cognitive processes and their interrelation with the everyday life. Borders not only as separator but also as deep connector of meaning are for this purpose explored and reintroduced. A procedure that led to central understandings that go far beyond the simple definitions accessible in dictionaries. As significant organic metaphor the river and the meadow (Towards a wholistic model of identity: Why not a meadow? Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 55(1), 112–127. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-020-09588-3) will be used and extended by the rabbit hole, a triggered process extending the imagination of individuals by the central counter movement against streams and Gegenstände. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this response, Lars Petter Sødal Bergsmark and Frida Ramsing address the arguments and criticism made by Svend Brinkmann (2023) concerning their carefully optimistic presentation of the psychiatrization of pathological grief in the article "Which Considerations Are Lost When Debating the Prolonged Grief Disorder Diagnosis?" (Bergsmark & Ramsing, 2023). Overall, they argue that Brinkmann (2023) presents intriguing perspectives on this controversial topic, but he does not capture the complex case of prolonged grief disorder adequately, partly because of faulty premises in his argument. Contrary to the perspective put forth by Brinkmann, the authors remark on the possibilities and promises of integrating critical cultural psychology with the developments in psychiatric nosology, and in conclusion provide three standpoints for the future of psychiatry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Nordic countries are currently attempting to implement prolonged grief disorder as an official psychiatric diagnosis, as enacted by The World Health Organization in 2018. The enactment has been controversial and, especially in Denmark, the forthcoming diagnosis has met resistance from scholars and clinicians alike. In this article we will outline what we believe to be lost considerations during the debate of the so-called "grief diagnosis." We argue that scholars' attention should not focus on the diagnosis itself, but rather on the overall theoretical challenges in conceptualizing and handling mental suffering, which the debate should reflect and address. The article's main purpose is to accentuate why we, as psychologists, must welcome the prolonged grief diagnosis, whilst simultaneously working to more actively politicize mental suffering in general, and criticize the societal function of diagnoses. This should be attained through dialogue and recognition between cultural psychologists and health psychologists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the following article, I will briefly introduce the method of Allegory Analysis (AA) (Guenther, 2020, 2021, in press) and then outline it in its application to the case study of. The goal of this article is to introduce AA and illustrate it using the particularly illustrative case of Theresa. It will be shown how AA can be a new psychotherapeutic method in the therapist's toolbox, with which the human psyche in its individual uniqueness can be understood in the clinical context through creative means. Allegories of patients are defined here as complex linguistic constructs of multiple metaphors and as expressions of complex affective perception and experience. In order to understand a human psyche through its allegories, AA proceeds in four steps: (1) picking up and describing the allegories, (2) summarizing them into a so-called allegory poem, (3) interpreting the allegories on the part of the therapist, and (4) participatory interpretation of the allegories with the patient. The present case of Theresa illustrates the application of the AA method in an outpatient psychotherapeutic context and shows how through AA. In Theresa's case, the client was found to be ideologically guided by values such as autonomy, freedom, honesty, sustainability, charity, and connectedness. Her psychosis represented an autopoietic self-healing attempt to recover these values, which had been inaccessible to her in the antecedent process. The AA showed that Theresa believes that crises in the market economy, interpersonal coexistence, and climate change are at a critical point that threatens the existence of the world and thus her psychological stability. Moreover, in Theresa's allegories, it is evident that she had managed to use her values and beliefs autopoietically to stabilize her crisis through her coping strategy: externalization through poetic-allegorical language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a discussion inspired by the invitation formed by Kevin Carriere's book: "Psychology in Policy – Redefining Politics Through The Individual". From a theoretical standpoint in culture psychology Carriere challenges the idea of politics as a particular practice carried out by mainly politicians. Instead, he attempts to anchor processes of politics in the everyday lives of individuals, directed at changing their worlds. In this article, we discuss how this ambition could evolve even further by relating it to other theoretical approaches working with similar ambitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Social psychology's disconnect from the vital and urgent questions of people's lived experiences reveals limitations in the current paradigm. We draw on a related perspective in social psychology1—the sociocultural approach—and argue how this perspective can be elaborated to consider not only social psychology as a historical science but also social psychology of and for world-making. This conceptualization can make sense of key theoretical and methodological challenges faced by contemporary social psychology. As such, we describe the ontology, epistemology, ethics, and methods of social psychology of and for world-making. We illustrate our framework with concrete examples from social psychology. We argue that reconceptualizing social psychology in terms of world-making can make it more humble yet also more relevant, reconnecting it with the pressing issues of our time. We propose that social psychology should focus on "world-making" in two senses. First, people are future-oriented and often are guided more by what could be than what is. Second, social psychology can contribute to this future orientation by supporting people's world-making and also critically reflecting on the role of social psychological research in world-making. We unpack the philosophical assumptions, methodological procedures, and ethical considerations that underpin a social psychology of and for world-making. Social psychological research, whether it is intended or not, contributes to the societies and cultures in which we live, and thus it cannot be a passive bystander of world-making. By embracing social psychology of and for world-making and facing up to the contemporary societal challenges upon which our collective future depends will make social psychology more humble but also more relevant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To analyse the different appropriations of the 'Reconquest' narrative schema in Spanish collective memory, this paper proposes a study following Bartlett's method of repeated reproduction. Students from different backgrounds, within and outside of Spain, were presented historical narratives from less familiar perspectives than the traditional nationalist perspective. One week and again several months later they were asked to reproduce it. Over time their reconstructions tend to be progressively conventionalised, fitting it to the form of the traditional national historical narrative familiar to them. However, students simultaneously reflect on the term 'Reconquest' and its narrative schema. They turn around upon this schema, negotiate critical narrative elements or personalise the narrative they had read. These findings encourage further research into the complexity of schematic reconstructions and, ultimately, the reconstruction of schemas through reflection from other points of view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large language models (LLMs) extract and reproduce the statistical regularities in their training data. Researchers can use these models to study the conceptual relationships encoded in this training data (i.e., the open internet), providing a remarkable opportunity to understand the cultural distinctions embedded within much of recorded human communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bioenergy Economy (BEE) is a contextual and evidence-based model of care that is focused on the development of bodily awareness. In the course of BEE-based trauma therapy, by changing the contexts of embodied sensation, narrative, relationship, and intentionality, the fixed meaning-making systems (pre-linguistic and linguistic) around the trauma were gradually deconstructed. In this essay, we follow the story of a young woman in the course of BEE-based trauma therapy. She had come in for her existential and religious crisis but was guided to recovery from the post-traumatic stress of a domestic assault.

Abstract This article continues Vygotsky’s efforts in investigating the social genesis of affective generalization in artistic creative and reception process proposed in On the problem of the psychology of the actor’s creative work. Affective generalization abstracts emotions and feelings from the individual to the social plane and from the mundane to the hyper-generalized level. Based on an examination of Vygotsky’s aesthetic ideas, we introduced Chinese philosopher Defeng Wang’s work in philosophy of art under the existential approach. Finally, we propose to adopt the cultural psychology of semiotic mediation as a framework to capture this dynamic process.

Music is both universal, appearing in every known human culture, and culture-specific, often defying intelligibility across cultural boundaries. This duality has been the source of debate within the broad community of music researchers, and there have been significant disagreements both on the ontology of music as an object of study and the appropriate epistemology for that study. To help resolve this tension, I present a culture-cognition-mediator model that situates music as a mediator in the mutually constitutive cycle of cultures and selves representing the ways individuals both shape and are shaped by their cultural environments. This model draws on concepts of musical grammars and schema, contemporary theories in developmental and cultural psychology that blur the distinction between nature and nurture, and recent advances in cognitive neuroscience. Existing evidence of both directions of causality is presented, providing empirical support for the conceptual model. The epistemological consequences of this model are discussed, specifically with respect to transdisciplinarity, hybrid research methods, and several potential empirical applications and testable predictions as well as its import for broader ontological conversations around the evolutionary origins of music itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present article, I dissect key elements of Hermann Hesse's famous novel, the Glass Bead Game (Glasperlenspiel) in order to make them fertile for Cultural Psychology. I originate from the idea that the Glass Bead Game can be understood as a universal language that relies on open ideographs, thus signs that can be combined and structured for multiple purposes. Yet, this universal language is not solely a play; it has an educational drive to educate the mind and to help the individual reaching inner harmony. This play comes into being only when listening to the play of other people interacting with me and me meditating upon the multiple meaning making opportunities of it. I argue that such a perspective is in close accordance with the actual task of Cultural Psychology helping to unravel how people do relate to their environments and the impact that results from this ecological interaction. However, I appeal interested readers in trying to better institutionalize such a cultural psychological purpose of serving the individual in order for Cultural Psychology to be a sustainable and long-lasting science unlike the Glass Bead Game that became an end in itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a classical art form reserved only for the Yogyakartan royalty from the 18th to the 20th century, the Bedhaya does not simply serve as entertainment for its audiences. It is the epitome of Javanese meditation. This study aims to explore the experiences of court dancers regarding the Bedhaya to ultimately identify what psychological aspects are involved in the formation of their experiences. We used Moustakas' qualitative phenomenology as the basis of this whole research, in combination with movement elicitation procedures to condition the participants prior to the data collection process. Consequently, we interviewed four Bedhaya dancers from various generations who were trained within the royal court of Yogyakarta. We analyzed the results using Moustakas' modification of the Stevick–Colaizzi–Keen method. The results yielded five themes, which are the essence of the experiences of Bedhaya dancers and were then elaborated further using psychological concepts that may serve as a starting point for further psychological research on the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Global North's psychology, some existential experiences such as the loss of beloved persons are understood as purely individual problems. In a society of functioning individuals, the person is responsible for her own condition and for consuming the healthcare services provided to overcome the "problem" as soon as possible to go back to the fully functional role in the society. This vision raises several questions about turning "experiences" into "pathologies." Historically, mankind made sense of death, loss, and grief as both a personal and collective experiences, mediated by heterogeneous cultural forms. I elaborate theoretically the concept of cultural mediation of grief, focusing on the esthetic and temporal dimensions of such mediation, as it is visible in art, rituals and everyday discourses. The idea is that such mediation is always present, and that psychology must be able to recognize it also in apparently secularized societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meaning was a core concept in the development of Lev Vygotsky's cultural-historical approach. Considering the incompleteness of his work, other authors have adopted different directions in the seminal discussion on meaning as a unit of thought and language. Based on Rychlak's ideas, this paper proposes dialogues between three culturally based authors—González Rey, Jaan Valsiner, and Jerome Bruner—reviewing relations of complementarity and synthesis to understand the concept of meaning. We call attention to the uniqueness of each theoretical approach, avoiding the simplification of their assumptions or the intention of reducing them as if they only dealt with the same concept with different words. The comparison between authors brings about a notion of cultural, historical, narrative meaning grounded on the singular-collective dialectic, endowed with an affective dimension, and the access to which implies the adoption of a qualitative and idiographic methodology. Based on common grounds, we coordinated different understandings, and attempted to devise a concept comprising inter-focus features, while meeting the criteria for a satisfactory theoretical formulation, such as its capacity of description, explanation, and prediction, its logical consistency, its perspective or possibility of generalization, its innovation, inventiveness or fruitful heuristic and, ultimately, its simplicity or parsimony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From a cultural and psychological perspective, everyday life's meaning generation is a treasure box of highly important and complex mechanisms. The potential use of the cultural thinking stream, inhabiting the individual's perception of their reality, is increasingly connected and connects to a multitude of psychological and scientific streams. By generating a new model, the concepts of irreversible time will be connected with you- (from self and other constructed concepts) and I-positioning generations, allowing us to dive deeper into the complexity of the Gegenwarts-experienced phenomena. Unfortunately, the direct application of such a theoretical elaboration to the individual phenomena is rare, wherefore the redefined model will be discussed using a wide range of daily occurrences. In this paper, the question of "how multi-dimensional visualizations are used to define the concept of now and how they impact the self in form of self-dialogues between inner voices?" is generated. The potential for therapeutical measures and theoretical implications will be derived from the findings and subsequently presented. Meanwhile, the theoretical baseline will be used to link the concepts of how beings perceive their reality and how art and science can function as interactive tools for a more I-centered expression of inner distress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a study that aims to comprehend the affiliation to university life. This study utilizes a cultural semiotic psychology perspective theoretical framework. This framework focuses on analyzing human beings developmental trajectories and meaning-making processes. The data were collected at the end of 2021 through semi-structured interviews. The process of data analysis applies the method of elaboration of thematic categories. As the main results of this study, it has been found that the university context could catalyze the sensation of nonbelonging. From this point of view, the university could reproduce prejudices and discrimination of gender, race, social class, and sexual orientation. In this sense, the study discusses that experience in university life contains a considerable affective aspect that the student experiments in an affective semiotic dimension. Finally, the study concludes with the necessity of more research related to the affiliation of university life, especially in postgraduate students, to contribute to public policies to support university students and their psychic suffering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]