This book articulates a bold, new, systematic theory of psychology, culture, and their interrelation. It explains how macro cultural factors -- social institutions, cultural artifacts, and cultural concepts -- are the cornerstones of society and how they form the origins and characteristics of psychological phenomena. This theory is used to explain the diversity of psychological phenomena such as emotions, self, intelligence, sexuality, memory, reasoning, perception, developmental processes, and mental illness. Ratner draws upon Lev Vygotsky's sociocultural psychology, Bronfenbrenner's ecological psychology, as well as work in sociology, anthropology, history, and geography, to explore the political implications and assumptions of psychological theories regarding social policy and reform.The theory outlined here addresses current theoretical and political issues such as agency, realism, objectivity, subjectivism, structuralism, postmodernism, and multiculturalism. In this sense, the book articulates a systematic political philosophy of mind to examine numerous approaches to psychology, including indigenous psychology, cross-cultural psychology, activity theory, discourse analysis, mainstream psychology, and evolutionary psychology.

Carl Ratner's new book deepens our understanding of psychology by emphasizing the role that cultural factors, such as social institutions, artifacts, and cultural concepts play in psychological functioning. The author demonstrates the impact of culture on stimulating and structuring emotion, personality, perception, cognition, memory, sexuality, and mental illness. Examples from interdisciplinary social science research illuminate a sophisticated dialectical relationship between cultural factors and psychological phenomena. Written in an engaging and straightforward style, the book articulates a new theory, "macro cultural psychology", and a qualitative methodology for investigating the cultural origins, characteristics, and functions of psychological phenomena. The theory is grounded in Vygotsky's cultural-historical psychology. Ratner explains how this cultural perspective can be used to enhance psychological growth and illuminate directions for social reform. He explains how social reform can enhance psychological functioning, and vice versa. The theory explains how and why psychological phenomena are organized in macro cultural factors. This analysis contributes to multicultural understanding and communication. Cultural Psychology critically examines several prominent psychological approaches including social constructionism, feminism, hermeneutics, psychobiology, evolutionary, cross-cultural, ecological and mainstream psychology. The book articulates a theory of macro culture that emphasizes the political dimension of culture and psychology. A critical realist philosophy of science for macro cultural psychology is also articulated. Intended for student, researchers, and practitioners in psychology, education, psychotherapy, history, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, philosophy of science, and policy makers and practitioners in public health and social service who are interested in understanding cultural aspects of psychology. The book is an appropriate text for courses in social psychology, cross-cultural psychology, community psychology, social work, social theory, philosophy and methodology of social science, and critical thinking.

The goal of cultural psychology is to explain the ways in which human cultural constructions -- for example, rituals, stereotypes, and meanings -- organize and direct human acting, feeling, and thinking in different social contexts. A rapidly growing, international field of scholarship, cultural psychology is ready for an interdisciplinary, primary resource. Linking psychology, anthropology, sociology, archaeology, and history, The Oxford Handbook of Culture and Psychology is the quintessential volume that unites the variable perspectives from these disciplines. Comprised of over fifty contributed chapters, this book provides a necessary, comprehensive overview of contemporary cultural psychology. Bridging psychological, sociological, and anthropological perspectives, one will find in this handbook: - A concise history of psychology that includes valuable resources for innovation in psychology in general and cultural psychology in particular - Interdisciplinary chapters including insights into cultural anthropology, cross-cultural psychology, culture and conceptions of the self, and semiotics and cultural connections - Close, conceptual links with contemporary biological sciences, especially developmental biology, and with other social sciences - A section detailing potential methodological innovations for cultural psychology By comparing cultures and the (often differing) human psychological functions occuring within them, The Oxford Handbook of Culture and Psychology is the ideal resource for making sense of complex and varied human phenomena.

This provocative monograph defines the elusive concept of neoliberal psychology, focusing on its form, content, and cultural contexts and establishing it as a core feature of modern society. Its cross-cultural analysis examines the reality of neoliberal psychology in the globalized world, asserting that neoliberalism influences individuals’ sense of self, identity, and—regardless of country of origin—concept of nationality. Macro cultural psychological theory opens out neoliberal psychology in its most visible aspects, such as work life, sexuality, consumer behavior, and the shared vision of the good life. At the same time, the author identifies profound social inequities and other negative aspects of neoliberal society and discusses how they may be corrected. Included in the coverage: Snapshots of neoliberal society and psychology. A psychological theory for comprehending neoliberal psychology. Neoliberalism as a cultural, political, economic, ideological system. The neoliberal class structure of phenomena. Psychological and cultural emancipation, and macro cultural psychological theory. Since neoliberalism is the dominant social system in today’s world, and because it commands both strong support and strong criticism from diverse interest groups, Neoliberal Psychology will be of general interest to a wide readership. The book’s psychological focus is a new window into neoliberalism that is more accessible than more technical accounts of its economics and politics, and it should appeal especially to social science students and professors.

This thought-provoking treatise explores the essential functions that culture fulfills in human life in response to core psychological, physiological, and existential needs. It synthesizes diverse strands of empirical and theoretical knowledge to trace the development of culture as a source of morality, self-esteem, identity, and meaning as well as a driver of domination and upheaval. Extended examples from past and ongoing hostilities also spotlight the resilience of culture in the aftermath of disruption and trauma, and the possibility of reconciliation between conflicting cultures. The stimulating insights included here have far-reaching implications for psychology, education, intergroup relations, politics, and social policy. Included in the coverage: · Culture as shared meanings and interpretations. · Culture as an ontological prescription of how to “be” and “how to live.” · Cultural worldviews as immortality ideologies. · Culture and the need for a “world of meaning in which to act.” · Cultural trauma and indigenous people. · Constructing situations that optimize the potential for positive intercultural interaction. · Anxiety and the Human Condition. · Anxiety and Self Esteem. · Culture and Human Needs. A Psychology of Culture takes an uncommon tour of the human condition of interest to clinicians, educators, and practitioners, students of culture and its role and effects in human life, and students in nursing, medicine, anthropology, social work, family studies, sociology, counseling, and psychology. It is especially suitable as a graduate text.

Cultural psychology as a human science / Gordana Jovanovic -- Natureculture in a transformative worldview: moving beyond the "interactionist consensus" / Anna Stetsenko -- Nature unveiling herself before science: the relationship between mind and culture in the perspective of Giambattista Vico / Luca Tateo -- Völkerpsychologie as cultural psychology: the place of culture in Wundt's psychological project / Saulo de Freitas Araujo -- Wilhelm Dilthey's conception of a descriptive and comprehensive psychology / Hans-Ulrich Lessing -- Ernst Cassirer's cultural theory: culture as symbolical practice / Jan Weyand -- Roots and rise of cultural psychology / Lars Allolio-Näcke -- Culture and personality: a once and future research program? / Christian G. Allesch -- Bruner's lectures: cultural psychology in statu nascendi / William R. Woodward -- Ernst E. Boesch and his symbolic action theory / Lars Allolio-Näcke -- The repression of cultural psychology in the history of psychology / Gordana Jovanovic -- Contingent universals as the expression of a culture / Rom Harré and Jean-Pierre Llored -- The place of culture in psychology: a social constructionist standpoint / Kenneth Gergen -- Light through a cultural lens: decolonizing the history of psychology and resilience / Wade E. Pickren -- Narrative psychology as cultural psychology / Csaba Pléh -- Towards cultural (African) psychology: links, challenges and possibilities / Kopano Ratele -- The self in Japanese culture from an embodied perspective / Shogo Tanaka -- The moving body / Elisa Krause-Kjær, Jensine I. Nedergaard, & Jaan Valsiner -- Toward a vygotskian analysis of emotions: theoretical and methodological bases for a critical social psychology / Gisele Toassa -- Aesthetics and cultural psychology / Christian G. Allesch -- Let one person's tears not be infectious: Efik proverbs as emotion regulation exemplars / Vivian Dzokoto, Eyo Mensah, Eunsoo Choi, and Melissa Washington-Nortey -- Cultural-historical hyperobjects / Cathrine Hasse -- The genesis of macro cultural psychology's culture theory from traditional cultural psychology / Carl Ratner -- The genesis of macro cultural psychology's political orientation from other approaches to cultural psychology / Carl Ratner -- Thinking with cultural psychology about the future / Gordana Jovanovic, Luca Tateo, and Csaba Pléh

This volume contains contributions from 24 internationally known scholars covering a broad spectrum of interests in cross-cultural theory and research. This breadth is reflected in the diversity of the topics covered in the volume, which include theoretical approaches to cross-cultural research, the dimensions of national cultures and their measurement, ecological and economic foundations of culture, cognitive, perceptual and emotional manifestations of culture, and bicultural and intercultural processes. In addition to the individual chapters, the volume contains a dialog among 14 experts in the field on a number of issues of concern in cross-cultural research, including the relation of psychological studies of culture to national development and national policies, the relationship between macro structures of a society and shared cognitions, the integration of structural and process models into a coherent theory of culture, how personal experiences and cultural traditions give rise to intra-cultural variation, whether culture can be validly measured by self-reports, the new challenges that confront cultural psychology, and whether psychology should strive to eliminate culture as an explanatory variable.

This book brings together social sciencists to create an interdisciplinary dialogue on the topic of social change as a cultural process. Culture is as much about novelty as it is about tradition, as much about change as it is about stability. This dynamic tension is analyzed in collective protests, intergroup dynamics, language, mass media, science, community participation, art, and social transitions to capitalism, among others contexts. These diverse cases illustrate a number of key factors that can propel, slow-down and retract social change. An emancipatory and integrative social science is developed in this book, which offers a new explanatory model of human behavior and thought under conditions of institutional and societal change.

The Oxford Handbook of Human Development and Culture provides a comprehensive synopsis of theory and research on human development, with every chapter drawing together findings from cultures around the world. This includes a focus on cultural diversity within nations, cultural change, and globalization. Expertly edited by Lene Arnett Jensen, the Handbook covers the entire lifespan from the prenatal period to old age. It delves deeply into topics such as the development of emotion, language, cognition, morality, creativity, and religion, as well as developmental contexts such as family, friends, civic institutions, school, media, and work. Written by an international group of eminent and cutting-edge experts, chapters showcase the burgeoning interdisciplinary approach to scholarship that bridges universal and cultural perspectives on human development. This "cultural-developmental approach" is a multifaceted, flexible, and dynamic way to conceptualize theory and research that is in step with the cultural and global realities of human development in the 21st century.

Qualitative methodologies in cultural psychology often lack the objective and verifiable character of quantitative analysis. Author Carl Ratner corrects this shortcoming by rigorously systematizing qualitative methods. The book discusses, for example, means of systematizing such subjective reports as interviews, letters, and diaries, which often yield valuable data that is not easily quantified. Ratner argues that "complex psychological phenomena are expressed through extended responses" and hence are best studied by new, more regularized qualitative methods that go beyond measuring simple, overt responses.