Cultural psychology and human development
- LAST MODIFIED: 24 March 2021
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791231-0234
- LAST MODIFIED: 24 March 2021
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791231-0234
Introduction
Cultural psychology is a theoretical approach that treats human beings as intimately intertwined with the surrounding social world, which is filled with meanings conveyed through signs. It is based on the axiom that cultural contexts and psychological phenomena are assumed to be mutual, inseparable, and co-constructive. This focus fits the general scientific status of all open systems, which exist only due to the continuous exchange of materials with the environment. Cultural psychology is an integrated approach to psychology rather than a separate branch, as is sometimes believed, since psychology and culture “make each other up.” This involves constructive internalization (intra-mental construction of personal meanings) and equally constructive externalization (changing the environment in the direction specified by the internal meanings). As a collaborative, multidisciplinary perspective, cultural psychology is closely linked with disciplines like anthropology, sociology, linguistics, literature, and others. Cultural psychology focuses on the study of cultural—sign-mediating—processes within the mind. A common misconception relates to the fact that the term “cultural” refers to the study of similarities and differences between various communities. Rather than focusing on static comparisons, meaning-making and dynamic organization of personal and collective reality are studied. Differences between societies are important only as illustrations of the possible patterns of human psychological variation as they emerge in a particular time-space coordinate. Thus, another important axiom is that there can be no psychology without culture. Culture is constructed by goal-oriented human actions and involves continuous thought, action, and emotion in the face of uncertainty. Thus, the centrally important feature of cultural psychology is the inclusion of personal, interpersonal, and collective processes as they make up the different layers of meaning in irreversible time. Culture is both inside a person’s mind, as a personal manifestation, and also a shared system or collective set of customs. Cultural psychologists tend to treat the person as a whole rather than as separate different domains of activity because a comprehensive and multidimensional approach to a person within context is believed to be the key to meaning. Cultural psychology attempts to bring the notion of context into the central focus in psychology and the notion of person back into ethnography, as these are believed to be constructive. Context is viewed in two ways—as inevitably and inseparably linked with the phenomenon and as external social setting (e.g., home, school) in which human activities take place. Another important feature is that “cultural psychology is inherently a developmental discipline and developmental psychology is inherently cultural” (Shwartz, et al. 2020, p. 2). All levels of culturally organized human ways of living—persons, communities, societies—are constantly developing systems.
General Overviews
The discussion of and sources for cultural psychology will bring together its history, from the earliest works of German scholars in the 19th century to contemporary scholarship. Cole 1996 and Valsiner 2007 inform us that the first mention of the term cultural psychology (Kulturpsychologie) can be traced back to the year 1900 and the inaugural text of William Stern in differential psychology. Yet the introduction of this term was preceded by a century of active search for meanings-based human science that started from the natural philosophy (Naturphilosophie) in the first three decades of the 19th century and continued in the fields of Völkerpsychologie (initiated by Chaim Steinthal and Moritz Lazarus) in the second half of the 19th century. Although there are many common features of the different “schools” of psychology, two main perspectives emerge: one from psychology as a base and the other from anthropology as a base. The term “cultural psychology” became actively used from the 1980s onward when the earlier contributions by Lev Vygotsky and Alexander Luria in the 1920s–30s became recognized by an interdisciplinary group of psychologists, physicians, and educators. Shweder 1991 examines the idea that cultural psychology emerged to promote an integrative psychological theory based on the premise that mind, body, and culture were indivisible, and developmental processes were shaped within sociocultural contexts. Despite these early efforts, the creation of a unified theory remained elusive. However, the influence of these early collaborations influenced many schools of thought as well as the advancement of the field of cultural psychology (Cole 1996). The integration of cultural psychological perspectives with developmental sciences has remained relatively unexplored in the mainstream. Cultural psychology focuses on understanding the ways in which cultural processes and human psychological functioning interact and shape each other through the participation of people in cultural activity (Rogoff 2003) and meaning-making through the use of signs (Valsiner 2007). Rather than the pursuit of cultural universals through comparisons of different societies, cultural psychologists are interested in the exploration of the mutuality between cultural traditions and psychological functioning. An underlying assumption of this process of discovery is that cultural processes can serve different objectives in different contexts and the human experience is an outcome of that mutual co-construction.
Cole, Michael. Cultural Psychology: A Once and Future Discipline. Cambridge, MA: Belknap/Harvard University Press, 1996.
This volume provides a deeply thoughtful and inspiring introduction to cultural psychology with a reflective overview of developmental psychology as a cultural-historic science. In a synthesis of the theoretical and empirical work that has been formative for cultural psychology as a discipline, Cole’s volume is foundational. The author presents a contextually meaningful exploration of human phenomena through the use of the genetic method, using historical, ontogenetic, and microgenetic analyses.
Rogoff, Barbara. The Cultural Nature of Human Development. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
This volume contributes to the understanding of cultural patterns of human development through the exploration of similarities and differences in cultural practices. Rather than approaching culture as nationality, the author focuses on people’s routine participation in cultural practices. To understand cultural human development, the objective of this book is to advance the importance of people’s participation in cultural communities.
Shweder, Richard A. Thinking through Cultures: Explorations in Cultural Psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991.
This volume introduces the discipline of cultural psychology, addressing both psychology and anthropology through mutual renewal. The scientific study of persons, cultures, and natures is viewed as co-constructive, and human thought is believed to be inextricably embedded in meaning that is both the product and a component of the mind. A serious critique of the concept of the “person” implicit in Western social science is presented.
Valsiner, Jaan. Cultures in Minds and Societies: Foundations of Cultural Psychology. New Delhi: SAGE, 2007.
The volume studies the relationship between people and society, proposing a semiotic theory of cultural psychology. The place of culture in human lives is dynamic and creative rather than static and singular. Although uniqueness of all human personal experience is recognized, the emphasis is on the universality of cultural organization of human minds and societies. This book is an example of building a universal theory of cultural psychology.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Abduction of Children
- Aboriginal Childhoods
- Addams, Jane
- ADHD, Sociological Perspectives on
- Adolescence and Youth
- Adolescent Consent to Medical Treatment
- Adoption and Fostering
- Adoption and Fostering, History of Cross-Country
- Advertising and Marketing, Psychological Approaches to
- Advertising and Marketing, Sociocultural Approaches to
- Africa, Children and Young People in
- African American Children and Childhood
- After-school Hours and Activities
- Ancient Near and Middle East, Child Sacrifice in the
- Animals, Children and
- Animations, Comic Books, and Manga
- Anthropology of Childhood
- Archaeology of Childhood
- Ariès, Philippe
- Attachment in Children and Adolescents
- Australia, History of Adoption and Fostering in
- Australian Indigenous Contexts and Childhood Experiences
- Autism, Females and
- Autism, Medical Model Perspectives on
- Autobiography and Childhood
- Benjamin, Walter
- Bereavement
- Best Interest of the Child
- Bioarchaeology of Childhood
- Body, Children and the
- Body Image
- Bourdieu, Pierre
- Boy Scouts/Girl Guides
- Boys and Fatherhood
- Breastfeeding
- Bronfenbrenner, Urie
- Bruner, Jerome
- Buddhist Views of Childhood
- Byzantine Childhoods
- Child and Adolescent Anger
- Child Beauty Pageants
- Child Homelessness
- Child Protection
- Child Public Health
- Child Trafficking and Slavery
- Childcare Manuals
- Childhood and Borders
- Childhood and Empire
- Childhood as Discourse
- Childhood Studies and Leisure Studies
- Childhood Studies in France
- Childhood Studies, Interdisciplinarity in
- Childhood Studies, Posthumanism and
- Childism
- Children and Dance
- Children and Film-Making
- Children and Money
- Children and Social Media
- Children and Sport
- Children and Sustainable Cities
- Children as Language Brokers
- Children as Perpetrators of Crime
- Children, Code-switching and
- Children in the Industrial Revolution
- Children with Autism in a Brazilian Context
- Children, Young People, and Architecture
- Children's Humor
- Children’s Museums
- Children’s Parliaments
- Children’s Reading Development and Instruction
- Children's Views of Childhood
- China, Japan, and Korea
- China’s One Child Policy
- Citizenship
- Civil Rights Movement and Desegregation
- Class
- Classical World, Children in the
- Clothes and Costume, Children’s
- Colonization and Nationalism
- Color Symbolism and Child Development
- Common World Childhoods
- Competitiveness, Children and
- Conceptual Development in Early Childhood
- Congenital Disabilities
- Constructivist Approaches to Childhood
- Consumer Culture, Children and
- Consumption, Child and Teen
- Conversation Analysis and Research with Children
- Critical Approaches to Children’s Work and the Concept of ...
- Critical Perspectives on Boys’ Circumcision
- Crying
- Cultural psychology and human development
- Debt and Financialization of Childhood
- Disability
- Discipline and Punishment
- Discrimination
- Disney, Walt
- Divorce And Custody
- Dolls
- Domestic Violence
- Drawings, Children’s
- Early Childhood
- Early Childhood Care and Education, Selected History of
- Eating disorders and obesity
- Education
- Environment, Children and the
- Environmental Education and Children
- Ethics in Research with Children
- Eugenics
- Evolutionary Studies of Childhood
- Fairy Tales and Folktales
- Family Meals
- Fandom (Fan Studies)
- Fathers
- Female Genital Cutting
- Feral and "Wild" Children
- Fetuses and Embryos
- Filicide
- Films about Children
- Films for Children
- Folklore
- Food
- Foundlings and Abandoned Children
- Freud, Anna
- Freud, Sigmund
- Friends and Peers: Psychological Perspectives
- Froebel, Friedrich
- Gangs
- Gay and Lesbian Parents
- Gender and Childhood
- Generations, The Concept of
- Geographies, Children's
- Gifted and Talented Children
- Globalization
- Growing Up in the Digital Era
- Hall, G. Stanley
- Happiness in Children
- Hindu Views of Childhood and Child Rearing
- Hispanic Childhoods (U.S.)
- Historical Approaches to Child Witches
- History of Adoption and Fostering in Canada
- History of Childhood in America
- History of Childhood in Canada
- HIV/AIDS, Growing Up with
- Homeschooling
- Humor and Laughter
- Images of Childhood, Adulthood, and Old Age in Children’s ...
- Infancy and Ethnography
- Infant Mortality in a Global Context
- Innocence and Childhood
- Institutional Care
- Intercultural Learning and Teaching with Children
- Islamic Views of Childhood
- Japan, Childhood in
- Juvenile Detention in the US
- Key, Ellen
- Klein, Melanie
- Labor, Child
- Latin America
- Learning, Language
- Learning to Write
- Legends, Contemporary
- Literary Representations of Childhood
- Literature, Children's
- Love and Care in the Early Years
- Magazines for Teenagers
- Maltreatment, Child
- Maria Montessori
- Marxism and Childhood
- Masculinities/Boyhood
- Material Cultures of Western Childhoods
- Mead, Margaret
- Media, Children in the
- Media Culture, Children's
- Medieval and Anglo-Saxon Childhoods
- Menstruation
- Middle Childhood
- Middle East
- Migration
- Miscarriage
- Missionaries/Evangelism
- Moral Development
- Moral Panics
- Mothers
- Multi-culturalism and Education
- Music and Babies
- Native American and Aboriginal Canadian Childhood
- New Reproductive Technologies and Assisted Conception
- Nursery Rhymes
- Organizations, Nongovernmental
- Orphans
- Parental Gender Preferences, The Social Construction of
- Parenting
- Pediatrics, History of
- Peer Culture
- Peter Pan
- Philosophy and Childhood
- Piaget, Jean
- Play
- Politics, Children and
- Postcolonial Childhoods
- Post-Modernism
- Poverty, Rights, and Well-being, Child
- Pre-Colombian Mesoamerica Childhoods
- Prostitution and Pornography, Child
- Psychoanalysis
- Queer Theory and Childhood
- Race and Ethnicity
- Racism, Children and
- Radio, Children, and Young People
- Readers, Children as
- Refugee and Displaced Children
- Relational Ontologies
- Relational Pedagogies
- Rights, Children’s
- Risk and Resilience
- Russia
- School Shootings
- Sex Education in the United States
- Sexuality
- Siblings
- Social and Cultural Capital of Childhood
- Social Habitus in Childhood
- Social Movements, Children's
- Social Policy, Children and
- Socialization and Child Rearing
- Socio-cultural Perspectives on Children's Spirituality
- Sociology of Childhood
- South African Birth to Twenty Project
- South Asia
- Special Education
- Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence
- Spock, Benjamin
- Sports and Organized Games
- Street Children
- Street Children And Brazil
- Subcultures
- Sure Start
- Teenage Fathers
- Teenage Pregnancy
- Television
- The Bible and Children
- The Harms and Prevention of Drugs and Alcohol on Children
- The Spaces of Childhood
- Theater for Children and Young People
- Theories, Pedagogic
- Tourism
- Toys
- Transgender Children
- Tweens
- Twins and Multiple Births
- Unaccompanied Migrant Children
- United Kingdom, History of Adoption and Fostering in the
- United States, Schooling in the
- Value of Children
- Views of Childhood, Jewish and Christian
- Violence, Children and
- Visual Representations of Childhood
- Voice, Participation, and Agency
- Vygotsky, Lev and His Cultural-historical Approach to Deve...
- War
- Welfare Law in the United States, Child
- Well-Being, Child
- Western Europe and Scandinavia
- Witchcraft in the Contemporary World, Children and
- Work and Apprenticeship, Children's
- Young Carers
- Young Children and Inclusion
- Young Children’s Imagination
- Young Lives
- Young People, Alcohol, and Urban Life
- Young People and Climate Activism
- Young People and Disadvantaged Environments in Affluent Co...