According to the argumentative theory of reasoning, humans have evolved reasoning abilities (usually known as ‘system 2’ or ‘analytic’ reasoning) for argumentative purposes. This implies that some reasoning skills should be universals. Such a claim seems to be at odd with findings from cross-cultural research. First, a wealth of research, following the work of Luria, has shown apparent difficul...

This study presents evidence about relations between national culture and social institutions. We operationalize culture with data on cultural dimensions for over 50 nations adopted from cross-cultural psychology and generate testable hypotheses about three basic social norms of governance: the rule of law, corruption, and accountability. These norms correlate systematically and strongly with n...

Cultural psychology and experimental existential psychology are two of the fastest-growingmovements in social psychology. In this bookDaniel Sullivan combines both perspectives to present a groundbreaking analysis of culture’s role in shaping the psychology of threat experience. The first part of the book presents a new theoretical framework guided by three central principles: that humans are i...

“The mutual constitution of culture and mind is a topic of central importance across all of areas of psychology.” With this mission statement, Frontiers in Cultural Psychology declares mutual constitution— the process by which mind and culture “live together, require each other, and dynamically, dialectically, and jointly make each other up” (Shweder, 1990; p.1)—as the unifying theme of its oth...

Psychoanalytic theory has been criticized for decontextualizing individual development. While recognizing the historical neglect of sociocultural context in psychoanalytic theory, this article raises attention to psychoanalytic contributions to the exploration of sociocultural issues in psychotherapy and calls for a systematic inclusion of cultural competence as a core area of emphasis of psych...

A prevailing concept of cognition in psychology is inspired by the computer metaphor. Its focus on mental states that are generated and altered by information input, processing, storage and transmission invites a disregard for the cultural dimension of cognition, based on three (implicit) assumptions: cognition is internal, processing can be distinguished from content, and processing is indepen...

Crosscultural studies of cognitive development preceded studies of cultural leaming. The former studies made an implicit assumption that culture is external whereas development is internal. Bruner’s cultural psychology (1990) and Tomasello, Kruger, and Ratner’s cultural learning (1993) assume, by contrast, that culture is inside the individual, that human beings are intrinsically social and pri...