The hybrid aspect of cultures has been on the agenda of cultural and social studies as well as the arts for several years. From the perspective of the semiotician, cultures will necessarily be in continuous contact with a minimum of neighbours in order to enhance cultural semiosis, i.e., to make innovation and change possible. Otherwise, isolation would be in effect and limit a culture to its o...

In this paper we question one of the paradigms in the behavioural sciences in the last century. We call it the "rationality" paradigm, according to which animal and human behaviour can be understood from the assumption that it is "rational" with respect to reaching a given goal. For instance, animals are assumed to take the best course of action for maximising their reproductive success, and ac...

In the authoritarian regimes dissident social activists are not recognized as agents who are capable of participating in decisionand law-making processes. In addition to the factual deprivation of political rights, representatives of the dissident social movements experience cultural deprivation of esteem from the entire society, since the majority of people in authoritarian regimes as a rule d...

The Google Books Ngram Viewer allows researchers to quantify culture across centuries by searching millions of books. This tool was used to test theory-based predictions about implications of an urbanizing population for the psychology of culture. Adaptation to rural environments prioritizes social obligation and duty, giving to other people, social belonging, religion in everyday life, authori...

This paper deals with the theory of the social genesis of higher mental functions (HMF) developed by Vуgotsky and Luria. Their systemic cultural-historical approach, the first premise of developmental neuropsychology, stresses the influence of social and cultural factors on the child’s cognitive development, the social nature of function formation, and the role of mediation (the use of social m...

he modernization project launched by the West two centuries ago, was based on three pillars: State-logic, Capital-logic and Ratio-logic; formulated in part by Montesquieu (France), Smith (Britain) and Kant (Germany). The logic of the State implied centralization of coercive power, tempered by democracy. The logic of Capital implied market forces for economic power, tempered by anti-monopoly cla...

Acculturation, a concept with its root in social science and cultural anthropology, is a process intimately related to health behavior and health status of minority populations in a multicultural society. This paper provides a brief review of the subject of acculturation as it relates to health research, showing that this concept has a potential to identify risk factors that underlie increased ...