Culture in Psychology

Culture in Psychology breaks new ground by attempting to understand the complexity and specificity of cultural identities today. It rejects the idea that Western culture is a standard, or that any culture is homogenous and stable. Equally, it rejects the notion that culture is a mechanism that enhances reproductive fitness. Instead, it alerts psychologists to the many forms of ‘foreignness’ that research should address and to alliances psychology can make with other disciplines such as anthropology, feminism and psychoanalysis. Part one explores the origins of the new ‘cultural psychology’ in social change movements, in fields such as ethnography and cultural studies, and as a response to evolutionary psychology. Part two looks at how people create and sustain the meanings of social categories of ‘class’, gender, ‘race’ and ethnicity, while the third part examines the interaction between written and visual representations in popular culture and everyday lived culture. The final part examines the idiosyncratic significance cultural forms have for individuals and their unconscious meanings.