Cultural Historical Psychology

Although much of psychology claims to find universal methodologies for approaching and analyzing human thought, modern challenges have given rise to a new form of psychology that attempts to differentiate thought patterns along cultural lines. Cultural psychology aims to describe how cultural differences create differences in psychological processes. Psychologists in this field attempt to describe varying rates of mental disorders around the world as evidence of the psychological impacts of culture. Higher rates of ADD in the United States, for example, would infer a culture that values breadth of knowledge over depth. Cultural psychology often faces accusations of racism and prejudicial practices due to its research into cultural divides. In addition to this, traditional psychologists refuse to embrace cultural psychology since it undermines any universal approach to psychological problems. Although these critiques certainly weaken the claims of cultural psychology, the failure to repeat Western psychological findings in Eastern cultures seems to beg the question. Cultural psychology remains a new discipline of mental inquiry with unknown value in addressing larger psychological questions.

Articles on Cultural Psychology

• Beyond the Individual-Social Antinomy in Discussions of Piaget and Vygotsky. Michael Cole & James Wertsch.
• Mediation Model for Dynamic Literacy Instruction. Dixon-Krauss, Lisbeth.
• Against cognitivism: The discursive construction of cognitive mechanisms. Lock, Andrew.
• Talk of saying, showing, gesturing, and feeling in Wittgenstein and Vygotsky. Shotter, John.
• Modeling the Six Modes of Peircean abduction for Educational Purposes. Shank, Gary.
• Comments and Commentaries about Cultural Psychology. Cole, Michael.

Websites Concerned with Cultural Psychology

• Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution. Lock, Andrew & Peters, Charles, (1996). Oxford: Clarendon Press. – Provides access to abstracts from the book as well as links to related material.
• Cultural Psychology, Anthropology, & Folklore – Lists many resources related to anthropology, cultural psychology, folklore, and storytelling.
• Batkin Centre Home Page – The home page of a center for research into the history of cultural theory.
• The Unofficial Bakhtin-Dialogism Home Page – Presents a basic summary of the theory of dialogism, a major theory of Russian Philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin.
• Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1814) – Provides a brief outline of the philosophies of Charles Sanders Peirce.
• Sites of Significance for Semiotics – Contains another list of sites concerned with semiotics.
• Delphi Forums – Forums dedicated to sharing personal and professional interestes with friends, colleagues, groups, and teams.
• The Virtual Faulty’s Second Project: Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896-1934 – Discusses the impact of Vygotsky’s work and provides a few links.
• Hans-Georg Gadamer Biography – Provides biographical information of Hans-Georg Gadamer and philosophical hermeneutics.
• Social Psychology Network: Cultural Psychology Links by Subtopic – A substantial list of links concerned with cultural psychology, split up into specific subtopics.
• Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology – Provides information and select articles from the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology
• Cross-Cultural Psychology Definition and Method – Defines the study of cross-cultural psychology and its possible applications.
• Interview Excerpt: hazel Markus on the Emergence of Cultural Psychology – Shows a brief personal take on the field of cultural psychology through the eyes of a Stanford University professor.
• Cultural Psychology: Studying More Than the “Exotic Other” – Defines the study of cultural psychology and the nature of the field.
• International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology – The home page for an association concerned with cross-cultural psychology
• Frontiers in Cultural Psychology – Contains articles concerned with cultural psychology and a community for discussion of user-submitted essays.