The psychological foundations of culture

377 Pages·2004·1.816 MB·English

by  Mark Schaller, Christian S Crandall

The Psychological
Foundations of Culture
Edited by
Mark Schaller
University of British Columbia
Christian S. Crandall
University of Kansas
LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS
2004 Mahwah, New Jersey London
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Copyright © 2004 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in
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means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers
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Cover design by Kathryn Houghtaling Lacey
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The psychological foundations of culture / edited by Mark Schaller, Christian S. Crandall.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8058-3839-2 (cloth : alk. paper) – ISBN 0-8058-3840-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Social change—Psychological aspects. 2. Culture—Origin—Psychological aspects.
3. Ethnopsychology. I. Schaller, Mark, 1962- II. Crandall, Christian S., 1959-
GN514.P78 2004
306—dc21
2003040839
Books published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates are printed on acid-free paper,
and their bindings are chosen for strength and durability.
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Contributors
Glen Adams, University of Kansas
Jamie Arndt, University of Missouri
Holly Arrow, University of Oregon
Scott Atran, University of Michigan
Martin J. Bourgeois, University of Wyoming
K. L. Burns, University of Oregon
Erica Carranza, Princeton University
Chi-yue Chiu, University of Illinois
Anna Clark, University of Melbourne
Dov Cohen, University of Illinois
Lucian Gideon Conway III, Indiana State University
Christian S. Crandall, University of Kansas
Jeff Greenberg, University of Arizona
Helen C. Harton, University of Northern Iowa
Steven J. Heine, University of British Columbia
Maria Janicki, Simon Fraser University
Yoshihisa Kashima, University of Melbourne
Dennis Krebs, Simon Fraser University
Arie W. Kruglanski, University of Maryland
Ivy Y. –M. Lau, University of Hong Kong
Sau-lai Lee, University of Hong Kong
Darrin R. Lehman, University of British Columbia
Anthony Lyons, University of Melbourne
Hazel Rose Markus, Stanford University
Allison McIntyre, University of Melbourne
Ara Norenzayan, University of British Columbia
Deborah Prentice, Princeton University
Tom Pyszczynski, University of Colorado–Colorado Springs
Linda Richter, Columbia University
Mark Schaller, University of British Columbia
Jeff Schimel, University of Alberta
Sheldon Solomon, Skidmore College
Joseph A. Vandello, University of South Florida
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Contents
INTRODUCTION 1
1. The Psychological Foundations of Culture: An Introduction 3
Mark Schaller, Lucian Gideon Conway, and Christian S. Crandall
PART I: HOW CULTURES EMERGE AT ALL 13
2. Human Awareness of Mortality and the Evolution of Culture 15
Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Jeff Schimel, Jamie Arndt,
and Tom Pyszczynski
3. Cultural Elements Emerge From Dynamic Social Impact 41
Helen C. Harton and Martin J. Bourgeois
4. Language, Cognition, and Reality: Constructing Shared 77
Meanings Through Communication
Ivy Y. –M. Lau, Sau-lai Lee, and Chi-yue Chiu
5. Motivated Closed Mindedness and the Emergence 101
of Culture
Linda Richter and Arie W. Kruglanski
PART II: HOW SPECIFIC CULTURAL NORMS ARISE 123
6. Biological Foundations of Moral Norms 125
Dennis Krebs and Maria Janicki
vii
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viii CONTENTS
7. Cognitive and Emotional Processes in the Cultural 149
Transmission of Natural and Nonnatural Beliefs
Ara Norenzayan and Scott Atran
8. Self-Organizing Culture: How Norms Emerge 171
in Small Groups
Holly Arrow and K. L. Burns
9. Scientists and Science: How Individual Goals Shape 201
Collective Norms
Christian S. Crandall and Mark Schaller
PART III: HOW CULTURES PERSIST AND CHANGE 225
OVER TIME
10. The Microgenesis of Culture: Serial Reproduction as an 227
Experimental Simulation of Cultural Dynamics
Allison McIntyre, Anthony Lyons, Anna Clark,
and Yoshihisa Kashima
11. Sustaining Cultural Beliefs in the Face of Their Violation: 259
The Case of Gender Stereotypes
Deborah A. Prentice and Erica Carranza
12. When Believing Is Seeing: Sustaining Norms of Violence 281
in Cultures of Honor
Joseph A. Vandello and Dov Cohen
13. Move the Body, Change the Self: Acculturative Effects 305
of the Self-Concept
Steven J. Heine and Darrin R. Lehman
EPILOGUE 333
14. Toward a Conception of Culture Suitable for a Social 335
Psychology of Culture
Glenn Adams and Hazel Rose Markus
Author Index 361
Subject Index 377
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INTRODUCTION
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C H A P T E R
1
The Psychological Foundations
of Culture: An Introduction
Mark Schaller
University of British Columbia
Lucian Gideon Conway III
Indiana State University
Christian S. Crandall
University of Kansas
In his influential book Folkways, William Graham Sumner (1906, p. 3) wrote
that culture results from “the frequent repetition of petty acts.” He noted
too that these cultural folkways “are not creations of human purpose and
wit” but are instead “products of natural forces which men unconsciously
set in operation” (Sumner, 1906, p. 4).
Sumner’s work was social psychological in the broadest sense of the
term.Headdressedatopic,culture,thatisfundamentaltointellectualdisci-
plines that seek to describe and understand the nature of human groups
and societies. And he did so by referring to the basic psychological proc-
esses that govern the thoughts and actions of individuals. Here, for exam-
ple, is his brief overview of the origins of cultural customs:
Waysofdoingthingswereselected,whichwereexpedient.Theyansweredthe
purposebetterthanotherways,orwithlesstoilandpain....[T]hestruggleto
maintainexistencewascarriedon,notindividually,butingroups.Eachprof-
ited by the other’s experience; hence there was concurrence towards that
whichprovedtobemostexpedient.Allatlastadoptedthesamewayforthe
samepurpose;hencethewaysturnedintocustomsandbecamemassphenom-
ena.(Sumner,1906,p.2)
Thereisnomissingtheroleofpsychologicalphenomenainthissummary.
Hedonicrelevanceandreinforcement,observationandimitation,socialin-
3
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4 SCHALLER,CONWAY,CRANDALL
fluence and persuasion: These processes are fundamental to our descrip-
tionsofhumanpsychology.Andthereisnomistakingtheeventualcultural
consequencesoftheseprocesses.ThedetailsofSumner’sanalysismaybe
oversimplified,buttheimplicationisprofound:Ifwearetofullyunderstand
culture, we must know the essentially psychological “natural forces”
through which individuals unintentionally create, sustain, and change the
cultures that they comprise.
A century has passed since Sumner wrote his book on folkways—plenty
oftimeforcognitiveandsocialscientiststoexploreandarticulatethepsy-
chological foundations of culture. Indeed, the discipline of psychology is
largely defined by the research on the details of those basic processes of
cognition, motivation and interpersonal influence that Sumner alluded to.
But although Sumner’s work is seminal within disciplines that treat cul-
tures—ratherthanindividuals—asaprimaryunitofanalysis,ithashadlittle
impact within psychology (see Brewer, 2003, for discussion of one excep-
tion). Consequently, there is very little published work that follows Sum-
ner’sleadandshowsexplicitlyhowcultureiscreatedandsustainedbythe
thoughtsandactionsofindividuals.Thepurposeofthisbookistohelpfill
that void.
THE GOALS AND THEMES OF THIS BOOK
The book is intended to address questions that apply to specific cultures,
and to culture in general. The primary questions are these: How is it that
culturescomeintoexistenceatall?Howdoculturescometohaveparticu-
larcustomsandcharacteristicsratherthanothers?Howdoculturespersist
and change over time?
In the spirit of Sumner’s Folkways, we believe that any attempt to sub-
stantially address these questions requires sustained inquiry into the spe-
cific things—customs, traditions, beliefs, and other social norms—that com-
prise cultures. To do this, we must focus on the individuals who traffic in
these things and so conspire (usually unintentionally) to create, maintain,
andchangecultures.Itisherethatwefindthecentralroleofpsychological
processes:Individuals’thoughts,motives,andothercognitionsgovernhow
they interact with and influence one another; these interpersonal conse-
quences in turn govern the emergence, persistence, and change of culture.
Psychologicalanalysesofthissortallowustogainspecialanduniquein-
sights into culture. We can learn how it is that specific beliefs, behaviors,
andtraditionscometobewidespreadwhileothersdonot.Wecandiscover
howtheseparticularfeaturesofpopulationscometoformacoherentthing
thatisperceivedasculture.Wecanexploreindetailthemanysubtleproc-
essestheleadsomeaspectsofculturetopersistandotherstochange.We
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1. PSYCHOLOGICALFOUNDATIONSOFCULTURE 5
can ask and answer questions about a variety of cognitive and contextual
variables—some obvious, some surprising and subtle—that alter the emer-
gence and evolution of cultures over time.
This thematic goal of this book is, in a sense, the complementary oppo-
site of that underlying work in cross-cultural psychology (e.g., Adamo-
poulos & Kashima, 1999; Berry et al., 1997). Cross-cultural psychology ex-
plores the influence of culture on individual-levelpsychologicalprocesses,
and so brings an anthropological frame of inquiry to psychological ques-
tions. This book is designed to place a psychological frame of inquiry
aroundquestionsusuallyaddressedbysociologistsandanthropologists.In
doing so, the book is intended to reveal that psychological inquiry in the
foundationsofcultureisauseful—perhapsevennecessary—complementto
otherformsofinquiryintoculture.Thismessage,wetrust,isofinterestto
anyonewhocaresabouttheemergenceandpersistenceofculture.Inaddi-
tion, the book reveals how the processes that govern individual cognition
andbehavioralsoultimatelyhavebigger,broaderconsequencesoncollec-
tive social structures. Thus, the ultimate consequences of psychological
processes extend well beyond the disciplinary constraints of psychology.
Thismessage,wehope,isofinteresttoanyonewhocaresabouttheconse-
quences of individual cognition and behavior.
Weassumethatmanyreadersareunawareofalltheexistingtheoryand
researchthatbearsontheguidingquestionsaboutthepsychologicalfoun-
dationsofculture.Thisassumptionisbasedonourownobservationsofex-
istingliteratures.Textswrittenforstudentsofanthropologyandsociology
donotengageinthesortofdetailedanalysisofindividualcognitionandbe-
havior necessary to study culture from a psychological perspective. Psy-
chologytextsrarelydiscusstheconsequentimpactofindividuals’thoughts
and behaviors on broader social structures. Cultural psychology books re-
view psychological differences between cultures, but rarely address ques-
tions about the processes through which these cultural differences origi-
nate and evolve. Even texts in social psychology—in which the power of
social norms is a defining principle—rarely discuss the processes through
which those norms emerge in the first place or change over time. When
theydo,thediscussionsarebriefandtypicallyrefertoresearchthatisdec-
ades old or older (e.g., Jacobs & Campbell, 1961; Sherif, 1936).
This scarcity of coverage in existing texts does not properly measure
howmuchweactuallydoknowaboutthepsychologicalfoundationsofcul-
ture. In recent years especially, there have emerged a number of research
programsthataddressquestionsabouttheinfluenceofpsychologicalproc-
esses on the origins and evolution of all sorts of shared beliefs and other
cultural structures. However, because these empirical inquiries often ad-
dressveryspecificprocessesorspecificexamplesofculturalnorms,thein-
tellectuallinkagesbetweentheseprogramsofresearcharenotalwaysobvi-
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6 SCHALLER,CONWAY,CRANDALL
ous.Theseconnectionsbecomeclearwhenthedifferentlinesoftheoryand
researchareconsideredtogether.Byprovidingthisconnectingcontext,We
hope that this book reveals more substantially what we know about the
manywaysinwhichpsychologicalprocessesinfluencetheemergenceand
evolution of culture.
Just as importantly, we hope this book reveals that there is still plenty
thatwedon’tknow.Asexcitingaswefindtheideas,theoriesandphenom-
ena summarized in these chapters, they merely scratch at the surface of
what we can know, and will know. This book will have best achieved its
goalsifitinspiresotherstotackletheimportantquestionsraisedaboutthe
psychological foundations of culture.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS
OF CULTURE: WHAT IT MEANS
AND HOW IT CAN BE DONE
What does it mean to inquire into the psychological foundations of culture?
Culture is a big broad construct; it transcends individuals, and doesn’t lend
itselfeasilytoapsychologicallevelofanalysis.So,beforeproceedingfurther,
itmightbeusefultoconsiderinabitmoredetailjusthowapsychologicalap-
proach to the origins and evolution of culture might possibly proceed.
Let’s begin with a bit of fun. You are probably familiar with a particular
type of fill-in-the-blank analogy item that shows up on standardized aca-
demicachievementtests:Thesortofitemsthatfitthetemplate“AistoBas
blank is to D.” Take a few seconds to answer these three:
1. An atom is to a substance as _____ is to a culture.
2. A gene is to a genome as _____ is to a culture.
3. A word is to a poem as _____ is to a culture.
In filling in those blanks, you may have generated three different an-
swers, or you may have given the same answer across all three items. If
you’relikemanypeople,youmighthaveusedwordssuchas“person”tofill
in one or more blanks. If you’re like many other people, you might have
used words such as “artifact,” “ritual,” “custom,” “norm,” “belief,” or “be-
havior.”Ifyou’reRichardDawkins,youmighthaveusedtheword“meme.”
Thereis,ofcourse,nosinglebestanswer.Theimportantpointisthatthere
areanswers;virtuallyeveryonefindssomewayofbreakingtheconstructof
culture down into smaller bits.
Thislittlegameillustratesakeyassumptionunderlyinginquiryintothe
psychological foundations of culture: Culture can be sensibly and fruit-
fully deconstructed. Just as physical substances are comprised of atoms,
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