The Oxford Handbook of Culture and Psychology

• Main Author: Valsiner, Jaan
• Format: eBook Book
• Language: English
• Published: United Kingdom Oxford University Press 2012; Oxford University Press, Incorporated
• Edition: 1
• Series: Oxford Library of Psychology
• Subjects: acting; conceptions; cultural psychology; Culture; Ethnopsychology; feeling; human cultural constructions; human psychological functions; Psychological aspects; Psychology; semiotics; social contexts; Social interaction; Social psychology; thinking
• ISBN: 9780199930630; 0199930635; 9780195396430; 019539643X
• DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195396430.001.0001

The goal of cultural psychology is to explain the ways in which human cultural constructions—for example, rituals, stereotypes, and meanings—organize and direct human acting, feeling, and thinking in different social contexts. A rapidly growing, international field of scholarship, cultural psychology is ready for an interdisciplinary, primary resource. Linking psychology, anthropology, sociology, archaeology, and history, this publication unites the variable perspectives from these disciplines. It comprises over fifty contributed articles, providing a comprehensive overview of contemporary cultural psychology, comparing cultures and the (often differing) human psychological functions occurring within them. It presents a concise history of psychology that includes valuable resources for innovation in psychology in general and cultural psychology in particular; interdisciplinary articles including insights into cultural anthropology, cross-cultural psychology, culture and conceptions of the self, and semiotics and cultural connections; close, conceptual links with contemporary biological sciences, especially developmental biology, and with other social sciences; and a section detailing potential methodological innovations for cultural psychology.