Turning to the blind spot of European social psychology: Culture (original) (raw)
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Psicothema, 2000
The re s p e c t ive influence of social stru c t u re and culture in the det e rminants of social behavior is a classical deb at e. Social stru c t u re is conceived of as a set of social re l ations, such as economy, powe r and status. Social stru c t u re is a persisting and bounded pat t e rn of in-Conceptions of culture, collective memory, ethnic identity and cultural explanations are reviewed and criticized. Subjective culture is conceived off as shared denotative, connotative and pragmatic knowledge. Culture is conceptualized as fluid tension systems in which there is a coexistence of heterogeneous and contradictory aspects. Cultural values designed what is desirable in societies and are related to five basic themes of social coordination, like the relation with authority; the relationship between the person and society; the concept of masculinity and femininity, conflicts and their resolution and the conception of time. Cultural explanations posits that a social behavior in accord with a widely shared moral attitude occurs in spite the situation may offer different opportunities. A cultural explanation should be tested against situational and socio-structural explanations. Direct assessment of the norm and values are necessary to avoid tautological reasoning in cultural explanations. Culture is also a set of regular situational contingencies or collective and practices and subjects learn to define situations and practices in cultural perspective. A cultural explanation should pit «desirable institutional arrangements» against non-volitional situational contingencies or socio-structural characteristics that are the effects of non desired historical changes. Culturalist explanation assume that culture arise in an dependent manner of situational forces, like peasantry life style and the representations of limited good, social life in slums and culture of poverty, or herding economies, state weakness and dominance of cavalry as social career and honour culture. Nonobstant values and norms have a life apart from the situations and endure beyond the demise of original situations, as shows the culture of honour case. However, most of data on culture and socioeconomic development shows that individualism and protestant work ethic's (PWE) beliefs are a result and not a cause of economical growth. Contrary to Weber's ideas the PWE were more strongly endorsed in poorer, collectivistic and high power distance societies. Finally, some data suggest that culture can act as independent variable, like is the case of social capital and economic development.
European Journal of Social Psychology, 1996
This study aims to provide a picture of the present European research topics in Social Psychology, using the 339 papers presented at the 1993 General Meeting of the EAESP. The most frequent themes of research are analysed and the structure of the association of those themes are described in a two-factor structure. The first factor differentiates research in terms of level of analysis and the second factor contrasts types of applied research.
European journal of social psychology, 2018
The European Journal of Social Psychology (EJSP), as the voice of the European Association of Social Psychology, aims to promote diversity and a distinctively “European”, more “social”, social psychology (SP). However, whether and how these objectives have been accomplished over time remains controversial. This paper enters this debate, tracing the history of SP as depicted by EJSP publications, via two types of lexicometric analyses of all abstracts of the Journal (1971-2016). Themes, processes, methods, and their organization in cycles and clusters over time, were identified and analysed. Regarding diversity, findings indicate that the publications reflect several of the new theoretical proposals that emerged over the years, but do not fully reflect the variety of perspectives and methods of the discipline. It further indicates that lately the “social” is predominantly present in attention to pressing social issues, albeit the processes involved in them are mostly theorized at an individualistic level. This pattern suggests the importance of keeping open the quest for epistemological and methodological diversity, and of re-problematizing what the “social” in SP means. By contributing to mapping the history of SP, offering a more comprehensive and reflexive view for it, the present analyses also help in forging a stronger discipline.
Collaborative Case Studies for a European cultural psychology
2006
Despite this expertise, Cultural Psychologists have neglected to reflect upon their own social interactions in the production of knowledge. Collaborations between researchers and research users, or across disciplines and national boundaries are increasingly common, but their value and appropriate design have received little explication.
Psychology and Culture: Back to the Future?
Psychological Studies, 2015
Psychology has a poor record in addressing cultural phenomena. One response is to turn to ancient concepts from local traditions and to use these as alternative analytic categories to explain behavior. However, there are problems with such an approach. These concepts will be read from the vantage point of the present and interpreted differently so as to propose different diagnoses (and solutions) for contemporary social problems. As an alternative, rather than using ancient resources as analytic categories in the explanation of behavior, we could instead examine how they are used as categories of practice as people actively make sense of their social context and themselves. Attending to such contemporary 'lay' usage (and the contestation it entails) allows for a more dynamic conception of cultural processes than is typical in psychology. More generally, I believe that it is possible to use our psychological constructs so that we can see the distinctive particularities of the phenomena before us in new and interesting ways, and in ways that respect their cultural specificity. This claim is illustrated through reference to recent work using the concept of social identity to illuminate aspects of Hindu pilgrimage.
The future of cultural psychology: An interview with Jaan Valsiner
Europe’s Journal of Psychology
Jaan Valsiner (JV) has been the foremost cultural psychologist in the world for the last 30 years. In 2021 professor Valsiner turned seventy, and he agreed to do an interview with colleagues and students on his understanding of cultural psychology, its potential for innovation and its connection to his many interesting experiences from around the world. The interview was conducted by the three directors of the Center for Cultural Psychology in Aalborg Denmark: Carolin Demuth (CD), Brady Wagoner (BW), and Bo Allesøe Christensen (BA). For an extensive discussion of the different sides of Valsiner work, readers can consult the recently published Festschrift (Wagoner, B., Christensen, B., & Demuth, C. [Eds.]. [2021]. Culture as process: A tribute to Jaan Valsiner. Springer.).