Despite the recognized importance of cultural diversity in
understanding the modern world, the emerging science of cognitive
psychology has relied far more on experimental psychology,
neurobiology, and computer science than on cultural anthropology for
its models of how we think. In this exciting new book, anthropologist
Bradd Shore has created the first study linking multi-culturalism to
cognitive psychology, exploring the complex relationship between
culture in public institutions and in mental representations. In so
doing, he answers in a completely new way the age old question of
whether humans are basically the same psychologically, independent of
cultures, or basically diverse because of cultural differences. The
first half of the book emphasizes cultural models, from Australian
Aboriginal rituals and Samoan comedy skits, to more familiar terrain,
including a study of baseball as a cultural model for Americans. Along
the way, the author sheds new and novel light on many familiar
institutions, from educational curricula and shopping malls to modular
furniture and cyberpunk fiction. These observations are then linked to
theoretical developments in linguistics, semiotics, and neuroscience,
creating a bold new approach to understanding the role of culture in
everyday meaning making. The author argues that culture must be
considered an intrinsic component of the human mind to a degree that
most psychologists and even many anthropologists have not recognized.
This new position of cultural models will make absorbing reading for
psychologists, anthropologists, linguists, and philosophers, and to
anyone interested in the issues of cultural diversity,
multiculturalism, or cognitive science in general.