I will start by briefly talking about the article. Author starts by telling stories and in the first story she mentions that the article she submitted gets rejected since the cross-cultural research did not fit the journal. She argues that if the journal is about human cognition, then the cross-cultural research should fit the journal, otherwise it only includes the WEIRD humans. I think another code for Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic can be WIRED. This is because we are “wired” to think in this description in our education. We are “wired” to think that this is the regular human behavior instead of the behavior of a specific group. This way of thinking dismisses the majority of the human race. Article also mentions 5 assumptions about cultural psychology. These assumptions born from misunderstandings or the incomplete understandings of both the psychology and the culture. The assumption I found the most interesting is the fourth one: Cultural Psychology is irrelevant to basic psychological processes. Both the article and the chapter tells there are cognitive differences between the different people. It reminded me of the Perception class I took in the previous year. In that class we learned about a tribe that can differentiate between different hues of green but aren’t so successful at differentiating the green from blue (Goldstein, Davidoff, & Roberson, 2009). Similar example was about a tribe that could not see very far away since they live in a very crowded forest. If there can be such drastic differences between people, surely the researches can’t be generalized to the whole humankind. The culture cycle was very significant about the chapter and its graph was a good way of demonstrating the influence among each other. Independent agency and interdependent agency part reminded me the Dionysian and Apollonian society concepts of Ruth Benedict (1934). Independent agency values collective values more while independent agency values the individual. Dionysian societies value collectivism and has numerous social rituals whereas Apollonian societies value individualism, rationality and personal achievements more. Even in the entrance of the temple of Apollo in Delphi it writes “Know Thyself” but in Dionysus cult rituals attendants wear masks in order to reduce the individuality.
Benedict, R. (1959). Patterns of culture (Vol. 8). Houghton Mifflin. (Original work published 1934)
Goldstein, J., Davidoff, J., & Roberson, D. (2009). Knowing color terms enhances recognition: further evidence from English and Himba. Journal of experimental child psychology, 102(2), 219–238. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2008.06.002
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