The term “culturally shaped shapers” refers to the fact that how people are shaped by the culture they are born into, how they help recreating their norms and how they shape these norms. The existence of these shaping interactions can be considered universal, but the process can differentiate across the globe based on the culture. Dichotomies such as individualism and collectivism or analytic and holistic perception are born from these differences. Although these dichotomies help us explain the differences of cultural dynamics and provide a reference point, they should not be taken as a strict classification system, rather a scale.
It can be easily imagined that these cultural features affect individuals in various ways: Cognition, perception, development and etc. Throughout the human life, these values or norms are applied to individuals lives and transferred to the new generations, resulting in keeping a culture alive. Analyzing these transformations can help us understand certain cultural dynamics or conflicts.
The bonus article destroys various assumptions that are wrong about cultural psychology. Firstly, it underlines the fact that while studying psychological processes, cultural elements cannot be eliminated. It also explains what cultural psychology is and is not; by showing it is not only about detecting cultural differences, but also finding out the reasons behind these differences. Cultural psychology also does not only focus on cultural differences, also similarities. Lastly, this are does not only delve into the group-leveled factors, as it analyzes both the culture and the person, it also focuses on the individual-level.
It seems to me when people talk about cultural psychology, it does not go beyond the cultural differences of certain individuals. In most of the studies we can see how cultural factors should also be taken into account, or these differences could change the result of a study but it mostly does not go beyond that. Cultural psychology is not a reductionist area aimed to underline there may be differences among people, it is an are that is responsible for providing explanations regarding these features.
The old version of this journal, based on the feedback:
Cultural psychology may be one of the most overlooked subfields of psychology. And I think the reason for that is simply because it is not considered to be a simple aspect for a study. Even some psychologists in the field may not take this field seriously and the reason for that is even they miss out the most important features of cultural psychology. It does not only focus on cultural differences, but also cultural similarities. It is also proven that cultural features of a person have a great impact on their perception, for example their tasting.
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