Experiments on Culture Psychology

Abstract

Opening ParagraphThe claim of psychology to a share in the study of culture and society is by no means firmly established. Indeed, a certain school of modern sociology and anthropology would cleanse the study of society from all psychological assumptions and interpretations and would deal with cultural and social phenomena as phenomena entirely in their own right. As this article is to describe an attempt to include psychology in anthropological field work a few words must be said first in justification of this attempt to examine, over and above the concrete realities of culture, the psychological factors ‘behind’ culture.

What makes memory constructive? A study in the serial reproduction of Bartlett’s experiments

“…He compared serial reproduction chains of people from France, Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and USA for a variety of different texts, including a passage from TS Eliot on the sacrament of Catholic priesthood, a textbook description of a 15th century invasion and a report of a cricket match. Like Nadel (1937), Talland found that different kinds of changes were more characteristic to certain (national) groups and particular texts. For example, neutral accounts (e.g., the text about 15th century history) prompted no 'elaboration' from participants.…”

“…The last three kinds of changes were much more common with younger children. Nadel (1937) was an anthropologist that aimed to bring Bartlett's approach into his field site in Northern Nigeria. He had been working among the Nupe tribe, where he was also brought into close contact with the neighboring Yoruba tribe.…”

“…In relation to Bartlett's (1932) terms a tendency towards enumerating 'descriptive details' becomes linked with the Nupe and meaning-oriented 'rationalization' with the Yoruba. Nadel (1937) does not use the word 'conventionalization' but he sets out to study it through a comparison of the two group's recall, finding that the Yoruba do tend to strengthen rational links in the story while the Yoruba tend to 'enumerate' details. As with Maxwell (1936) and Northway (1936), Nadel is careful to argue that while cultural patterns of the two groups clearly guide recall in a certain direction one cannot ignore the individual variability within each group.…”

Informant Error and Native Prestige Ranking in Zinacantan1

“…' A related logic, the use of erroneous recall to infer important cultural and cognitive principles, is illustrated by Nadel (1937) and Kennedy and Lasswell (1958). The use of ambiguous stimuli, e.g., TAT pictures, to get at cultural themes (in contrast to use for depth psychology) also follows a related logic.…”

What's Cultural About Cross-Cultural Cognitive Psychology?

“…The technology for the former kind of analysis is still rudimentary (3 1, 52, 66, 78), the latter, embryonic (3,5,15,29,35,42,56). Nor is such knowledge a sure foundation on which to build.…”