The sociocultural movement in psychology, the role of theories in sociocultural inquiries, and the theory of sociocultural models

Abstract

This special issue presents the theory of sociocultural models (TSCM) and its applications in diverse areas of psychology, including education, health care, clinical practice, gender relations, and general research. As many theories already exist in the social sciences, some readers may ask: “Why do cross‐cultural, cultural, and indigenous psychologists need another theory?” This question is comprised of two aspects: culture/cultural and theory/theoretical. Therefore, to answer it, it is important to clarify both issues. The first relates to cultural and its relation to psychological. The second, theory, considers its relation to cultural and psychological. These issues have long‐range implications for all culture and psychology disciplines as they pose many questions: What role does culture play in the mental functioning of people? How is culture constituted? Is cultural related to social? Does people’s mental functioning exert reciprocal influences on their cultural and social functioning? While working toward answering these questions, researchers quickly determine that more questions arise: What role should theories play in answering these questions? What constitutes theory in culture and psychology disciplines? How should such a theory (or such theories) address the triad of cultural, social, and mental? Consequently, in an effort to provide an overview of the TSCM and to begin to answer these questions, this introduction consists of two parts. The first part addresses the sociocultural turn in modern psychology; this part discusses its implications for research in culture and psychology disciplines. The second segment examines the topic of the theoretical backgrounds of cultural and cross‐cultural research and connects the philosophical paradigms of interpretivism and realism with the theory of sociocultural models. This introduction concludes with a brief overview of the articles included in this issue.

Alfred Schutz’s ‘Stranger’, the theory of sociocultural models, and mechanisms of acculturation

“…Its primary thesis is that the mechanism of acculturation is comprised of reflecting upon, comparing, navigating through, and accommodating two sets of SCM – one from the immigrant’s home culture and the other from his or her host community. This theory is rooted in critical realist philosophy and incorporates elements of interpretivism (Chirkov, 2020b). Using the TSCM allows researchers to approach acculturation as a set of processes that unfold in the sociocultural field of the host community as well as in the mind of the acculturating person.…”

“…These models are shared and taken-for-granted schemes for interpreting and scripts for acting in the world. (Chirkov, 2020b, p. 129)…”

Impact of cultural values on leadership roles and paternalistic style from the role theory perspective

“…However, in the literature, it is not clear how leaders can respond to need or request of role change from organizations (Rowe and Guerrero, 2011). Sociocultural psychology aims to resolve the indivisible part of leaders' emergence, development, existence and functioning (Chirkov, 2020). The process of adaptation, change in the role of leaders, until now, is often used in a rather automatic and generalized fashion (Breugelmans, 2011).…”

“…Different cultures have their own indigenous psychologies, which shape the applications of its results and interventions, and that creates possibilities for social change (Ashdown and Buck, 2018;Fredericks, 2009;Steel and Heritage, 2020;Wagoner et al, 2018). Organizations, like communal sociocultural environments, are formed by hierarchically structured and distributed systems (Chirkov, 2020). However, in organizations, our notion of how individuals and culture relate has remained somewhat underdeveloped (Breugelmans, 2011;Gelfand, 2012;Matsumoto and Yoo, 2006).…”

“…Organizations as psychological entities may be influenced by social and cultural factors; however, they are self-contained mental phenomena that could be studied and understood relatively independently from their sociocultural contexts, e.g. leadership (Chirkov, 2020). According to Generative Entrenchment Theory (Wimsatt, 2013), thoughts and behaviors their behaviors according to roles that they get then to define (or act) by focusing on expectations that these expectations are also defined by values.…”