The concept "culture" in cross-cultural psychology remains largely unexamined theoretically, and is often undifferentiated from other core behavioral science concepts such as "social system" and "society." As a result, the theoretical usefulness and research value of these constructs have been diminished seriously. In order to provide the beginnings of a theory of "culture" for heuristic use in cross-cultural psychology, an attempt is made in this article first, to differentiate conceptually, and second, to interrelate the packaged variables of "culture," "social system," and "society." The intent of this article is to promote the framework for shared understanding about culture and its relation to the other core concepts discussed here, and hence to initiate a dialogue within cross-cultural psychology about the utility of the conceptualization.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Bastian, A. (1895). Ethnische Elementargedanken in der Lehre vom Menschen. Berlin: Weidmann'sche Buchhandlung.
2.
Birdwhistell, R. (1970) Kinesics and context. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
3.
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge: MIT Press.
4.
Davidson, A. R. , & Thomson, E. (1980). Cross-Cultural studies of attitudes and beliefs. In H. C. Triandis & R. W. Brislin (Eds.), Handbook of cross-cultural psychology Vol 5. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
5.
Devereux, G. (1961). Two types of modal personality models. In B. Kaplan (Ed.), Studying personality cross-culturally. Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson & Co.
6.
Durkheim, E. (1915). The elementary forms of the religious life (J. W. Swain, Trans.). London: Allen & Unwin. (Original work published 1912)
7.
Freilich, M. (1978). The meaning of "Sociocultural." In B. Bernardi (Ed.), The concept and dynamics of culture. (pp. 90-101). The Hague: Mouton.
8.
Furbee, L. & Benfer, R. A. (1983). Cognitive and geographic maps: study of individual variation among tojolabal mayans. American Anthropologist, 85, 305-334.
9.
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books.
10.
Goodenough, W. H. (1957). Cultural anthropology and linguistics. In P. Garvin (Ed.), Report of the 7th Annual Round Table Meeting on Linguistics and Language Study. Washington, DC: Georgetown University. Monograph Series on Language and Linguistics, #9.
11.
Goodenough, W. H. (1981). Culture, language and society (2nd edition). Menlo Park, CA: The Benjamin/Cummings Pub. Co.
12.
Graves, T. D. (1972). Behavioral anthropology and the poverty of culture. Unpublished manuscript.
13.
Hall, E. T. (1959). The silent language. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co.
14.
Hall, E. T. (1966). The hidden dimension. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co.
15.
Jahoda, G. (1977). In pursuit of the emic-etic distinction: can we capture it? In Y. J. Poortinga (Ed.), Basic problems in cross-cultural psychology. Amsterdam: Swets and Zeitlinger.
16.
Kardiner, A. (1939). The individual and his society. New York: Columbia University Press.
17.
Kardiner, A. (1945). The psychological frontiers of society. New York: Columbia University Press.
18.
Keesing, R. M. (1972). Paradigm lost: the new ethnography and the new linguistics. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, 28, 299-332.
19.
Keesing, R. M. (1974). Theories of culture. Annual Review of Anthropology, 3,73-97.
20.
Keesing, R. M. & Keesing, F. M. (1971). New perspectives in cultural anthropology. New York: Holt, Rinehart.
21.
Kluckhohn, C. (1953). Universal categories of culture. In A. L. Kroeber (Ed.), Anthropology today. Illinois: University of Chicago Press.
22.
Lonner, W. J. (1980). The search for psychological universals. In H. C. Triandis and W. W. Lambert (Eds.), Handbook of cross-cultural psychology Vol 1. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
23.
MacDougall, W. (1920). The group mind. New York: G. P. Putnam & Son.
24.
Malinowski, B. (1922). Argonauts of the western pacific. New York: E. P. Dutton.
25.
Malinowski, B. (1944). A scientific theory of culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
26.
Marsh, R. M. (1967). Comparative sociology. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
27.
Morgan, L. H. (1877). Ancient society. New York: World Publishing.
28.
Murdock, G. P. (1945). The common denominators of culture. In R. Linton (Ed.), The science of man in the world crisis (pp. 123-142). New York: Columbia University Press.
29.
Murdock, G. P. (1971). Anthropology's mythology. Proceedings of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland for 1971 (pp. 17-24).
30.
Parsons, T. (1951). The social system. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.
31.
Parsons, T. (1973). Culture and social system revisited. In L. Schneider & C. Bonjean (Eds.), The idea of culture in the social sciences (pp. 33-46). London: Cambridge University Press.
32.
Parsons, T. (1975). The present status of 'structional-functional' theory in sociology. In L. A. Coser (Ed.), The idea of social structure. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
33.
Pelto, P. J. & Pelto, G. H. (1975). Intra-cultural diversity: some theoretical issues. American Ethnologist, 2, 1-18.
34.
Rohner R. P. (1975). They love me, they love me not. New Haven: HRAF Press.
35.
Rossides, D. W. (1968). Society as a functional process. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Co.
36.
Schneider, D. M. (1968). American kinship: a cultural account. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
37.
Schwartz, T. (1978) Where is the culture? personality as the distributive locus of culture. In G. D. Spindler (Ed.), The making of psychological anthropology (pp. 419-441). Berkeley: University of California Press.
38.
Schwartz, T. (1981). The acquisition of culture. Ethos, 9, 4-17.
39.
Sebeok, T. A. (1968). Goals and limitations in the study of animal communications. In T. A. Sebeok (Ed.), Animal communications (pp. 3-14). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
40.
Spiro, M. E. (1951). Culture and personality: the natural history of a false dichotomy. Psychiatry14, 19-46.
41.
Spiro, M. E. (1961). Social systems, personality and functional analysis. In B. Kaplan (Ed.), Studying personality cross-culturally. Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson & Co.
42.
Spiro, M. E. (1978). Culture and human nature. In G. D. Spindler (Ed.), The making of psychological anthropology. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
43.
Triandis, H. C. (1980). Introduction to handbook of cross-cultural psychology. In H. C. Triandis and W. W. Lambert (Eds.), Handbook of cross-cultural psychology Vol. 1 (pp. 1-14). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
44.
Tyler, S. A. (Ed.). (1969). Cognitive anthropology. New York: Holt, Rinehart.
45.
Tyler, E. B. (1871). Primitive culture. London: J. Murray.
46.
Van de Vijer, F.J.R. , & Poortinga Y. H. (1982). Cross-cultural generalization and universality. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 13, 387-408.
47.
Wallace, A.F.C. (1961). The psychic unity of human groups. In B. Kaplan (Ed.), Studying personality cross-culturally. Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson & Co.
48.
Wallace, A.F.C. (1970). Culture and personality. New York: Random House.
49.
White, L. (1948). Man's control over civilization. Scientific Monthly, 66, 235-247.
50.
White, L. (1949). Ethnological theory. In Sellars, McGill, and Farber (Eds.), Philosophy for the future. New York: Macmillan.
51.
Whiting, B. B. (1976). The problem of the packaged variable. In K. F. Riegel & J. A. Meacham (Eds.), The developing individual in a changing world, Vol. 1. Chicago, IL: Aldine.
52.
Wissler, C. (1926). The relation of nature to man in aboriginal america. New York: Oxford University Press.
