Culture, Society, and Cognition

Culture, Society, and Cognition PDF

Author: David B. Kronenfeld

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2008-12-10

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 3110211483

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This theoretically motivated approach to pragmatics (vs. semantics) produces a radically new view of culture and its role vis-a-vis society. Understanding what words mean in use requires an open-ended recourse to pragmatic cultural knowledge. Cultural knowledge makes up a productive conceptual system. Members of a cultural community share the system but not all of the system's content, making culture a system of parallel distributed cognition. This book presents such a system, and then elaborates a version of "cultural models" that relates actions to goals, values, emotional content, and context, and that allows both systematic generative capacity and systematic variation across cultural and subcultural groups. Such models are offered as the basic units of cultural action. Culture thus conceived is shown as a tool that people use rather than as something deeply internalized in their psyches.

Culture, Society, and Cognition

Culture, Society, and Cognition PDF

Author: David B. Kronenfeld

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2008-12-10

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 3110211483

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This theoretically motivated approach to pragmatics (vs. semantics) produces a radically new view of culture and its role vis-a-vis society. Understanding what words mean in use requires an open-ended recourse to pragmatic cultural knowledge. Cultural knowledge makes up a productive conceptual system. Members of a cultural community share the system but not all of the system's content, making culture a system of parallel distributed cognition. This book presents such a system, and then elaborates a version of "cultural models" that relates actions to goals, values, emotional content, and context, and that allows both systematic generative capacity and systematic variation across cultural and subcultural groups. Such models are offered as the basic units of cultural action. Culture thus conceived is shown as a tool that people use rather than as something deeply internalized in their psyches.

Cultural Models in Language and Thought

Cultural Models in Language and Thought PDF

Author: Dorothy Holland

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1987-01-30

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 9780521311687

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A multidisciplinary collaboration exploring the role of cultural knowledge in everyday language and understanding.

Culture in Mind

Culture in Mind PDF

Author: Karen A. Cerulo

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-05-13

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 1135956421

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What is thought and how does one come to study and understand it? How does the mind work? Does cognitive science explain all the mysteries of the brain? This collection of fourteen original essays from some of the top sociologists in the country, including Eviatar Zerubavel, Diane Vaughan, Paul Dimaggio and Gary Alan Fine, among others, opens a dialogue between cognitive science and cultural sociology, encouraging a new network of scientific collaboration and stimulating new lines of social scientific research. Rather than considering thought as just an individual act, Culture in Mind considers it in a social and cultural context. Provocatively, this suggests that our thoughts do not function in a vacuum: our minds are not alone. Covering such diverse topics as the nature of evil, the process of storytelling, defining mental illness, and the conceptualizing of the premature baby, these essays offer fresh insights into the functioning of the mind. Leaving the MRI behind, Culture in Mind will uncover the mysteries of how we think.

Modes of Thought

Modes of Thought PDF

Author: David R. Olson

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1996-09-28

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 9780521566445

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Modes of Thought addresses a topic of broad interest to the cognitive sciences. Its central focus is on the apparent contrast between the widely assumed 'psychological unity of mankind' and the facts of cognitive pluralism, the diverse ways in which people think and the developmental, cultural, technological and institutional factors which contribute to that diversity. Whether described in terms of modes of thought, cognitive styles, or sensibilities, the diversity of patterns of rationality to be found between cultures, in different historical periods, between individuals at different stages of development remains a central problem for a cultural psychology. Modes of Thought brings together anthropologists, historians, psychologists and educational theorists who manage to recognise the universality in thinking and yet acknowledge the cultural, historical and developmental contexts in which differences arise.

Language, Culture, and Society

Language, Culture, and Society PDF

Author: Christine Jourdan

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2006-05-11

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 1139452517

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Language, our primary tool of thought and perception, is at the heart of who we are as individuals. Languages are constantly changing, sometimes into entirely new varieties of speech, leading to subtle differences in how we present ourselves to others. This revealing account brings together eleven leading specialists from the fields of linguistics, anthropology, philosophy and psychology, to explore the fascinating relationship between language, culture, and social interaction. A range of major questions are discussed: How does language influence our perception of the world? How do new languages emerge? How do children learn to use language appropriately? What factors determine language choice in bi- and multilingual communities? How far does language contribute to the formation of our personalities? And finally, in what ways does language make us human? Language, Culture and Society will be essential reading for all those interested in language and its crucial role in our social lives.

A Cognitive Theory of Cultural Meaning

A Cognitive Theory of Cultural Meaning PDF

Author: Claudia Strauss

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 9780521595414

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'Culture' and 'meaning' are central to anthropology, but anthropologists do not agree on what they are. Claudia Strauss and Naomi Quinn propose a new theory of cultural meaning, one that gives priority to the way people's experiences are internalized. Drawing on 'connectionist' or 'neural network' models as well as other psychological theories, they argue that cultural meanings are not fixed or limited to static groups, but neither are they constantly revised and contested. Their approach is illustrated by original research on understandings of marriage and ideas of success in the United States.

Culture and Cognition

Culture and Cognition PDF

Author: J. W. Berry

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-03-04

Total Pages: 500

ISBN-13: 0429659156

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Originally published in 1974, studies of cultural influences on cognition, carried out from a variety of theoretical and methodological stances, were collected for the first time in this volume. The editors placed particular emphasis on selecting material by authors from many countries who had been working with people from a wide range of cultures. In a general introduction they provide an historical overview of the major issues, and draw together the most recent attempts to bring methodological sophistication to this difficult area of enquiry. Suggestions for future research on basic problems are to be found in an epilogue, along with a consideration of some possible applications of these studies to problems of education and social change. A comprehensive bibliography with over 600 entries is included in the volume.

The Oxford Handbook of Social Cognition

The Oxford Handbook of Social Cognition PDF

Author: Donal E. Carlston

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013-09-19

Total Pages: 967

ISBN-13: 0199730016

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This handbook provides a comprehensive review of social cognition, ranging from its history and core research areas to its relationships with other fields. The 43 chapters included are written by eminent researchers in the field of social cognition, and are designed to be understandable and informative to readers with a wide range of backgrounds.

Minds Make Societies

Minds Make Societies PDF

Author: Pascal Boyer

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2018-05-08

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 0300235178

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A scientist integrates evolutionary biology, genetics, psychology, economics, and more to explore the development and workings of human societies. “There is no good reason why human societies should not be described and explained with the same precision and success as the rest of nature.” Thus argues evolutionary psychologist Pascal Boyer in this uniquely innovative book. Integrating recent insights from evolutionary biology, genetics, psychology, economics, and other fields, Boyer offers precise models of why humans engage in social behaviors such as forming families, tribes, and nations, or creating gender roles. In fascinating, thought-provoking passages, he explores questions such as: Why is there conflict between groups? Why do people believe low-value information such as rumors? Why are there religions? What is social justice? What explains morality? Boyer provides a new picture of cultural transmission that draws on the pragmatics of human communication, the constructive nature of memory in human brains, and human motivation for group formation and cooperation. “Cool and captivating…It will change forever your understanding of society and culture.”—Dan Sperber, co-author of The Enigma of Reason “It is highly recommended…to researchers firmly settled within one of the many single disciplines in question. Not only will they encounter a wealth of information from the humanities, the social sciences and the natural sciences, but the book will also serve as an invitation to look beyond the horizons of their own fields.”—Eveline Seghers, Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture