Cultural psychology

Cultural psychology describes an interdisciplinary field of science that deals with the constructions of meaning and meaning of people in their specific cultural environment as well as the experience and action associated with them.

definition

Jerome Bruner describes a psychology that focuses on meaning and meaning as an interpretive cultural psychology . According to Billmann-Mahecha , the various approaches in cultural psychology are based on a concept of culture that can be characterized as a system of signs, knowledge, rules and symbols. On the one hand, this structures the experience and action space of people as a culture-specific foundation and, on the other hand, is (re) constructed and changed in the implementation of action and life practice. Culture and psyche are mutually dependent. A person regardless of the cultural and historical context, e.g. To examine, for example, in the laboratory , cannot be the goal of cultural psychology.

Demarcation

In contrast to the dominant (nomological, scientific -oriented) psychology and its sub-discipline, cross-cultural or intercultural psychology, cultural psychology takes the view that people's behavior cannot be exclusively described objectively and explained by causal relationships. That is why it sees itself as an alternative to or supplement to nomothetic psychology. People act on the basis of intentions and meanings that they have acquired in their biography and sociocultural life practice and which, depending on the context, stimulate and make possible a wide range of experiences and actions. Experiences and actions are always 'overdetermined' ( Sigmund Freud ) and show various aspects of meaning and meaning. Ernst Boesch describes this phenomenon as the polyvalence of actions. Cultural psychology maintains close substantive relationships with indigenous psychologies, with ethnopsychology and ethnopsychoanalysis as well as with various hermeneutic approaches in psychology, philosophy , sociology and ethnology .

Historical origins

The German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) in 1902

The discipline has developed in various European countries (including Russia ) as well as in the United States , so there are diverse historical developments as the origin of cultural psychology. Currents in Germany also played an important role , such as the ethnological psychology of Moritz Lazarus , Hajm Steinthal or Wilhelm Wundt . The term cultural psychology was z. Partly already introduced by Erich Stern and Willi Hellpach, closely following ethnic psychology - from which current approaches are, however, also clearly different in theoretical, methodological and normative terms.

For the USA, the beginning of cultural psychology lies in cultural anthropology . especially in the Culture and Personality Studies , the Franz Boas , Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead have initiated. Robert LeVine tried to revive the tradition that lasted until the 1960s under Abram Kardiner at the end of the 1970s and invented the term Cultural Psychology , which he and his student Richard Shweder brought into the scientific discourse. Another important reason for the establishment of a cultural psychology in the USA is the so-called cognitive turn , the overcoming of the prevailing behavioristic paradigm of stimulus and reaction through the exploration of experience and action-relevant structures of meaning and meaning. Contrary to expectations of a fundamental renewal of psychology, Jerome Bruner called for a 'second cognitive revolution', especially in the 1990s (in historical retrospect), which he also called cultural psychology. Like many others - such as Michael Cole and Carl Ratner - he was able to tie in with the tradition of the Soviet cultural-historical school and occupational psychology ( Lev. S. Wygotski , Alexander R. Lurija , Alexei N. Leontjew ). Carl Ratner's Macro Cultural Psychology in particular stands for a new, innovative theoretical approach.

Today, cultural psychology can be understood to mean different things - also depending on the respective historical origin. The field is heterogeneous, despite some largely common methodological principles and a common conceptual understanding of understanding people in their cultural-historical context.

In Germany, Ernst Boesch has been working out a symbolic-action-theoretical cultural psychology since the 1950s, which is still influential today. Boesch's independent and original approach, however, was hardly received until the 1980s. In the 1950s, which also originated morphological psychology of Wilhelm Salber that a connection between Gestalt psychology and depth psychology sought to explore cultural phenomena. From the 1970s, enters Critical Psychology of Klaus Holzenkamp added that emphasizes the cultural and historical context bondage of human experience and behavior closely following the Soviet occupation psychology without understanding in the strict sense as a cultural psychology. The same applies to other (subject, social and cultural studies) approaches in psychology or ethnology, which emphasize the nexus between culture and person and understand their research as interpretative practice, e.g. B. the social constructionist psychology of Kenneth Gergen or the semiotic-interpretative cultural anthropology of Clifford Geertz . After cultural psychology in North America (as well as comparative cultural psychology) was firmly established within the specialist disciplines, its influence increased worldwide, including in Germany. Since the beginning of the 1990s in particular, more and more psychologists who put human experience and action in the context of a practice that is structured in terms of meaning and meaning and who conduct research in this perspective have understood themselves as cultural psychologists. That applies u. a. for action-theoretical, activity-psychological, critical-psychological or social construction-oriented approaches or for followers of the cultural-historical school.

Depth psychological approaches have contributed significantly to the establishment of cultural psychological knowledge: Sigmund Freud's writings on cultural theory ( Totem and Tabu , The Uneasiness in Culture ) described culture as a formative, but also a repressive force on the unconscious experience of people. The ethnologist Géza Róheim applied the findings of psychoanalysis to indigenous societies and is one of the pioneers of ethnopsychoanalysis, which also received significant impulses from Georges Devereux . The importance of culture for the unconscious was also reflected in the neo-psychoanalytic work around the Frankfurt School , e. B. with Erich Fromm (myth analysis), Herbert Marcuse (influence of culture on the drive structure) and Alfred Lorenzer (scenic understanding as a cultural-psychological method). The Complex Analytical Psychology Carl Gustav Jung was looking for collective patterns of interpretation (archetypes) which, as universals, wanted to explain and make understandable human experience across different cultures (Eastern and Western religions).

method

Since constructions of meaning and meaning can only be explored reconstructively and interpretatively and are inaccessible to scientific experiments (aimed at checking causal relationships) , cultural psychologies use the methods of qualitative social research and cultural analysis, which they largely share with other social sciences. Special cultural psychological methods can be found, for example, in Wilhelm Salber's Psychological Morphology and Ernst Boesch's Symbolic Action Theory and Cultural Psychology, but also in ethno-psychoanalytical or in-depth hermeneutic approaches relevant to cultural psychology. Boesch's methodology is essentially designed as a "connotation analysis" and is currently updated for empirical research. In addition to experiences and actions, narratives in which complex stories of experiences and actions as well as interwoven psychosocial developments can be examined can be used as central analysis units in cultural psychologies. That is why there is - as u. a. with Bruner and Boesch - close connections between cultural psychologies and narrative psychology .

organization

German-speaking cultural psychologists organize themselves in the Society for Cultural Psychology . This company under Austrian law was founded in 1986 by Hans Werbik , Wilhelm Salber and Wilhelm Josef Revers in Salzburg , where it is still based today. The society strives to promote theoretical, empirical and applied cultural psychology and cross-cultural psychology as well as the dissemination of its knowledge. It has awarded the Ernst Boesch Prize for Cultural Psychology every two years since 2015. In the German-speaking area, cultural psychology is u. a. Institutionalized at the following universities: Ruhr University Bochum , University of Vienna , Business School Berlin , University of Applied Sciences Wiener Neustadt , Sigmund Freud Private University Vienna .

Comparative cultural psychologists, on the other hand, organize themselves in the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology (IACCP).

Winner of the Ernst Boesch Prize for Cultural Psychology

• 2015 Jürgen Straub

• 2017 Lutz Eckensberger, Sarah Demmrich (Young Talent Award)

literature

• Christian G. Allesch, Elfriede Billmann-Mahecha (ed.): Perspektiven der Kulturpsychologie . Heidelberg: Asanger 1990.
• Christian G. Allesch, Elfriede Billmann-Mahecha, Alfred Lang (eds.): Psychological aspects of cultural change . Vienna: VWGÖ 1992.
• Christian G. Allesch, Michaela Schwarzbauer (ed.): The culture and the arts . Heidelberg: Winter 2007.      
• Ernst E. Boesch : Symbolic action theory and cultural psychology . Springer, New York 1991.
• Ernst E. Boesch & Jürgen Straub : Cultural Psychology. Principles, orientations, concepts . In: G. Trommsdorff, H.-J. Kornadt (ed.): Encyclopedia of Psychology. Theories and methods of comparative cultural psychology (Vol. 1; pp. 25–95). Hogrefe, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-8017-1502-1 .
• Jerome Bruner : Sense, Culture and I-Identity. On the cultural psychology of meaning . Carl Auer Systeme Verlag, Heidelberg 1997, ISBN 3-89670-013-8 .
• Pradeep Chakkarath: Culture and Psychology. For the development and positioning of cultural psychology . Kovác, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-8300-1050-8 (also dissertation, University of Konstanz 2000).
• Pradeep Chakkarath, Jürgen Straub: Cultural Psychology . In: G. Mey & K. Mruck (eds.), Handbook Qualitative Research in Psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 284–304). Wiesbaden: Springer 2020.
• Pradeep Chakkarath, Doris Weidemann (Hrsg.): Kulturpsychologische Gegenwartsdiagnosen. Inventories of science and society . transcript, Bielefeld 2018, ISBN 978-3-8376-1500-5 .
• Jochen Fahrenberg: Wilhelm Wundts Kulturpsychologie (Völkerpsychologie): A psychological development theory of the mind. PsyDok document server for psychology. (PDF file, 652 kB)
• Herbert Fitzek, Michael Ley (eds.): Everyday life on the move. Giessen: psychosocial 2003. (= intermediate steps 21)
• Herbert Fitzek, Ralph Sichler (eds.): Cultures in dialogue: fields and forms of intercultural communication and competence. Giessen: psychosocial 2011. (= intermediate steps 28/29)
• Willy Hellpach : Cultural Psychology. A representation of the spiritual origins and drives, structures and disruptions. Changes and effects of human value systems and the creation of goods . Enke: Stuttgart 1953.
• Gerd Jüttemann (Ed.): Wilhelm Wundt's other legacy. A misunderstanding resolves . Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2006.
• Uichol Kim et al. a. (Ed.): Indigenous and Cultural Psychology. Understanding People in Context . Springer, New York 2006, ISBN 0-387-28661-6 .
• David Matsumoto: Culture and Psychology . 4th ed. Thomson Wadsworth, Belmont, California 2008, ISBN 978-0-495-09787-7 .
• Aglaja Przyborski, Gerhard Benetka: The Bologna Process as an opportunity for a praxeological turn in psychology training . Concept of a cultural studies-oriented psychology course. (PDF; 98 kB) Psychology in Austria 6, 2006.
• Rainer Schönhammer (Ed.): Body, things and movement. The sense of balance in material culture and aesthetics. Vienna: facultas 2009.
• Thomas Slunecko: From construction to dynamic constitution: observations on your own trail. Facultas University Press; Edition: 2nd, revised edition 2008.
• Thomas Slunecko, Martin Wieser, Aglaja Przyborski: Cultural Psychology in Vienna . Vienna: facultas 2017.  
• Jürgen Straub : plot, interpretation, criticism. Basics of a textual action and cultural psychology . Series “Perspektiven der Menschenwissenschaften” (Volume 18), ed. by CF Graumann, M. Herzog and A. Métraux. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter 1999 (English, with a new introduction, Transaction Publishers (Ed. Jaan Valsiner) 2018).
• Jürgen Straub: Historical positions and lines of development of a culture-integrating psychology . In H.-J. Kornadt & G. Trommsdorff (Eds.), Comparative Cultural Psychology. Encyclopedia of Psychology. Series VII. Subject area C “Theory and Research” (pp. 119–178) . Göttingen: Hogrefe 2007.   
• Klaus Stierstorfer, Laurent Volkmann (ed.): Interdisciplinary cultural studies . Narr, Tübingen 2005. ISBN 3823361244 .
• Wilhelm Wundt: Völkerpsychologie. An investigation into the laws of development of language, myth and custom. 10 volumes. Engelmann: Leipzig 1900–1920.

Web links

• Society for Cultural Psychology
• Center for Cultural Psychology at Aalborg University, DK
• International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology (IACCP)   
• Culture & Psychology

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jerome Bruner: Sense, Culture and I-Identity. On the cultural psychology of meaning. Auer, Heidelberg 1997, p. 16 .
2. ^ Elfriede Billmann-Mahecha: Kulturpsychologie . In: Psychology from AZ. The sixty most important disciplines . Spektrum, Munich 2003, p. 97 .
3. ↑ Sigmund Freud: The Interpretation of Dreams . In: Collected Works . tape II / III , 1899, pp. 1-642 .
4. ^ Pradeep Chakkarath: The role of indigenous psychologies in the building of basic cultural psychology . In: Jaan Valsiner (Ed.): The Oxford Handbook of Culture and Psychology . Oxford University Press, New York 2012, pp. 71-95 .
5. ↑ Gustav Jahoda: Crossroads between culture and mind. Continuities and change in theories of human nature . Harvester / Wheatsheaf, London 1992.
6. ↑ Pradeep Chakkarath: Culture and Psychology: On the scientific origin and location of cultural psychology . Dr. Kovac, Hamburg 2003.
7. ↑ Lars Allolio-Näcke: social psychology . In: Thomas Teo (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology: SpringerReference . Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 2014.
8. ^ Richard A. Shweder: Why Cultural Psychology? In: ethos . tape 27 , no. 1 , 1999, p. 62-73 .
9. ^ Jerome S. Bruner: Acts of meaning. Four lectures on mind and culture . Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 1990.
10. ↑ Michael Cole: Cultural Psychology: A Once and Future Discipline . Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 1996.
11. ^ Carl Ratner: Macro cultural psychology: a political philosophy of mind . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2012.
12. ^ Ernst E. Boesch: Symbolic Action Theory and Cultural Psychology . Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 1991.
13. ^ Wilhelm Selber: Art - Psychology - Treatment . Bouvier, Cologne 1999.
14. ↑ Klaus Holzkamp: Fundamentals of Psychology . Campus, Frankfurt am Main 1983.
15. ^ Herbert Fitzek: Morphological description . In: Günther Mey & Katja Mruck (Eds.): Handbook Qualitative Research in Psychology . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2010, p. 692-706 .
16. ↑ Ernst E. Boesch: Konnotationsanalyse - for the use of the free association of ideas in diagnosis and therapy. Materials for psychoanalysis and analytically oriented psychotherapy . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen / Zurich 1977.