Psychological Anthropology - A Review (2023)

Entry

Psychological anthropologyis a sub-field of anthropology that focuses on how cognition, emotion, and motivation are shaped in socio-cultural environments, and on psychological factors important to cultural learning and expression. Psychological anthropologists study topics such as narrative, identity, experience, emotion, memory, discourse, beliefs, conscious goals and unconscious desires, conceptual structures, gender, sexuality, trauma, mental illness, stigma, and psychological development in a variety of social and cultural contexts.

Unlike norms in related subfields of psychology (e.g., cultural psychology, social psychology, or cross-cultural psychology), psychological anthropology methods are usually drawn from a set of anthropological tools, including participant observation and qualitative interviews. In addition, formal methods or experiments can be used. Psychological anthropologists are often critical of the approach sometimes found in psychological research where culture is viewed as a single variable.

Unlike other fields of anthropology that also deal with cultural values, beliefs, and identities, psychological anthropologists tend to use "person-centered" methods (LeVine, 1982), that is, those who are aware of the thoughts, feelings, and motivations of individuals (Netherlands, 2001).

Some important subfields of psychological anthropology are cognitive anthropology (w se Cognitive anthropology), psychoanalytic anthropology, psychiatric anthropology, cross-cultural child development research, ethnopsychology and biocultural research.

The article begins with introductory remarks and an overview of the field. Here are the different perspectives mentionedpsychological anthropology(i.e. cultural psychology, ethnopsychology, cross-cultural child development research, psychoanalytic anthropology, psychology of evolutionary anthropology and cognitive anthropology). It should be noted that theoretical controversies in this field often revolve around whether to emphasize universal human psychology or local culture. The next two sections provide a brief history of the field, namely culture and personality in North America and the encounter between social anthropology and psychoanalysis in Britain. Below is an overview of relevant contemporary psychological anthropology focusing on key areas of ongoing controversy, including human nature, incest aversion, child development, the Oedipus complex, self and emotion, linguistic determinism, discourse, embodiment, moral reasoning, and cultural symbolism . . Here, too, the tensions between psychological and cultural explanations, universalism and particularism are evident. In the final part, the basic theoretical dilemmas and controversies in psychological anthropology are discussed and attention is paid to contemporary attempts to solve them, in particular the turn towards discursive ethnography and the reunion of social anthropology with psychoanalysis.

Entry

Psychological anthropologyis a recognized sub-field of (mostly) American anthropology. Its organizational purpose is The Society for Psychological Anthropology, a division of the American Anthropological Association, and its official journal isethos. The main and constant interest of psychological anthropology is undoubtedly the psychological mediation of the relationship between the individual and culture. The first organized school of psychological anthropology was Culture and Personality, founded during World War II. Over the next three decades, the culture and personality subfield grew and diversified, and several elements of it remain active today. Partly as a response to culture and personality, and in relation to its main problems, new schools have also sprung up, both within and outside anthropology.

This is not a study of national character

Attempts to characterize entire populations in terms of generalized dispositions (e.g., authoritarianism, Apollonianism, high need for achievement) went out of fashion inpsychological anthropologythe late fifties and early sixties. This happened for various reasons, but mainly because looking for differences in personality types to explain differences in cultural practices or habit complexes (and vice versa) turned out to be a bit of a dead end. It has been found that when trying to describe individuals within and between cultural communities in terms of general dispositions or traits, within-group differences tend to be greater than between-group differences. It has been found that putative "modal personality types" typically characterize only about one-third of the population of a given cultural group.

An important but fragile insight from recent work in cultural psychology is that it is better to represent and interpret human behavior as sane economists do, rather than as global personality trait theorists do. This means that it is better to view behavior as arising from the agency or will of individuals and analyze it as the joint product of "preferences" (including goals, values, and goals of any kind) and "constraints" (including beliefs), information, skills, resources material and social resources and resources of all kinds). This avoids the dangers of a dispositional approach in which behavior is interpreted as a by-product of mechanical pushing forces both from within (in the form of personality traits) and from outside (in the form of situational pressure). Ultimately, a fully successful study in cultural psychology must avoid nominal dispositional categories such as holistic versus analytic, and make behavior understandable in terms of the specific goals, values, and worldviews that motivate and inform domain-specific behaviors and routines. . practices of certain intentional agents. Doing things differently means perpetuating cultural stereotypes and falling into the traps of the past.

7. Conclusions

This article painted a picture of the family, drawing mainly from cultural anthropology, sociology and cross-cultural psychology. In this short summary, it was not possible to present the achievements of other social sciences, such as economics, geography, psychiatry or political science. The main objective was to focus on the study of the family from the point of view of cross-cultural psychology andpsychological anthropology. For example, an ecological or ecocultural perspective is emphasized: ecological context, social structure, livelihood systems, livelihoods, family, child development, psychological roles and consequences. The picture can feel like a kaleidoscope because there is great cultural diversity and many differences in families and social structure. However, many attempts have been made to structure this seemingly chaotic abundance of finds. This includes a comparative approach in line with the approach of psychological anthropology and cross-cultural psychology in the search for universals in family structure and function, as well as differences resulting from cultural differences. The criticism of sociology, which has made an important contribution to the study of the family, is that it deals primarily with the study of the family, especially the nuclear family, only in the countries of Northern Europe and North America.

An important point in understanding the performance of thousands of societies is the chronological dimension. This means that anthropologists have been studying small communities for more than a century. Thus, some results relate to studies of a culture from 100, 80, 40 or 30 years ago, and some to more recent studies. But in a changing world where small communities have been exposed to economic change, technology, television, tourism and trade with the economically developed countries of the West and Asia, these communities have also adapted. Acculturation and inculturation in response to these pressures for change have also affected the links between ecology, social structure, family types, and psychological variables. There is a tendency for more families to become structurally nuclear, even in small communities. However, be careful when using the phrase "go nuclear". There is growing evidence from studies of small societies or developing countries that modernization theory's predictions that the driving force of modernization, the economic engine, will eventually lead to the Western nuclear family system may be wrong. Nuclear families are on the rise in many developing countries; traditional family systems are no longer entirely dependent on subsistence systems such as hunting, gathering or even farming; young couples are increasingly choosing their husbands over arranged marriages; more and more women are entering the labor market; traditional family roles have changed; and the man is no longer the absolute patriarch of the family. However, while the number of nuclear families is increasing in most societies, these families still maintain very close ties with their relatives. It seems that while the structure of the family changes from extended to nuclear, family functions and kinship relations have not changed that much. Interactions and relationships with loved ones are the psychological components of the family that are of particular interest to psychologists.

The study of culture, family and psychological consequences is therefore in a very dynamic phase and is of great interest to social scientists and students.

Transformations, 1960-1990

Drikkean anthropology matured between the 1960s and the mid-1980s, after which changes in the literature and ethnographic research began to undermine many theories and methods that had been central to anthropology for some time. The boom in anthropological research, writing, and teaching after World War II resulted in a wealth of ethnographic research in economic, political, and symbolic anthropology. These studies were based on theoretical approaches that had gained influence since the 1940s, such as structuralism,psychological anthropology, ethnoscience, symbolic anthropology, cultural materialism and political economy. In the 1960s, anthropologists not only made important contributions to specific areas of alcohol and beverage research outside anthropology, but also produced important critiques and syntheses of the history and current state of the anthropology of drinking (as seen inMandelbauma, 1965;MacAndrew i Edgerton, 1969;Everett i in., 1976;Heide, 1976). While most of this comparative work dealt with issues of drinking and disease, just as much dealt with issues that can be represented withMacAndrew i Edgertona (1969)consider "behavior under the influence of alcohol." This approach linked drinking behavior and its effects to societal norms and values, giving them the same weight as the biological impact of drinking.

During this period of transformation, a new balance was found in anthropological approaches to drinking. Ethnographers began to supplement their cross-cultural and biological studies of drinking, excessive drinking, and its effects on individual and group health with studies of normal, normative, and moderate drinking (Heide, 1987a: 113). This new focus on the different roles of alcohol in different cultural contexts was driven by a growing awareness among anthropologists of the complex ways in which alcohol and drinking played a role in formal practices that had long been the focus of ethnographers. But ethnographers were now equally interested in how alcohol and drinking played a role in ordinary and everyday life, and in particular how they operated in the networks of meaning that had recently become central to anthropological theorizing. Indeed, this shift of emphasis in the anthropology of drinking, from the study of alcoholism and alcoholics to alcoholism in everyday life, inevitably led to considerations of the many aspects of drinking culture that are the pillars of anthropology today. In these studies, alcohol was seen as a commodity, a social and cultural icon, and a symbol of belonging to a group. They focused on drinking rituals and other drinking practices, but also sought to link drinking to many other important aspects of social life, especially those that motivate people beyond formal roles dictated by status and social structure. This new direction in the anthropology of drinking was part of a new wave of so-called "symbolic anthropology."

These shifts in theoretical approach reflected changes in anthropological definitions of research populations and a new awareness in anthropology of the importance of economics, politics, and history in evaluating society and culture (at a time when "political," "economic," and "historical" anthropology was born) . In the 1960s and 1970s, anthropologists gradually moved away from considering the primitives to study peasants, proletarians, villages, cities, class, ethnicity, race, and gender. As anthropologists became increasingly interested in the complexities of modernization and development, earlier assessments of relatively autonomous rural communities gave way to more detailed descriptions of sub-communities trapped in the global forces of historic and contemporary capitalism. Within all these theoretical interests, anthropologists came to regard drinking as a practice worth investigating in its own right.

This new interest manifested itself in two mutually complex ways. One was to create compendia with short case studies or more synthetic comparative analyzes of alcohol, beverages and culture (Marshalla, 1979a). The second concerned full-fledged ethnographic texts focused on drinking (as seen, for example, inMarshall, 1979b). Drinking has consistently been associated with places, spaces, occasions and many other elements of daily work and leisure, with friends, family, co-workers and even strangers, at home and in public. The focus was no longer solely or even predominantly on non-Western or "primitive" societies, as evidenced by the involvement of anthropology in the study of middle-class American life, for example in the way in which drinking alters the temporal and spatial transition from work to work. House. (Gusfield, 1987). Specialized drinking venues such as pubs were also new sites for anthropological research, essentially proving that these venues were nodes in wider social, political, and economic spaces that intersected many types and functions of communities (Hunt i Satterlee, 1986a,k). The social context of drinking was the glue that held this new anthropology of drinking together, but the social problems caused by alcohol and the minority groups that formed around drinking habits were not forgotten (Spradley, 1970). Central to this new anthropological study of drinking was the recognition that the rules of drinking in most, if not all, cultures involve highly emotional relationships that often become highly charged, leaving few people indifferent to the roles they play in society. to drink (Heide, 1976).

These transformations in theory, practice, writing, and the anthropology profession are perhaps best seen with the publication of the groundbreaking book on the anthropology of drinking, edited by Mary Douglas,Drink constructively(1987b). In the editor's introduction and authors' essays, this book transcends many of the major changes that anthropology was undergoing at the time. He combined earlier theoretical approaches in social and cultural anthropology, such as structural functionalism and structuralism, which have since been the subject of increasing criticism from younger scholars, with the critique of ethnography and ethnographic writing, which itself was born within what had hitherto been called symbolic anthropology . . By seamlessly blending these old and new approaches, the book helped achieve some of the seismic shifts in anthropology that reshaped the anthropology of drinking. It helped place consumption, identity, and identification completely within new forms of anthropological research, and to make the anthropology of drinking, if only for a short period, the forefront of anthropology.

In the introduction to the bookDouglas (1987a), discusses the major differences between most anthropologists' descriptions of drinking and those of other social scientists. She showed that anthropological data reveal that in most cultures that regularly drink alcohol, and indeed in most cultures around the world, regular and repeated drinking is not necessarily understood as drunkenness or alcoholism. In most cases, these actions are not perceived by community members as a sign of social failure, but on the contrary, they are often a sign of strong and supportive cultural relationships and values ​​(Douglas, 1987a:4). Her general point of view was that definitions of drunkenness are culturally determined and relate to other practices and values ​​in that culture. Moreover, in conclusions that influenced many subsequent anthropological observations on drinking, she further showed that most cultures recognize drinking as a social activity, valued and regularly performed in recognized social contexts. In these persuasive words, she argued that drinking is a practice of social inclusion and exclusion that draws the boundaries of personal and group identity (Douglas, 1987a: 8-12).

Thus, drinking is a central practice in the social construction of the world as it is and as it should be. Underlying this approach is the simple idea that for many people in many societies, drinking is a benevolent act, a valued, if not socially necessary, aspect of formal and informal life. While this does not eliminate the harmful effects of alcohol consumption on the health of individuals and groups who abuse the practice, it shifts the attention of anthropologists to what social significance alcohol and drinking often have for people and how these meanings underlie their lives. culture. As a result, the anthropology of drinking in this post-1960 period took a major step from the study of alcoholism and alcoholics to the study of drinking in the ordinary lives of both the elite and the powerless. During this time, alcohol was increasingly seen as a commodity and a social and cultural icon.

It was a period during which the anthropology of drinking certainly underwent remarkable changes, as its authors have sought to describe (Heide, 1987b). Anthropologists continued to focus on drinking rituals and other alcohol-related practices, but they did so in a way that related drinking to other important aspects of social life. This approach clearly demonstrated what symbolic anthropology began to define in the post-war period. It also opened a new window into the growing interest in anthropology in general, namely the recognition and understanding of social and cultural identities and the practices that helped define sameness and difference. That's one of the reasonsDouglas (1987b)and his associates were widely appreciated for their role in integrating older and newer anthropological interests. In this very real sense, the anthropology of drinking, as a counterpart to the chronology presented here, can be attacked chronologically in terms of periods before and afterDrink constructively.

2 methods

Publications that met the following criteria were included in the full review: (1) the publication mentioned "too much thinking" or a closely related idiom in the text, (2) the publication contained empirical qualitative, quantitative, or mixed studies of the idiom, and (3) the publication it was in english. For Criterion 1, although our database search terms were broader than "thinking too much" (including "thinking too much", "thinking a lot", "thinking a lot" and "thinking too much"), this was done in destination to .a. be on our first mission. A review of publications then identified those that reference the relevant idiom. Instead of any reference to cognitive impairment or problematic thoughts, the idiom of need had to contain an element of excess or "too much". For example, a publication mentioning "mental problems" would not be sufficient to meet the inclusion criteria. However, when publications that otherwise meet the inclusion criteria describe thinking problems as part of their "thinking too much" characteristic, we include such descriptions in our analysis. In our findings, we present the English translations of idioms submitted by the authors and, where possible, we also include idioms in the original language.

Two stages were used in the evaluation of publications. Titles and abstracts were initially reviewed to determine whether they met the above criteria. If the title and abstract did not contain sufficient information to determine whether the criteria were met, the publication was held for full review. Secondly, publications were classified as "extensive" or "short". "Deep" publications focused on "thinking too much" as the focus of the work and generally provided a qualitative description of the phenomenology, etiology, and course of the idiom. "Briefly speaking" the publications mentioned "too much thinking" in the text, but did not provide comprehensive information about the idiom. The authors of BNK and EH independently assessed all publications for inclusion/exclusion and achieved 78% agreement. In the event of disagreement, publications were reviewed jointly and resolved by consensus. In addition, the authors reviewed and reviewed all eligible publications to classify them as "briefly listed" or "extensive".

For coding and analysis, each publication was imported into MaxQDA (Words, 1989–2010). Two authors (BNK and EH) coded all publications; to increase consistency, BNK coded all "in-depth" publications, and EH coded all "short-name" publications. Coding and analysis focused on (1) descriptive epidemiology, including world region and population; (2) descriptions of "thinking too much", including phenomenology, course and consequences, etiology and vulnerable groups, and ethnopsychological information that contributes to the understanding of the idiom; (3) comparative diagnoses; and (4) idiom processing and coping mechanisms. The coding also included the elicitation mode, such as whether "thinking too much" was part of the researcher's questionnaire or emerged from the qualitative work, and methods for making comparisons with psychiatric constructs, and whether "thinking too much" represented a symptom, syndrome, and /or cause.