Ch 19 Psychology & Anthropology

11/04/2014

Psychological Anthropology
Incorporate cross-cultural perspective
Fundamental to Western understanding late 19th century early 20th
century a Freudian view of human development.
What is normal?
How do social relationships affect well-being?
How does socialization create persons?
Socialization: human development, structures of cultural reproduction,
childhood, aging, learning influence of parents
Psychological Universals
-Have a concept of self
-Recognize individuals
-Discern others intentions from observable clues in their faces,
utterances, and actions.
-Imagine what others are thinking
-Empathize with others
-Facially recognize, communicate, mimic, or hide emotions
-Play for fun
-Show and feel affection for others
-Feel similar childhood fears
Early Research on Emotional Developmental
Margaret Mead
Bronislaw Malinowski
Derek Freeman & Melford Spiro said that Mead and Malinowsky
over-simplified things

Alice Schlegel & Herbert Barry

Research on Cognitive Development
A lot of research has been done on when various cognitive abilities
develop in children
While there are cross-cultural similarities in the early stages, things
get more complicated and less comparable over the lifespan
The trouble with IQ tests
-Originally assumed to be genetic
-Originally assumed to be fixed over a lifetime
-Environmental differences
-Cultural differences
IQ is NOT Genetic
-Urban/Rural differences
-Differences between European countries
IQ is NOT fixed
-IQ changes over the lifespan
-The bar keeps shifting to keep the average at 100
Environmental Differences
-Altering the environment can change the results
-As rural areas became more urbanized, they gained the resources
normally seen in urban/suburban areas, their IQs went up
-As resources were pulled from urban/suburban areas, their IQs went
down
Cultural Differences
-What constitutes intelligence in other cultures?
-Kpelle society

Past views on childhoos

-Kids just perceived as receptors of socialization

-Not actors not even necessarily people

-Nowadays, children increasing viewed as agents and actors, have
their own culture
Socialization The development of patterns of behavior, attitudes, and
values in children that conform to cultural expectations through the influence
of parents and other people
Explaining Variation in Childhood & Beyond
-Different general belief systems about children
-Adaptational explanations
Parents Belief Systems
-Ethnotheories: culturally patterned ideas about how children should
be treated and what kinds of children they want to raise
Adaptational Explanations
-Some anthropologists hypothesize that childrearing practices are
adaptive
Parental Responsiveness
-Time to respond and amount of time held vary widely across cultures.
Beliefs about self-calming, self-regulation compared with expectation that
baby needs adult intervention and physical contact.
-Adaptive hypothesis in preindustrial societies infant mortality 20%
first year of life and safety concerns.
Parent-Child Play
-Enforced time spent together (Inuit)
-Yucatee A quiet baby is a healthy baby lull to sleep
-Ifaluk, Caroline Islands, <2 years, No thoughts or feeling
Parental Acceptance/Rejection of Children
-Critical issue may be unrelenting demands/stress of child care on
single parent, working parents

-Children who perceive rejection tend to be more aggressive or hostile

-Additional childrearing help from relatives lessens affect
Compliance/Assertiveness
-Compliance [responsible, obedient, nurturant}
-Assertiveness [Independence, self-reliance, achievement]
-Maps onto food getting
--Agricultural and pastoralists compliance
--foragers and post-industrial societies stress assertiveness
Attitudes toward Aggression
Ethnographic contrasts quote [extended] from N. Chagnons
Yanomamo
Contrasted with Semai of central Malaya [R. Dentan ethnographer],
they say they do not get angry. Do not punish children cart them off
and children rarely see an angry adult
Critical no aggressive models to imitate
Task Assignment
Expectation, or lack thereof for children to participate and contribute
to household economy
Childrens Settings
Different kinds of settings and expectations of a child in a given setting
work or play context?
Other social actors adults, children, kin [including primacy or skew
of one parent as opposed to two, or extended family, multi-generational],
non-related individuals who the child knows, stranger
School yes, no, resources, teachers, cost, infrastructure, amount of
schooling, gender
Psychological Variation in Adulthood
Concepts of Self

Some anthropologists have concluded that the concept of the self in

many non-Western societies is quite different from the Western conception
Issue may be variables and dimensions that are examined and,
cultural
Ideals of personhood
Does every culture have a unique conception of self or, are there
regularities that we can observe?
Example: Western notion of self as autonomous individual vs. nonWestern emphasis on relations blah blah blah she changed the slide

Individuals as Agents of Cultural Change

Ethnographers more recent focus on how individual agency may
bring about change
The idea that individuals act independently and make choices
Chinese patrilineal society women used to be arranged into a
marriage and had no say nowadays there are those who are changing that