Cultural psychology

Humans are a cultural species, constantly navigating a complex web of culturally bound practices, norms, and worldviews. This article provides a brief overview of the relatively young field of cultural psychology, which investigates the many ways psychology and culture interweave with one another. Highlighting the cultural nature of the human species, it draws upon research on cultural evolution, enculturation, and developmental processes. This review further summarizes a number of cultural differences in how people perceive the self, and the behavioral consequences that follow from these differences, in the domains of internal and external attribution styles, motivations for self‐enhancement, approach/avoidance, primary and secondary control, as well as motivations for distinctiveness and conformity. Additionally, the review discusses research on the intersection of culture and emotion, as well as cultural differences in cognition, perception, and reasoning. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Comparative Psychology