I have talked a lot about culture and different things that go with it. But now I'm going to throw in some Psychology. I actually enjoy Psychology, I took a class on it in High School and aced it. I found it fascinating and it just made sense to me. I even debated going to school for it, but that's besides the point. The big question is, "What is culture and what does it have to do with psychology?".
Basically, Cultural Psychology unites psychologists, anthropologists, linguists, and philosophers for the common pursuit, the study of how cultural meanings and practices influence individual human psychies.
As we know culture is much more than food, festivals, and costumes. It's the ideas and the actions that encompass the meaning of a group of people. More often than not, these ideas are inherit and automatic, guiding our everyday business of life. As people interact and engage with the culture's practices and traditions, their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors reflect what they have learned of that culture's values and beliefs.
That is only part of the story though, culture shapes the individuals minds and actions as much as the minds and actions shape the culture. As a result, “People are active cultural agents, rather than passive recipients of cultural influences,” said social psychologist Chi-Yue Chiu, University of Illinois. “They create, apply, reproduce, transform, and transmit their cultural routines in their daily social interactions.”
Without human beings, cultures wouldn't exist, and without cultures, human beings wouldn't exist. See the dilemma? We go hand in hand. What separates humans from other species is our ability to produce and sustain cultures.
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