Culture and Cognition Flashcards
cognition in psychology
- mental bias
- “cognition can be defined as any form of information processing, mental operation, or intellectual activity such as thinking, reasoning, remembering, imagining, or learning”
- “cognition is defined as ‘the mental action or process of aquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses”
Enculturation by Kottak
-“the social process by which culture is learned and transmitted across generations”
Cognition: Human universals and cultural differences
all humans have the same physical make-up, yet there are
>culture specific ways of learning
>-II- classifying
>-II- reasoning
>-II- using language
>-II- feeling
interactive learning
a bodily and embodied practice
problem of translation
1) do ‘primitive’, non-literate peoples think in a fundamentally different way from ourselves?
2) if this is the case, is it possible to understand their life-world and to translate it into a comparative anthropological terminology?
3) is the anthropological terminology inherently culturally embedded, or does it represent a kind of context-free, and therefore comparatively useful, kind of language?Yes, indeed
-Eriksen
primitive vs. logical thought
Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, about the ‘primitive’ or pre-logical, magical/mythical versus. logical, rational, ‘civilized’. changed this thought later in life.
Evans-Pritchard vs. Winch: rationality debate on Azande WItchcraft
E-P:
- no difference pre-logical vs. logical (contra Lévy-Bruhl)
-Azande reasoning in witchcraft cases perfectly rational from within Azande world view and idiom, but
-E-P differentiates between Azande witchcraft logic and scientific logic
-Witchcraft do not really exist, so Azande thinking on witchcraft is ‘wrong’
Winch:
-our linguistic concepts shape the world, including (social) scientific thinking
-both witchcraft and science are based on unverifiable assumptions
-much of our knowledge rests on belief/acceptance, not on understanding
-both ways of thinking only makes sense from within a specific cultural frame of reference
-intercultural comparison of truth claims impossible
-anthropology too makes use of a culturally laden conceptual apparatus and frame of reference
-challenge is to describe belief systems in ‘neutral’ terms
Cognition in anthropology
Our information processing and knowledge-building capacities that enable us to interact with and act upon the world.
The “hardware” we have that enables us to process the information that comes to us and to do something in reaction to that information.
There is a mental bias stemming from psychology who locate cognition in the brain only. But cognition is an EMBODIEDphenomenon, and the body is enmeshed with the environment as well.
How are culture and cognition interrelated?
Through the process of enculturation.
Enculturation by Vincent
How we become efficient members of a community by learning to share their norms and values
Enculturation by Balée
-“… a learning process common to all cultures, whereby shared ideas and behaviour are passed from one generation of society to the next”
Enculturation by Harris
-“… a partially conscious and partially unconscious learning experience whereby the older generation invites, induces, and compels the younger generation to adopt traditional ways of thinking and behaving”
Critique of Kottak, Balée and Harris’ explanation on enculturation
1) All of them focus on knowledge as transmitting from one generation to the next as a linear process. Younger generations can also teach older generations about their culture.
2) None of them discusses how changes and adaptations occur in a society.
3) Only focuses on those “born” within a culture, not those who “enter” from the outside (?)
Culture, basics
Eriksen: Abilities, notions, forms of behaviour acquired as members in a society. Problematic term.
1) Learned, not innate
2) Partly conscious, partly unconscious
3) Compelling - unconsciously conforming to social role expectations
4) To some extent “shared” by people who belong to a specific group
5) Unequally distributed between members of the same group (skills and knowledge varies)
The mental and psychic unity of humankind
Innate characteristics are the same everywhere. Inborn differences do not count for cultural variations. Human brain is the same.
