The What, Why and How of Cultural Neuroscience – Part 2: Why Study Cultural Neuroscience?

Why is cultural neuroscience important?

Last year, Henrich, Heine and Norenzayan published an article in Behavioral and Brain Science titled “The weirdest people in the world?” (I also highly recommend reading Greg Downey’s review and commentary on the article over at the old Neuroanthropology blog). One of the authors’ claims refers to how most of what we know today about the human mind and behavior is built upon research that examines disproportionately university undergraduates who come from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic countries: the “WEIRD” people. A similar point was made by Arnett in 2008, in the article “The neglected 95%: Why American psychology needs to become less American“.

The What, Why and How of Cultural Neuroscience – Part 1: What is Cultural Neuroscience?

What is Cultural Neuroscience?

The term “cultural neuroscience” was coined by Joan Chiao, a former graduate student of Nalini Ambady at Harvard University. It describes an emerging interdisciplinary field focused on investigating the multidirectional interactions between culture, mind, genes and the brain (Chiao & Ambady, 2007 in the Handbook of Cultural Psychology, edited by Kitayama and Cohen). The relationship is not assumed to be unidirectional because cultural practices adapt to neurobiological constraints on the one hand and human neurobiology adapts to cultural experience on the other (Ambady & Bharucha, 2009).