Job Opening – Faculty Research Assistant to join the CASL Priming of Cultural Perspectives Research Team at the University of Maryland

The University of Maryland Center for Advanced Study of Language (CASL) is seeking a Faculty Research Assistant (FRA) to join the CASL Priming of Cultural Perspectives (PCP) research team.  The CASL PCP research team investigates dimensions of culture and their effects on social relations, work behaviors, and decision-making processes.

Duties: The FRA will contribute to a research program that assesses whether priming individuals’ cultural perspectives influences interpretation of written text, using a combination of survey measures and experimental manipulations. Tasks will include organizing meetings, assisting in the collection, organization, synthesis, and analysis of data, as well as collecting, storing, processing, and analyzing research data.  The FRA will also work with the PCP research team to develop surveys, pilot test and validate surveys, manage the team library, prepare research protocols, meet with clients, and assist in writing progress reports, briefings, and technical reports.  Duties may also include fMRI data collection and analysis.

For earliest consideration, apply online here. To read more information about this job opening, the qualifications required and the application process link here.

Experimental Methods in the Study of Cognition and Culture – Course at the Summer University Programme at Aarhus University – August 2011

This year’s Summer University Programme at Aarhus University in Denmark will include an interesting course on “Experimental Methods in the Study of Cognition and Culture”.

Description: What can cognition and brain function tell us about cultural forms? And how does culture impinge on cognitive processing and brain functions? The interface between culture on the one hand, and cognition and brain science on the other is a fast-developing research area attracting numerous scholars and scientists with different backgrounds. Neuroscientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists, anthropologists, and humanists of various sorts seek to find out how evolved cognitive capacities, cultural learning and social and institutional forms interact to constrain, or even produce, human behavior. Such interdisciplinary work not only calls for a high degree of translatability between terminologies found in each individual discipline. It further calls for knowledge about, and experience with, different methodologies.

Symposium on Empathy: Self, Society, Culture – November 2011

 

 

 

 

Indiana University organizes a symposium titled “Empathy: Self, Society, Culture” on November 11-12, 2011.

Growing out of a two-year grant-supported project on “Virtuous Empathy: Scientific and Humanistic Investigations” this symposium aims to explore theories and practices of empathy. Papers are invited to explore both virtuous and vicious forms of empathy, and to do so from a variety of perspectives. Proposals for papers are invited in three broad categories: Empathy and Psychology; Empathy and Ethics; and Empathy in Culture, History, and Society.

2nd Summer Institute in Cultural Neuroscience – July 2011

The Center for Culture, Mind and the Brain, CCMB at the University of Michigan, will be hosting its second Summer Institute for Cultural Neuroscience (SICN) from July 18-20, 2011. The event is organized by Shinobu Kitayama, Director of the CCMB and Carolyn Yoon, Associate Professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

The SICN has a great line up of leading researchers on this field such as Shinobu Kitayama, Joan Chiao, Daphna Oyserman, Denise Park and Adreas Roepstorff.

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“.

Joan Chiao on Cultural Neuroscience and the Collective Good

The Jepson School of Leadership Studies hosted The Jepson Colloquium “For the Greater Good of All: Perspectives on Individualism, Society and Leadership” during which, on January 23, 2010, Joan Chiao, presented “Cultural Neuroscience and the Collective Good.” During the talk, Chiao introduces the field, as well as concepts and methodologies and explains how cultural neuroscience findings can be applied.

The Importance of Cross-Cultural Neuroethics in (Cultural) Neuroscience

The Dana Foundation has recently published a piece by Moheb Costandi, titled “Cross-Cultural Neuroethics: Look Both Ways“, pointing at the challenges neuroscientists are facing when they are doing research in cultures that do not share their own system of values and beliefs.

“In the Western World, we may take it for granted that our scientific values and ethical concepts are universal, but this is not the case.(…) Indigenous peoples, for example, have fundamentally different worldviews and philosophies, and do not subscribe to our scientific values.”

CCMB Annual Conference – April 16, 2011

The Center for Culture, Mind, and the Brain (CCMB) at the University of Michigan has recently announced the second annual one-day conference on “Culture, Mind, and the Brain”.

WHEN?

The conference is scheduled for April 16th at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Submissions for oral presentations are due on February 11, 2011.

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).