In this chapter we consider the two properties of culture that draw us most fully into a consideration of the individual who bears and acquires culture, properties that hence require the most complex psychological arguments about the way in which culture is internalized.

Durability in the individual

Some beliefs, values and other cultural understandings that people have stay with them a long time, sometimes their whole lives. Culture theories that focus on public forms of culture at the expense of the understandings people acquire from those public forms naturally have a hard time explaining the durability that schemas can have in individuals. If the world of messages surrounding us is rapidly changing and we are constructed by these discourses, why are our understandings not rapidly changing as well? On the other hand, how can a model that explains durability likewise account for people's obvious ability to adapt to change? Answering these questions will require the longest discussion in part II.

This discussion entails a consideration of how the world is organized to ensure that the same associations will be made repeatedly. Explaining durability also leads to recognition of the role of emotional arousal in making some schemas durable, including some learned very early in life. And it invites us to discuss in some detail how teaching achieves its end of making learning durable.