Scientists Making a Difference Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Foreword: Making a Creative Difference = Person × Environment
- Preface
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Biological Bases of Psychology: Genes, Brain, and Beyond
- Part III Cognition: Getting Information from the World and Dealing with It
- Part IV Development: How We Change Over Time
- Part V Motivation and Emotion: How We Feel and What We Do
- Part VI Social and Personality Processes: Who We Are and How We Interact
- Section A Social Cognition
- Section B Personal Relationships
- Section C Group and Cultural Processes
- 83 Theory to Develop a Cooperative, Just, and Peaceful World
- 84 The Collective Construction of the Self: Culture, Brain, and Genes
- 85 The Personal Is Political … and Historical and Social and Cultural
- 86 The Science of Our Better Angels
- 87 Focusing on Culture in Psychology
- Part VII Clinical and Health Psychology: Making Lives Better
- Part VIII Conclusion
- Afterword: Doing Psychology 24×7 and Why It Matters
- Index
87 - Focusing on Culture in Psychology
from Section C - Group and Cultural Processes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2016
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Foreword: Making a Creative Difference = Person × Environment
- Preface
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Biological Bases of Psychology: Genes, Brain, and Beyond
- Part III Cognition: Getting Information from the World and Dealing with It
- Part IV Development: How We Change Over Time
- Part V Motivation and Emotion: How We Feel and What We Do
- Part VI Social and Personality Processes: Who We Are and How We Interact
- Section A Social Cognition
- Section B Personal Relationships
- Section C Group and Cultural Processes
- 83 Theory to Develop a Cooperative, Just, and Peaceful World
- 84 The Collective Construction of the Self: Culture, Brain, and Genes
- 85 The Personal Is Political … and Historical and Social and Cultural
- 86 The Science of Our Better Angels
- 87 Focusing on Culture in Psychology
- Part VII Clinical and Health Psychology: Making Lives Better
- Part VIII Conclusion
- Afterword: Doing Psychology 24×7 and Why It Matters
- Index
Summary
When I started graduate school in 1954, culture was a peripheral topic in psychology. Most cross-cultural work consisted of verifying that the American findings of psychological science replicated in other cultures. When my career ended in 1997, culture had become an important factor in psychology. Thousands of publications now include data from many cultures. Of course, I was not the only one that contributed to this change. Many others made significant contributions. Some of these scholars told me that my work inspired theirs, and that was a most gratifying aspect of my career.
In my first year in graduate school I wrote to Charles Osgood and suggested that it would be desirable to replicate his work on the structure of affective meaning (evaluation, potency and activity) in a different culture. Since I came from Greece to study in North America (McGill University for my bachelor's, The University of Toronto for my master's, and Cornell University for my PhD degrees), it would be easy for me to collect the data in Greece. Osgood was enthusiastic, and we obtained a $5,000 grant for me to spend the summer of 1955 in Europe. Since I was in Greece anyway, I also collected the data to replicate the three dimensional structure of emotions that was found in the USA by Harold Schlosberg. Both the Osgood and Schlosberg findings were replicated in Greece and two articles reported the results in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, the best journal in social psychology at that time.
When I completed my degree in 1958 Osgood went to Lyle Lanier, the Head of the Psychology Department at the University of Illinois, and told him that I would be a good person to hire. Lanier hired me without meeting me.
Illinois was a marvelous place for a new psychologist to learn more about psychology. My colleagues were distinguished psychologists such as Ray Cattell, Lee Cronbach, Fred Fiedler, Lloyd Humphreys, Joe McVicker Hunt, William McGuire, Hobart Mowrer, Charles Osgood, and many others. I learned as much about psychology from them as I had in graduate school.
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- Scientists Making a DifferenceOne Hundred Eminent Behavioral and Brain Scientists Talk about Their Most Important Contributions, pp. 413 - 416Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2016