This thought-provoking treatise explores the essential functions that
culture fulfills in human life in response to core psychological,
physiological, and existential needs. It synthesizes diverse strands of
empirical and theoretical knowledge to trace the development of culture
as a source of morality, self-esteem, identity, and meaning as well as a
driver of domination and upheaval. Extended examples from past and
ongoing hostilities also spotlight the resilience of culture in the
aftermath of disruption and trauma, and the possibility of
reconciliation between conflicting cultures. The stimulating insights
included here have far-reaching implications for psychology, education,
intergroup relations, politics, and social policy.
Included in the coverage:
- Culture as shared meanings and interpretations.
- Culture as an ontological prescription of how to "be" and "how to
live."
- Cultural worldviews as immortality ideologies.
- - Culture and the need for a "world of meaning in which to act."
- - Cultural trauma and indigenous people.
- - Constructing situations that optimize the potential for positive
intercultural interaction.
- - Anxiety and the Human Condition.
- - Anxiety and Self Esteem.
- - Culture and Human Needs.
A Psychology of Culture takes an uncommon tour of the human condition
of interest to clinicians, educators, and practitioners, students of
culture and its role and effects in human life, and students in nursing,
medicine, anthropology, social work, family studies, sociology,
counseling, and psychology. It is especially suitable as a graduate
text.
