THEORIES LINKING CULTURE AND PSYCHOLOGY: Universal and Community-Specific Processes

• DOI: 10.1146/annurev.psych.49.1.559
• Publication Date: 2002-07-27T11:48:40Z
• Authors: Catherine R. Cooper; Jill Denner
• Keywords: Cultural Psychology; Ecological systems theory

Psychological theories and research often assume nations are culturally homogeneous stable. But global demographic, political, economic changes massive immigration have sparked new scholarly policy interest in cultural diversity change within nations. This chapter reviews interdisciplinary advances linking culture psychological development. These challenge strengthen the external ecological validity of their applications. Seven theoretical perspectives reviewed: individualism-collectivism; systems; cultural-ecological; social identity; ecocultural sociocultural; structure-agency; multiple worlds. Reviews each theory summarize key constructs evidence, recent advances, links between universal community-specific applications, strengths limitations. The traces complementarities across for case personal identity. It concludes by discussing implications science policy. By viewing as distinct yet complementary, researchers makers can forge interdisciplinary, international, intergenerational collaborations on behalf diverse communities which we a part.