Cultural Psychology

The psychology of culture is a developing and often fascinating subject within the field of psychology. It encompasses people and groups across the globe and how culture influences behavior, cognition, and the mind. Culture can be defined as the activities individuals within the society and the society as a collective partake in, as well as the entertainment we indulge in, the myths and legends that we are introduced to as members of this society, and the festivals and traditions that give people's lives purpose and enliven the daily experience of life for the individuals of the society. In cultural psychology, there is something called mutual constitution that states how individuals and the society as a collective mutually impact one another and alter the culture of the group. Individuals may have different interests that they partake in that may influence other individuals to change their cultural behavior and take an interest in a different theme or activity within that culture. An example of a cultural activity may be how many Americans go to bars or clubs on their weekends and indulge themselves in alcohol and sexual activity. This is not the universal trend for all people within a nation. There is a difference between national culture and subcultures within that broader group. You also have ethnic, religious, and racial cultures and subcultures that play a role in the broader cultural development of a nation or region. Culture can include both activities, as mentioned above, as well as ideas and legends and political leanings as well. culture has a wide impact on many fields of the human condition, and psychology is only one of them. Cultural psychology is interested in how cultures influence thinking, behavior, and the general psyche of individuals and groups, as well as how the thinking, behavior, and general psyche of individuals and groups influence culture. Political culture is how subcultures within a nation express their political views through activism such as protests or artistic symbolism and art forms such as painting or music which push a social and political agenda in the hopes of consolidating more subscribers to the cultural movement and spreading their political agenda to the "mainstream" or cultural movement where the majority of people fall under and take an active interest in The goal of this cultural push into the mainstream is both about consolidating the most followers as well as the economic advantage of the product the culture produces being more readily consumed by a larger audience. Culture and Ideas go hand in hand, as the ideas of a group of people shape the culture of that group. complex ideas such as political ideology have a huge effect on the cultural activities and interests of a group of people, and the groups of people who subscribe to a certain political ideology have a worldview that alters their perspective on cultures that run counter to their culture and worldview. Now the real interest for me in this field is what parts of the brain are responsible for what kind of cultural interests a person has, and what kind of effect the environment and events in the person's life had on their cultural and political interests. It gets into the nature versus nurture debate really quickly. I would argue, and I would love to research this, that some people's brain structures may have a fairly substantial determination of there political leanings and cultural interests. I would say that environmental events may alter a person's natural predisposition to view the world a certain way or what cultural interests that person may have. Another factor that I sometimes overlook is the nature of choice in the person's behavior patterns. A person may be heavily influenced by their brain's natural predisposition to receive certain ideas and interests while rejecting others, and this person may make a conscious decision to outright reject the interests he or she is drawn to for another interest. However, this choice is made with purpose. Whenever someone makes a conscious choice to do something, there has to be a response of incentive of some sort that they are getting as a result of making that choice. Now many people may choose to belong to a particular culture or subculture, but their is something that advantages that person that provides the incentive to join that group. As I do more research on cultural psychology, I will expand upon this topic.