Further Reading — Chapter 38: Cultural Psychology — How Culture Shapes the Mind

Foundational Academic Sources

Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98(2), 224–253. One of the most cited papers in all of psychology — the foundational account of independent and interdependent self-construals and their implications across basic psychological processes. Moderately technical but accessible to motivated general readers. Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how culture shapes the self.

Henrich, J., Hein, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2-3), 61–83. The comprehensive critique of WEIRD psychology — documenting the extent to which behavioral science is based on unrepresentative samples, showing where WEIRD populations are outliers, and calling for a more representative empirical approach. More technical than most entries here; the introduction and key findings are accessible. Landmark paper.

Nisbett, R. E., Peng, K., Choi, I., & Norenzayan, A. (2001). Culture and systems of thought: Holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychological Review, 108(2), 291–310. The comprehensive review of holistic versus analytic cognition research — the evidence base across perception, attention, reasoning, and attribution. More technical than Nisbett's popular book but directly accessible to motivated readers.

Berry, J. W. (1997). Immigration, acculturation, and adaptation. Applied Psychology, 46(1), 5–34. Berry's comprehensive review of the acculturation framework — the four strategies, the research evidence, the role of acculturative stress. The most complete statement of the framework in a single paper.

Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture's Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values. Sage. Hofstede's original research monograph — the IBM survey data, the four original dimensions, and their implications for organizational behavior. More technical than his popular books; the primary source for the research.

Gelfand, M. J., Raver, J. L., Nishii, L., Leslie, L. M., Lun, J., Lim, B. C., ... & Yamaguchi, S. (2011). Differences between tight and loose cultures: A 33-nation study. Science, 332(6033), 1100–1104. The original tight/loose cultures paper — the large-scale cross-national evidence for the dimension and its correlates. Brief and accessible for a Science paper.

Books for General Readers

Nisbett, R. E. (2003). The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently — and Why. Free Press. Richard Nisbett's accessible account of holistic versus analytic cognition research — covering perception, attention, reasoning, and attribution. More accessible than the academic papers; written for general readers. Occasionally oversimplified but the core findings are real and important.

Henrich, J. (2020). The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Henrich's full-length account of WEIRD psychology — how Western psychological peculiarity developed historically (partly through Catholic Church marriage policies), what distinguishes WEIRD populations from others, and the implications. Ambitious and important; more accessible than the original paper; some claims are more speculative than the foundational research.

Hofstede, G., Hofstede, G. J., & Minkov, M. (2010). Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill. Hofstede's accessible account of the cultural dimensions framework for organizational and general audiences — more readable than the research monographs; practically useful for cross-cultural professional contexts.

Gelfand, M. (2018). Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World. Scribner. Michele Gelfand's popular account of tight and loose cultures — accessible, research-grounded, and practically oriented. Covers the evidence, the applications, and the implications for understanding cultural conflict and cooperation.

Matsumoto, D., & Juang, L. (2016). Culture and Psychology (6th ed.). Cengage Learning. A comprehensive cultural psychology textbook — comprehensive, accessible, and well-organized. The best single reference for anyone who wants a complete overview of the field. Includes emotion, cognition, development, psychopathology, and clinical applications.

Sue, D. W., & Sue, D. (2016). Counseling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice (7th ed.). Wiley. The standard reference for culturally responsive clinical practice — cultural humility, cultural competency, and the specific applications across major cultural groups. More clinical in focus than the other books; essential for anyone working in clinical, counseling, or social work settings.

Tervalon, M., & Murray-García, J. (1998). Cultural humility versus cultural competence: A critical distinction in defining physician training outcomes in multicultural education. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 9(2), 117–125. The foundational paper on cultural humility — the distinction from cultural competency, the rationale, and the implications for training. Brief, accessible, and clinically important.

On Emotion and Culture

Barrett, L. F. (2017). How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Lisa Feldman Barrett's accessible account of constructed emotion — the theory, the evidence, and the implications. More accessible than the academic papers; the challenge to the basic-emotions tradition is clearly presented. Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the contemporary state of emotion science.

Mesquita, B. (2020). Between Us: How Cultures Create Emotions. W. W. Norton. Batja Mesquita's accessible account of cultural variation in emotion — how different cultures produce different emotions, not just different emotion labels. The MINE (Me-In-North-American-Emotional experience) versus OURS framework is particularly useful. Accessible to general readers.

The Character Reading Lists

Jordan is working through: - The Geography of Thought (Nisbett) — reading it with his team design work in mind; noting how holistic vs. analytic cognitive styles map onto participation patterns he has been observing; underlined: "The context is as important as the object, and the relationship as important as the individual." - Cultures and Organizations (Hofstede et al.) — working through the power-distance sections for direct application to team design; journal: "The assumption that everyone should challenge authority equally is itself a cultural assumption I've been embedding in my team structure."

Amara is working through: - Between Us (Mesquita) — reading it in parallel with the Francis case; noted that his emotional experience of cultural dislocation was partly about the absence of the cultural scripts that would make his grief legible and shareable; "The emotion needs a cultural container to be processable." - Counseling the Culturally Diverse (Sue & Sue) — working through the cultural humility sections as a clinical reference; integrating into her revised intake process and supervision notes