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Culture and Social Cognition

Toward a Social Psychology of Cultural Dynamics 

YOSHIHISA KASHIMA

Social cognition, broadly defined as human thought about social behavior, has re-ceived considerable attention in the literature since the cognitive revolution of the

1960s and, indeed, has become one of the most important areas of study in main-stream psychology. Within this large area, cross-cultural research on social cognitionhas come to play an extremely important role in defining issues and in influencing re-search and theory.

In this chapter, Kashima presents a comprehensive overview of the area of cultureand social cognition. He first begins with an excellent discussion of the concept of culture in psychology, distinguishing the concept of  culture as meaning  from culturaldynamics. As Kashima suggests, cultural dynamics has to do with the paradoxicalphenomenon of cultural stability and change, which arises from two contemporaryviews of culture: system oriented and practice oriented. These definitions and discus-sions about the concept of culture are essential to Kashima’s later points about the ne-

cessity for the development and creation of theories and research on cultural dynam-ics, which represent a further evolution of research and thinking about socialcognition, and an integration of approaches and knowledge from various disciplines.

The bulk of Kashima’s chapter is devoted to a state-of-the-art review of researchon culture and social cognition. This review promises to be one of the most compre-hensive reviews on this topic. He begins with a treatment of the historical context of early social cognition research and with a presentation of background studies in thearea. His detailed review spans such topics as availability of concepts, causal attribu-tions, self-concepts, social and personal explanation, self-evaluation, and others. Hedelineates many of the issues that are highlighted through his thorough evaluation of the research literature, pointing out both what we know and what we do not in each

area. The reader is sure to view this area of his chapter as an important resource forthis line of inquiry.Using his review of the literature as a platform, Kashima delineates his ideas con-

cerning future research and theoretical work in the area. With regard to future empiri-cal work, he suggests that two topics in the area of culture and social cognition—theexplanation of social action and the maintenance of self-regard—deserve closer scru-tiny and further research in the future. In particular, while much is known aboutwhat North Americans tend to do with regard to these topics, relatively much less

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