Psychological and cognitive anthropology

Studies of emotional development Cognitive development Cultural factors in variation of

psychological factors The cross-cultural study of mental

illness

Piaget’s studies Sensorimotor: 0-2 years. Nonverbal learning

through personal exploration and experience with concrete objects

Preoperational: 2-7 years. Children acquire vocabulary and tag objects with words

Concrete operational: 7-12 years. Children classify objects by similarities and differences in qualities. They learn to use multiple dimensions simultaneously in making classifications. These include length, number, weight, area, volume

Formal operational (scientific): 12-adult. Formal logic, use of syllogisms, deductive reasoning. hare ÷ tortoise as fast ÷ slow

During the concrete operational stage, children acquire concepts like conservation and reversibility, while during the formal operational stage, the ability to think in hypothetical terms is developed.

Are these stages universal?

Primitive means technology Most work has been on the shift from

operational to abstract reasoning stage Are preindustrial people preoperational?

Consider the two-week hunting treks of the Yanomamo; the trans-Pacific canoe trips of the people of Yap; the eight-section kinships system of Australian peoples; the distribution of meat among the !Kung; and so on.

No culture-free tests The problem may be the supposedly

culture- free tests and schooling as training for certain kinds of tests

Marc Irwin studied rice farmers in Liberia and compared them to U.S. undergraduates. Used rice bowls and geometric cards for

the two groups. Abstract thinking was at the same level in both groups.

The instrument effect The Porteus Maze and Australian

aborigines (1917). There are hundreds of studies of Aborigine cognition.

The false debate over culture vs. nature in explaining the results.

The instrument effect: beakers and triangles are not part of everyone's experience.

The conservation principle Douglas Price-Williams used familiar

materials and found no differences in the concrete operational stage between Tiv children in West Africa and European children, in terms of conservation of earth, nuts, number.

Literacy and cognition Literacy is literacy a factor in

cognition. But Vai and Cree readers, who have

their own scripts, were more affected by schooling than by literacy on cognitive tests.

Field independence People who rely on hunting develop

field independence. Embedded Figures Test Two examples: Mexico and Greece

Child-rearing practices Breast feeding:

In 70% of societies, children are weaned after two years. Children may be fed 20-40 times per day. Almost all American women stop by 10 months.

Holding and touching: In H/G societies, children are held up to 50%

of the day. In both the U.S. and Japan, children are touched from

12-20% of the time that they are awake. In the U.S., babies are usually held than 10%

of the day and spend a lot of time alone in cribs.

The Logoli of Kenya Lee and Ruth Munroe found:

infants held more by their mothers become more trusting by age 5.

the number of different holders adds more to trust in toddlers than time held by mothers.

Response to crying “ite pinai, ite ponai” in traditional Greek:

if a child is crying, it’s either hurting or hungry.

In many societies, like the Efe (of Congo): a 3-month old gets a response within 10 sec of crying, 75% of the time

In U.S., we ignore crying 45% of the time Infant mortality: 1% in industrialized

societies vs. up to 35% in nonindustri-alized societies.

Collective vs. individualistic values

Agricultural and herding societies stress obedience.

Hunting and gathering societies stress self-reliance and individuality.

We are foragers in the U.S. The correlation is inexact and the

mechanism of cause remains a subject of wide interest and study.

Culturally specific mental illnesses

Windigo psychosis among Ojibwa, Cree: men of these societies are said to be possessed by

cannibal giant wiitiko. Pibloktoq

Eskimo adults of Greenland. Women strip naked and wander across ice until they collapse.

Amok Malaya, Indonesia, New Guinea. Depression, followed

by brooding and withdrawal, and then a wild, berserk frenzy of destruction.

Are these illnesses patterned? Are they expressions of the same mental illnesses?

Marano's explanation of windigo psychosis

Under conditions of stress, the Ojibwa and Cree triaged their population and increased the chance for survival of all.

There is never documentation of the behavior of the accused. But all accused were sickly, senile, non-Ojibwa.

Emic vs. etic explanations: The etic requires positing a universal fear stimulated by specific conditions. The fear of being eaten was concocted as a way to

overcome the fear of killing.

Manifestation of mental illness in different societies

N Schiz. M/D Other

Hutterites 57 17 74 9

Taiwan 76 57 17 26

N. Sweden 107 87 2 11

Ttennessee 156 27 26 47

Baltimore 367 43 11 46

Manifestation of mental illness in different societies

Edgerton’s study: mental illness in Africa

Sebei of Uganda, Pokot of NW Kenya, Kamba of SC Kenya, Hehe of Tanzania

Kichwaa – Swahili for severe mental illness.

Free list of traits of kichwaa Goes naked Sleeps or hides in the bush Shaves head and bites self Eats and smears dirt and/or feces Runs wildly Destroys property Wanders aimlessly

Five key traits Five traits accounted for about 60% of all

traits listed. “The Africans in these four societies,” said

Edgerton, “do not regard a single behavior as psychotic which could not be so regarded in the West.”

Schizophrenia is biochemically based, but it is expressed differently across cultures.

Hallucinations Hallucinations were almost never listed

(<1%) by Edgerton’s informants. Hallucinations about being controlled by

robots emerged after a 1921 play by Karel Capek.

Schizophrenics only began hallucinating about being controlled by electric rays at the beginning of the 20th century.

Schizophrenics in the U.S. tend to have visual, while schizophrenics in India tend to have more olfactory hallucinations.

Rosenhan’s study of labeling 3 female and 5 male pseudopatients 7 of 8 admitted to a total of 12 hospitals. One

was diagnosed as manic depressive. All others diagnosed as schizophrenic.

Released between 7-52 days later with diagnosis: “schizophrenia in remission” or “asymptomatic” or “improved.”

“note-taking” and “oral-acquisitive” behavior” One patient saw through it and accused the

researcher of being a journalist. None of the staff saw through it.

Spitzer’s critique Was it ethical to dupe the hospital

workers? If people come to an emergency room

with intense stomach pains, wouldn’t they be diagnosed as suffering from gastritis?

Eventually, the same duped psychiatrists diagnosed that rarest of events, "schizophrenia in remission" (Spitzer 1976:461).

Science is a human activity Still, this research reminds us that

medicine, like any human endeavor, is populated by humans, who are fully equipped with egos and with ambitions.

Without these qualities, we would have no modern medicine, no miracle cures, no computer-driven prostheses.

But with these qualities, we know that we have to be vigilant against the potential arrogance that comes from success.