San Antonio College Library

In this text, one of anthropology's most original theorists considers fundamental questions such as: Is cognition language-based? and How reliable a guide to memory are people's narratives about themselves?

Why do American children sleep alone instead of with their parents? Why do middle-aged Western women yearn for their youth, while young wives in India look forward to being middle-aged? In these essays, the author reminds us that cultural differences in mental life lie at the heart of any understanding of the human condition. Drawing on ethnographic studies of the distinctive modes of psychological functioning in communities around the world, Richard...

Six essays which analyze the non-national thought processes that influence culture.

Using cross-cultural research as a platform to evaluate psychology as we know it, Matsumoto shows readers how to develop their own critical thinking skills in relation to psychology. He encourages readers to raise questions about traditional knowledge and theories, and to investigate the world around them so they can reap the benefits of diversity and turn its challenges into assets.

Margaret Mead, America's most famous anthropologist, offers an intimate portrait of her long-time colleague and friend, Ruth Benedict. The first met when Mead was Benedict's student at Barnard in the 1920s; their professional association and their friendship were close and lasting. Beginning with Benedict's early life, Mead discusses her long struggle, as a woman, to attain an identity of her own, her early interests as a writer and poet, and her...

"Innocence may be lost in the post-Cold War West, but the imitation of innocence is evident in the social and political landscape of the 1990s. Eminent sociologist David Riesman has argued that the current culture attempts to imitate a purity of action, motive, and spirit commonly associated with the 1950s: faith in government, optimism concerning the future, and a can-do social and political attitude. These essays by prominent scholars and former...

"In some parts of northwestern Nigeria, mothers studiously avoid making eye contact with their babies. Some Chinese parents go out of their way to seek confrontation with their toddlers. Japanese parents almost universally co-sleep with their infants, sometimes continuing to share a bed with them until age ten. Yet all these parents are as likely as Americans to have loving relationships with happy children. If these practices seem bizarre, or their...