A Cognitive Theory of Cultural Meaning

Well, if you're looking for a cognitive theory of cultural meaning, then look no further! Strauss and Quinn take a "connectionist" approach to the development and transmission of cultural meaning. It is quite clear and relatively easy to read, compared with other works we have been reading in my Seminar in Contemporary Theory in Anthropology.

If youre a casual reader of cultural science, this book might come across as very dense and slow-reading. But if you are already familiar with basic cultural and evolutionary psychology theory, you could find this an interesting read. The book begins by outlining connectivist (spreading activation) models of neurology, and tries to apply them to cultural schemas. The chapters are divided between "case-study" chapters that use a particular event or set of interviews to examine one particular schema style in detail, and more theory minded chapters. The case-study chapters were more interesting and illuminating in my opinion. This book would do well if paired with the "Selfways" research paper by Kitayama and Markus, or paired with a book like 'The Moral Animal' which offers a totally different biological basis for cultural drives in psychology.