People: Psychology from a Cultural Perspective

This book illustrates that psychological understanding in the West (especially the US) gleaned from studies of Western subjects (usually college students) is NOT especially generalizable to other cultures. Instead, while a few simple universals do appear to exist, the main finding is that culture has a major influence on how people think, feel, and behave, so a true study of human psychology (as opposed to only Western pscyhology) must draw on cross-cultural research, as is the case with cultural anthropology and other comparative areas of the human sciences. This book provides an excellent introduction to cross-cultural psychology. It is easy to read and, despite being fairly short, it gives plenty of fascinating concrete examples covering many areas of human psychology (development, cognition, emotions, perception, abnormality, etc.) to demonstrate just how much difference culture makes. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the human sciences, and perhaps required reading for those particularly interested in psychology.

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