WINTER 2001 SYLLABUS
Culture and Cognition 
Fridays 9:00-10:30
3048 East Hall

Faculty Presenters:

Scott Atran

Group Dynamics, Institute for Social Research (ISR)

Justin Barrett

Institute for Social Research (ISR

 

Joe Henrich

 

School of Business and Anthropology

Ram Mahalingam

 

Psychology Department

 

Class time will be managed as follows: class will begin promptly at 9:10. Please arrive at 8:45 to have coffee and refreshments, and be prepared to start at 9:10. A faculty member will speak until approximately 9:45 on the topic of the day. 

All students should read the reading early in the week and submit interesting, provocative questions by Thursday afternoon. 

From 9:45-10:30 the faculty presenter will structure the discussion around the questions submitted. Students should be ready to participate actively in the discussion.

01/05/2001      Introduction: Goals and Structure of the Course

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01/12               Religion and Social Domination (both readings required - Scott)

Required Readings:

Diamond, Jared (1997) Guns, germs, and steel: The fate of human societies.  New York: W.W. Norton. (Chapter 14, “From Egalitarianism to Kleptocracy,” pp. 265-292.)

Watanabee, J. & Barabara Smuts (1999) Explaining ritual without explaining it away: Trust, truth, and the evolution of cooperation in Roy Rapport’s “The Obvious Aspects of Ritual.” American Anthropologist 101:98-112.

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 01/19               Power and Stereotyping (Ram)

Required Readings:

             Bargh, J. A, Raymond, P, Pryor, J. B. & Strack, F. (1995). Attractiveness of the underling: An automatic power --> sex association and its consequences.  Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 68(5), 768-781.

             Goodwin, S., Operario, D., & Fiske, S. (1998). Situational power and interpersonal dominance facilitate bias and inequality. Journal of Social Issues, 54(4), 677-698

 Suggested Readings:

             Bargh, J. A., & Raymond, P. (1995). The naive misuse of power: Nonconscious sources of sexual harassment. Journal of Social Issues, 51, 85-96.

             Chen, S., Lee-Chai, A., & Bargh, J.A.  (in press).  Relationship orientation as a moderator of the effects of social power.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

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 01/26          Implicit Stereotyping (Justin)

Required Readings/Activities:

Play around at http://buster.cs.yale.edu/implicit/   -- do at  least one IAT task

Greenwald, A. G., Banaji, M. R. (1995). Implicit social cognition: Attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes. Psychological Review, 102(1), 4-27.

Suggested Readings:

Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K.  (1998).  Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 74, 1464-1480.

Banaji, M. R., & Hardin, C. D. (1996). Automatic  stereotyping. Psychological Science. 7(3), 136-141.

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02/02               Ethnic groups, Race, Essentialism and the Psychology of Group Cognition (Joe)

Required Reading:

Gil-White, Francisco. Are ethnic groups species to the human brain? Manuscript Under Review.

 Suggested Readings:

R. McElreath, R. Boyd and P. J. Richerson. Shared Norms Can Lead to the Evolution of Ethnic Markers.          http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/boyd/EthnicMarkers1.8.pdf

Hirschfeld, Lawrence A. (1996) Race in the making: cognition, culture, and the child’s construction of human kinds. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Barth, Frederik (1969) Ethnic groups and boundaries. The social organization of culture difference.  Published: Boston, Little, Brown.

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02/09               Religion and Social Moraliy (Scott)

Required Reading:

Irons, Williams (1996) Morality, religion, and human nature. In W.M.  Richardson & W. Wildman (eds.) Religion and science: History, method, dialogue. New York: Routledge.

Strongly Recommended:

Frank, Robert (1988) Passions within reason: The strategic role of the emotions. New York: W.W. Norton.. (Chapters 2-3, “The Altruism Paradox” and “A Theory of Moral Sentiments,” pp. 20-70)

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02/16               Power - Intraspsychic motivations (Ram)

 Required Reading:

              Winter, D. G. (2000). Power, sex, and violence: A psychological reconstruction of the 20th century and an intellectual agenda for political psychology. Political Psychology, 21(2), 383-404.

 Suggested Readings:

            Mclelland, D. (1975). Power: The inner experience. New York: Irvington.

Nicholos, C. S. (1990). Power: A political history of the twentieth century. New York: Oxford University Press.

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 02/23   Systems Justification Theory (Ram)

 Required Reading:

             Jost, J., Burgess, D. & Mosso, C. (in press) Conflicts of legitimation among self, group, and system: The integrative potential of system justification theory.

Suggested Readings:

             Stoler, A. (1997). On political and psychological essentialism. Ethos, 25(1), 101-106.

             Jackman, M.R., & Senter, M.S.  (1983).  Different, therefore unequal: Beliefs about trait differences between groups of unequal status.  Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 2, 309-335.

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03/09               Political Structures & Modes of Religiosity (Justin)

Required Readings:

Whitehouse, H. (2000). Summary of the Modes of Religiosity Project and Empirical Predictions.  Informational letter.

Whitehouse, H. (1996) Rites of Terror: Emotion, Metaphor and Memory in Melanesian Initiation Cults. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2, 703-715.

Suggested Reading:

Whitehouse, H. (2000). Icons and Arguments: Divergent Modes of Religiosity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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03/16               Do Cultural Groups Serve Individuals, or Vice Versa? (Sober & Wilson required; Rappaport optional - Scott)

Required Readings:

Sober, Elliot & David Sloan Wilson (1998) Unto others: The evolution and psychology of unselfish behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.  (Chapters 4-5, “Group Selection and Human Behavior” and “Human Groups as Adaptive Units,” pp. 132-194).

Rappaport, Roy (1999) Ritual and religion in the making of humanity.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Chapter 1, “The Ritual Form,” pp.

23-68).

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03/23   Social Dominance Orientation (Ram)

Required Reading:

Pratto, F., Liu, J. H., Levin, S., Sidanius, J., Shih, M., Bachrach, H., & Hegarty, P. (2000). Social dominance orientation and the legitimization of inequality across cultures. Journal of Cross- Cultural Psychology, 31(3), 369-409. 

Suggested Readings:

Sidanius, J., Levin, S., Liu, J., & Pratto, F. (2000). Social dominance orientation, anti egalitarianism and the political psychology of gender: An extension and cross-cultural replication. European Journal of Social Psychology, 30, 41-67.

Jost, J., & Banaji, M. R. (1994). The role of stereotyping in system justification and the production of false consciousness. British Journal of Social Psychology, 33, 1-27.

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03/30               Cognition and Social Structure (Joe)

 

Required Reading:

 

Fiske, Alan. The Four Elementary Forms of Sociality: Framework for a Unified Theory of Social Relations. Psychological Review, 99, 689-723, 1992.

Suggested readings:

Fiske, Alan P. 1993. Social Errors in Four Cultures: Evidence about Universal Forms of Social Relations. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 24:463-494.

Fiske, Alan P. 1995. Social Schemata for Remembering People: Relationships and Person Attributes that Affect Clustering in Free Recall of Acquaintances. Journal of Quantitative Anthropology, 5:305-324.

Fiske, Alan P., & Haslam, Nick 1997. The Structure of Social Substitutions: A Test of Relational Models Theory. European Journal of Social Psychology, 27:725-729.

 

 

04/06               Determining who is a who: The role of perceived control (Justin)

Required Readings

            Scholl, B. J. & Tremoulet, P. D. (2000). Perceptual causality and animacy.  Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4, 299-308.

Barrett, J. L. & Johnson, A. H. (2000). Losing your marbles?  Attributing intentional agency to inanimate objects. Manuscript under review.

 

04/13   Status Ranking and the Evolution of Status Psychologies (Joe)    

 

Required Reading:

 

Henrich, Joseph and Gil-White, Francisco (forthcoming) The Evolution of Prestige: freely-conferred status as a mechanism for enhancing the benefits of cultural transmission. Evolution and Human Behavior

Suggested Readings:

Sidanius, Jim. Social dominance: An intergroup theory of social hierarchy and oppression.Cambridge, UK ; New York Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Goode W. J. (1978). The celebration of heroes: Prestige as a social control system. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Hatch E. (1992). Respectable lives: Social standing in rural New Zealand. Berkeley: University of California Press.

 


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