Cultural neuroscience on menu for psych speaker series

Nipissing University’s psychology speaker series welcomes Dr. Shinobu Kitayama, of the department of psychology at the University of Michigan, to campus for a lecture titled Cultural Neuroscience: Why we need it, on Friday, April 7 at 1 p.m. in room H105. Admission is free and all are welcome.

Here is an abstract on Dr. Kitayama’s lecture:

The last two decades of research in socio-cultural psychology shows that basic psychological processes such as cognition, emotion, and motivation, as well as the self and the human agency that is constituted by these processes, are profoundly influenced by values, beliefs, and norms that sometimes vary dramatically from one society to the next. So far, however, this research has remained agnostic about specific mechanisms underlying the socio-cultural influences. Here, I will make four arguments that as a whole begin to suggest a broad program of research addressing the mechanism question. First, ecology is a potent distal factor that fosters cross-culturally divergent values and norms. Second, to clarify the nature of this ecological influence, it is important to focus on the last 10,000 years of human evolution/history, during which humans across the globe began to form large groups that go beyond immediate kinship relations. Third, a loosely organized set of social values, norms, and practices called culture influences brain functions and structures. That is, culture is embrained such that cultural information is stored in neuro-physical structures and processes of the brain. Fourth, the eco-cultural influences on neural pathways of the brain are modulated by genetic and epigenetic mechanisms. Implications for the future of socio-cultural psychology are discussed.