TY - JOUR

T1 - How cultural is 'cultural neuroscience'?

T2 - Some comments on an emerging research paradigm

AU - Denkhaus, Ruth

AU - Bös, Mathias

N1 - Funding Information: For many suggestions and comments we thank the members of the research project ‘Cultural Neuroscience: Neural processes, social interaction and societal conflicts’ in Marburg, especially Peter Dabrock, Benno Hafeneger, Tilo Kircher and Ulrich Wagner, as well as Gerd Richter and the anonymous referees of BioSocieties. Research leading to this article has been funded by the LOEWE initiative ‘Cultural Neuroscience’ of the State of Hesse. Copyright: Copyright 2012 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2012/12/10

Y1 - 2012/12/10

N2 - 'Cultural neuroscience' presents itself as a new research paradigm within the neurosciences that takes the mutual constitution of culture, mind and brain seriously. As such, it has already gained considerable attention both among neuroscientists and traditional cultural psychologists. A superficial look at some of the studies published by practitioners in the field, however, might leave one with the impression that cultural neuroscience has more to do with the corroboration of well-established cultural clichés than with the broadening of mind it promises to bring about. In this article, we take a closer look at the emerging field of cultural neuroscience. The first section provides an overview of cultural neuroscience both with respect to the vision put forward by its proponents and to the actual state of research. In the second section, we engage with cultural neuroscience's parent discipline, cultural psychology, to gain a better understanding of the constructs and paradigms used by cultural neuroscientists. We conclude with three constructive proposals for a 'truly cultural cultural neuroscience' that avoids the popular pitfalls of essentialism and reductionism.

AB - 'Cultural neuroscience' presents itself as a new research paradigm within the neurosciences that takes the mutual constitution of culture, mind and brain seriously. As such, it has already gained considerable attention both among neuroscientists and traditional cultural psychologists. A superficial look at some of the studies published by practitioners in the field, however, might leave one with the impression that cultural neuroscience has more to do with the corroboration of well-established cultural clichés than with the broadening of mind it promises to bring about. In this article, we take a closer look at the emerging field of cultural neuroscience. The first section provides an overview of cultural neuroscience both with respect to the vision put forward by its proponents and to the actual state of research. In the second section, we engage with cultural neuroscience's parent discipline, cultural psychology, to gain a better understanding of the constructs and paradigms used by cultural neuroscientists. We conclude with three constructive proposals for a 'truly cultural cultural neuroscience' that avoids the popular pitfalls of essentialism and reductionism.

KW - critical review of paradigms

KW - cultural neuroscience

KW - cultural psychology

KW - theory

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84871082948&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1057/biosoc.2012.30

DO - 10.1057/biosoc.2012.30

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:84871082948

VL - 7

SP - 433

EP - 458

JO - BIOSOCIETIES

JF - BIOSOCIETIES

SN - 1745-8552

IS - 4

ER -