[SOC Seminar] The Dynamic Cultural Mind: Linking Neuroscience, Cognition, and Identity
Speaker
Ying-yi HongLocation
Sage Room, Psych 1312Info
Abstract:
Culture is pervasive yet often invisible, shaping our perceptions and behaviors much like the air we breathe, as Clyde Kluckhohn famously observed. Despite its central role in human psychology, defining culture remains notoriously difficult — with more than 160 definitions identified (Steinmetz, 1999) — and studying it poses enduring methodological challenges. A key task for cultural psychologists today is to move beyond static definitions toward a dynamic understanding of how cultural knowledge is activated and expressed in context. Addressing this, my research team at The Culture Lab (www.yingyihong.org) has developed the dynamic constructivist approach, which conceptualizes culture as a system of shared knowledge that both shapes and is shaped by individuals’ social and geopolitical environments. This framework offers a powerful lens for examining how people navigate multiple cultural frameworks — and how these processes influence cognition, emotion, and identity. In this talk, I will present research using neuroscience and social-cognitive methods to explore phenomena such as cultural priming, racial essentialism, cultural mixing, and cultural attachment. Together, these studies reveal the dynamic psychological mechanisms underlying cultural navigation and shed light on how culture shapes — and sometimes divides — our shared human experience.
