The Handbook of Culture and Biology

Jose M. Causadias, Eva H. Telzer, Nancy A. Gonzales, Jose M. Causadias, Eva H. Telzer, Nancy A. Gonzales

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781119181354
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Psychologische Psychologie

A comprehensive guide to empirical and theoretical research advances in culture and biology interplay

Culture and biology are considered as two domains of equal importance and constant coevolution, although they have traditionally been studied in isolation. The Handbook of Culture and Biology is a comprehensive resource that focuses on theory and research in culture and biology interplay. This emerging field centers on how these two processes have evolved together, how culture, biology, and environment influence each other, and how they shape behavior, cognition, and development among humans and animals across multiple levels, types, timeframes, and domains of analysis.

The text provides an overview of current empirical and theoretical advances in culture and biology interplay research through the work of some of the most influential scholars in the field. Harnessing insights from a range of disciplines (e.g., biology, neuroscience, primatology, psychology) and research methods (experiments, genetic epidemiology, naturalistic observations, neuroimaging), it explores diverse topics including animal culture, cultural genomics, and neurobiology of cultural experiences. The authors also advance the field by discussing key challenges and limitations in current research.

The Handbook of Culture and Biology is an important resource that:

• Gathers related research areas into the single, cohesive field of culture and biology interplay
• Offers a unique and comprehensive collection from leading and influential scholars
• Contains information from a wide range of disciplines and research methods
• Introduces well-validated and coherently articulated conceptual frameworks

Written for scholars in the field, this handbook brings together related areas of research and theory that have traditionally been disjointed into the single, cohesive field of culture and biology interplay.

Part I
General Issues in Culture and Biology Interplay

1
Introduction to Culture and Biology Interplay

José M. Causadias, Eva H. Telzer, and Nancy A. Gonzales

The relationship between culture and biology, and the issues that arise with it, have been at the forefront of psychology since its origin. Pioneers in the field, with different degrees of success, sought to explain human behavior, cognition, and development using both biological and cultural arguments. For instance, while Darwin (1872) emphasized the evolutionary significance of emotions by connecting animal and human behavior, Freud (1930) examined the impact of culture in the etiology of neurosis, as well as the role of hard-wired drives in conditioning human behavior. But perhaps the strongest evidence of how this relationship has shaped the history of psychology lies in the emergence and persistence of the nature-versus-nurture debate, introduced by Galton (1869, 1874), which in a way exemplifies the tension between innate-biological influences and social-cultural processes (Rutter, 2006). Psychology has often oscillated between these two poles, emphasizing the role of biological influences in some periods and environmental and cultural forces in others (see Schwartz, Lilienfeld, Meca, & Sauvigné, 2016).

Several scholars have argued that we are witnessing a period in psychology of growing emphasis on the role of biological processes (see Eisenberg, 2014; Kitayama & Uskul, 2011). Technical and methodological innovations in biological research in the last decades, as well as the improved understanding of the brain and the genome they have afforded, have opened new opportunities to elucidate their role in shaping psychological processes (Miller, 2010). Importantly, these advances improve our ability not only to explain behavior, but also to predict it. For example, a recent study suggests that using a joint clinical and genomic risk assessment can substantively advance our ability to predict suicidality (Niculescu et al., 2015). Furthermore, a new generation of scientists have begun to integrate biologically informed methods into their psychological research on culture, offering new insights on how experiences of racial discrimination can affect diurnal cortisol rhythm among African Americans (Fuller-Rowell, Doan, & Eccles, 2012) and Mexican Americans (Zeiders, Doane, & Roosa, 2012) and examining how dopamine polymorphisms are related to cultural differences in independent versus interdependent social orientation (Kitayama et al., 2014) and how cultural processes are associated with distinct patterns of brain functioning (Chiao & Ambady, 2007; Telzer, Masten, Berkman, Lieberman, & Fuligni, 2010).

Obstacles to the Integration of Culture and Biology

Despite these recent advances, there are several obstacles to achieving a more meaningful integration of cultural and biological methods that can substantially improve our understanding of human nature (Causadias, Telzer, & Lee, 2017). First, scholars who conduct research on social and cultural processes are well aware of the challenges associated with conveying the complexity of subjective experiences, so they might be skeptical about simplistic approaches that can potentially limit rich behavioral and symbolic human expressions to an image reflecting brain activity (see Syed & Kathawalla, chapter 2 in this volume). There is a growing concern with the idea that brain- or gene-based processes will ultimately explain everything and eventually render psychology useless (Lilienfeld, 2007; Satel & Lilienfeld, 2013; Schwartz et al., 2016). These new arguments echo the pushback experienced by previous attempts to infuse biology into social sciences like sociobiology, that were condemned for the use of inappropriate reductionism (see Wilson, 2000).

Second, some scholars are predisposed against the use of these biological methods in cultural research, because biologically infused pseudoscience has in the past been employed to justify social and racial hierarchies (Hartigan, 2015), to rationalize group differences regarding intelligence (Sternberg, Grigorenko, & Kidd, 2005), and even to vindicate ethnic cleansing and genocide in the name of social Darwinism and the “survival of the fittest” (see Allen et al., 1975). Likewise, poorly designed and conducted studies of genes and culture that rely on incomplete data, deficient statistics, or logical fallacies are especially problematic and have been criticized from anthropological and biological perspectives (see Creanza & Feldman, 2016; Feldman, 2014; Guedes et al., 2013; Rosenberg & Kang, 2015). Examples include studies that conclude that lower genetic diversity in the Americas and greater genetic diversity in Africa both lead to poverty, while the intermediate level of genetic diversity in Europe is favorable to economic prosperity (Ashraf & Galor, 2013), and studies that argue for a genetic basis to racial differences in wealth, intelligence, and social institutions (Wade, 2014). However, racial ideologies preceded scientific attempts to justify them, or, as Coates (2015) argued, “race is the child of racism, not the father. And the process of naming ‘the people’ has never been a matter of genealogy and physiognomy so much as one of hierarchy” (p. 7). Thus, severe scrutiny is necessary to avoid invalid conclusions that run the risk of providing pseudoscientific ammunition for those attempting to justify ethnic cleansing, the systematic mistreatment of immigrants and minorities, or the stopping of humanitarian aid (Creanza & Feldman, 2016).

Third, the scientific exploitation of disenfranchised groups by unscrupulous biomedical researchers also has negative repercussions for the field. Past examples include the experiments conducted with African-American men in Alabama and with prisoners in Guatemala in which individuals were purposely infected with syphilis, as well as the diabetes project with the Havasupai Tribe in which participants’ DNA was used for other studies without their consent. These cases have contributed to resistance among some communities to participating in biologically informed studies, and have diminished trust in scientists (see Freimuth et al., 2001).

Fourth, there are not many conceptual models available to researchers in psychology that can account for the multiple ways in which these two processes relate and shape normal and abnormal development, with some noteworthy exceptions (see Fischer & Boer, 2016; Li, 2003; Mesoudi, Whiten, & Laland, 2006). Arguably, there are several theories on culture and biology interplay formulated by evolutionary biologists and population geneticists, including sociobiology (Wilson, 1975), gene–culture coevolutionary theory (Cavalli-Sforza & Feldman, 1981) and dual-inheritance theory (Boyd & Richerson, 1985). However, these models have had limited impact on current research on culture and biology in psychology, partly because of interdisciplinary barriers. With some possible exceptions, like molecular anthropology (Goodman, Tashian, & Tashian, 1976), behavioral research in the fields of culture and biology has evolved into different traditions and veered towards hyper-specialization, resulting in separate conceptual and methodological niches that favor intellectual insularity. This is reflected in graduate and postgraduate training. Scientists are socialized through research training into very distinct subgroups, often concentrating on a limited set of assumptions, values, algorithms, and priorities that condition research decisions (Cicchetti & Richters, 1997). Thus, training programs that focus on culture frequently emphasize models and methods closer to the humanities and social sciences than to neurosciences, while psychological programs specialized in genetics traditionally gravitate more towards life and biological sciences, and less towards cultural issues (Causadias et al., 2016).

In sum, justified skepticism about reductionist approaches, predisposition against biological explanations of social issues, distrust among ethnic minority communities of biomedical research, the disconnection between research fields and diverging training traditions all contribute to a paucity of research that meaningfully integrates cultural and biological levels of analysis to help us advance our understanding of behavior, cognition, and development. The most detrimental consequence of the current lack of integration of culture and biology is a biased, incomplete, and, most importantly, bipolar perspective that overemphasizes either the biological or cultural dimensions, thus perpetuating the nature versus nurture dichotomy and severely limiting our understanding of human nature.

The Field of Culture and Biology Interplay

In order to overcome these obstacles and the resulting schism between these two dimensions, we introduce the field of culture and biology interplay. In this chapter, we define its basic principles, describe the importance of conducting research using this paradigm, provide an overview of its history, and examine different types, levels, and domains of research in culture and biology interplay. We close by presenting some conclusions and future directions.

Culture and biology interplay is the field of study that centers on how these two processes have ...