Culture as Embodiment: The Social Tuning of Behavior

Utilizing the most recent insights in psychology, cognitive, and affective science, Culture as Embodiment reveals the true cultural patterning of behavior in group-related practices. Refuting longstanding notions that culture alone is responsible for group behavior, cultural psychology experts Voestermans and Verheggen cogently argue that behavioral science must first specify precisely what the notion of culture consists of, in terms of concrete empirical evidence. The authors proceed to lay out a coherent set of perspectives on the social tuning of the body, behaviour, feeling, and cognition to reveal that we call culture is actually an embodied affair, to be observed in recognizable practices among group members. Their conclusions are supported through lengthy analyses of key domains of human behavior, including gender and male-female power relations, class and age differences, ethnicity, and religious faith. Thought-provoking and timely, Culture as Embodiment offers original and indispensable insights into our understanding of the forces that shape behavior in the 21st-century globalized world.