Psychological Anthropology

Catalog description

Psychological anthropology explores the relationship between culture/society and psychological phenomena such as personality, emotion, cognition, and mental illness. Both anthropologists and psychologists have long recognized that there are complex associations between these phenomena, but identifying exactly how they are related has been a major challenge. This course surveys efforts to incorporate psychological perspectives into anthropology, starting with late 19th century psychoanalysis, examining the very influential work on culture and personality that shaped much of anthropology in the middle of the 20th century, and more recent research in cognitive anthropology.