Contribution de la psychologie culturelle à la modélisation du développement

Culture and Cognitive Development

This paper reports my own perceptions of the history of research on culture and cognitive development, in the approximate period 1960 to 2000. I review in particular my own efforts to test Piaget’s theory cross-culturally, but also include other lines of research such as research inspired by Vygotsky and research on child rearing/socialization potentially linked to cognitive development. I briefly mention a research program in Bali, Indonesia, India, and Nepal on the geocentric spatial frame of reference that allowed us to disentangle a variety of eco-cultural and linguistic variables that determine the preference for this geocentric cognitive style. I also recall the “integrated framework” that I proposed in 2003 to combine the models proposed by several authors and which serves to integrate all the findings. The main conclusion is that cognitive processes are universal but that there are cultural differences in cognitive styles and pathways of development. I also discuss why the field has lost momentum, whether it is because all the questions have been answered or because new topics and research methods have evolved.

Communicative Functions in Children Raised in Three Different Social Contexts in Colombia: The Key Issue of Joint Attention

Children’s sociocultural experiences vary around the world. Colombia is a South American country where the differences between socioeconomic statuses (SES) are huge. In this study, through the ECSP-E Scale, translated to Spanish and validated for linguistic and cultural equivalence, the development of three communicative functions was evaluated through an interactive sociopragmatic approach. The participants comprised 36 24-month-old children, raised in three different social contexts in Colombia, with the goal of comparing them across groups of SES. The lowest SES group sample subjects were representative of extreme poverty and members of an ethnic group, the Wayuú. Results for the communicative functions, namely social interaction (SI), joint attention (JA), and behavior regulation (BR), showed that the only function with no significant differences across SES was joint attention. This supports the hypothesis that the development of this function may be universal, in light of the fact that the Wayuú not only differed from other subjects in terms of their socioeconomic status but also in their culture. Higher SES was related to better social interaction, while Low SES was associated with better behavior regulation than their High SES peers. Consequently, results are discussed considering socioeconomic and cultural differences in the development of communication and social interactions, leading us to reexamine the paradigms, theories, and practices that are used when observing children raised in very poor environments.

Culture and human development: Where did it go? And where is it going?

Culture and human development blossomed as a research enterprise in the last quarter of the 20th century; the energy and innovation of that enterprise are less evident now. Where did it go, and where is it going? In this essay, we examine the shifting fields of cross-cultural psychology, psychological anthropology, cultural psychology, indigenous psychology, and the surge of research on Individualism/Collectivism. Offering both academic and personal perspectives, we reflect on the importance of "culture" as a construct, and the value of focusing on individual development in that context. The way forward now, we suggest, is international and intercultural collaboration of scientists. The challenge for training new researchers from diverse backgrounds, however, is to equip them with the knowledge and insights gained from cross-cultural psychology, psychological anthropology, and their own cultures, rather than simply making the next generation of scholars into new representatives of Western theories of development.