Universality and plasticity, ontogeny and phylogeny

the resonance between culture and cognitive development

Neil Warren

pp. 290-326

in: John Sants (ed), Developmental psychology and society, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1980

Abstract

Lévi-Strauss once prophesied that marked cultural differences will sometime in the twenty-first century disappear in favour of a single humanity. As the world shrinks and the planetary culture begins to take shape, it is already much more difficult than it was for our grandfathers to identify any cultures which we might dare to call `primitive". We still accept that there are cultural differences; but not necessarily that those cultural variations result from, or even result in, psychological differences of a fundamental kind. Cultural differences may, however, be—I would say obviously are to some extent—an overlay on psychological universals.