The Mind in Context

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  • Hardback: 371 pages
  • Published: March 2010
  • ISBN: 978-1-60623-553-9
  • Publisher: Guilford Press

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Most psychology research still assumes that mental processes are internal to the person, waiting to be expressed or activated. This compelling book illustrates that a new paradigm is forming in which contextual factors are considered central to the workings of the mind. Leading experts explore how psychological processes emerge from the transactions of individuals with their physical, social, and cultural environments. The volume showcases cutting-edge research on the contextual nature of such phenomena as gene expression, brain networks, the regulation of hormones, perception, cognition, personality, knowing, learning, and emotion.

The book will be of great intersts to those working in the fields of social and personality, as well as cognitive psychologists; neuroscientists; and graduate students in these fields. It may also serve as a supplemental text in graduate-level courses.

Table of Contents

L.F. Barrett, B. Mesquita, E.R. Smith, The Context Principle. Part 1. Genes and the Brain. L.V. Harper, Epigenetic Inheritance. O. Sporns, Brain Networks and Embodiment. S.M. van Anders, Social Modulation of Hormones. Part 2. Cognition and Affect. B. Mesquita, Emoting: A Contextualized Process. N. Schwarz, Meaning in Context: Meta-Cognitive Experiences. E.R. Smith, E.C. Collins, Situated Cognition. Part 3. The Person. W. Mischel, Y. Shoda, The Situated Person. S. Kitayama, T. Imada, Implicit Independence and Interdependence: A Cultural Task Analysis. Y. Dunham, M. Banaji, Platonic Blindness and the Challenge of Understanding Context. S. Sinclair, J. Lun, Social Tuning of Ethnic Attitudes. Part 4. Behavior. M.E. Bouton, The Multiple Forms of "Context" in Associative Learning Theory. D.A. Prentice, T.E. Trail, Threat, Marginality, and Reactions to Norm Violations. G. Adams, P.S. Salter, K.M. Pickett, T. Kurtis, N.L. Phillips, Behavior as Mind in Context: A Cultural Psychology Analysis of "Paranoid" Suspicion in West African Worlds. M.J. Richardson, K.L. Marsh, R.C. Schmidt, Challenging the Egocentric View of Coordinated Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing. L.W. Barsalou, C.D. Wilson, W. Hasenkamp, Conclusion: On the Vices of Nominalization and the Virtues of Contexting.

Reviews

"Can you see a figure without a background? Can you understand a person without the situation? Can you appreciate a mind without seeing its world? This book says 'no' in answer to these questions, and suggests instead that the study of psychology must adopt a new maneuver - a thoroughgoing vision of mind as a contextualized and contextualizing engine. The distinguished contributors to this volume offer a new vision of mind by daring to explore it in context." - Daniel M. Wegner, Department of Psychology, Harvard University, USA

"The mind is on the loose, no longer stuffed inside the skull! Read all about it in this compelling volume from leaders in the fields of social, cultural, cognitive, and personality psychology and neuropsychology. Heralding a major paradigm shift, The Mind in Context is a highly readable explanation of how the mind extends into the world and why context is an active ingredient of mind. Thoughts, emotions, attitudes, selves, identities, personalities are not internal entities that control behavior; instead they emerge in mutual and reciprocal relations between individuals and their environments. An excellent contribution for students of psychology at all levels and for anyone who wants to understand how and why context matters." - Hazel Rose Markus, Davis-Brack Professor in the Behavioral Sciences, Department of Psychology, Stanford University, USA

"Revolutions in thought occur when diverse investigators converge on the same insight. In The Mind in Context, a stellar group of scientists explain how phenomena from the genetic and hormonal to the social and cultural reflect processes that are embedded, embodied, and situated. Sixteen readable chapters lead to one overarching conclusion - that the mind we’ve been studying as a noun is probably a verb." - Gerald L. Clore, Commonwealth Professor of Psychology, University of Virginia, USA

Author Biography

Edited by Batja Mesquita, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Leuven, Belgium; Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD, Department of Psychology, Boston College, USA; and Eliot R. Smith, PhD, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University Bloomington, USA