Bridging Cultural and Developmental Approaches to Psychology


Revisiting Isaac Newton’s famed plea to build fewer walls and more bridges, this book brings together eminent researchers who propose ways to bridge cultural and developmental approaches to human psychology. The book covers psychological processes such as learning and memory, key contexts of development such as family and civil society, conceptions of self and identity, and how the life course is partitioned including a focus on childhood and emerging adulthood.

Also available in Mandarin.

Table of Contents
More Info at Oxford University Press


Reviews

‘This wonderful book broadens the central question in psychology of what changes in human development to address not just change across the lifespan, but change across contexts, cultures, and societies. The reframing of developmental science in this volume is vital for the understanding and fulfillment of human potential in global contexts.’
Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Professor of Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education

‘Jensen and her colleagues present a singularly creative, important, and timely integration of developmental and cultural perspectives on the course of human life. The book provides an exciting, rich, and compelling framework for productively fusing developmental and cultural theory, research, and applications in the service of understanding and enhancing human development.’
Richard M. Lerner, Bergstrom Chair in Applied Developmental Science and Director, Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development, Tufts University

‘Human developmental research is increasingly comparative, cross-cultural, and international. These outstanding researchers bring a rich, pluralist perspective alive in chapters that do not bracket context out, but richly incorporate context and meaning into our understandings of developmental stages, cognition, social behavior, and the desired outcomes of development.’
Thomas S. Weisner, Professor of Anthropology, Departments of Psychiatry and Anthropology, University of California at Los Angeles

‘Bridging Cultural and Developmental Approaches to Psychology: New Syntheses in Theory, Research, and Policy provides a tour-de-force integration of cultural and developmental perspectives, producing fresh insights for theory, research, and policy. Away with meaningless distinctions and oppositions, this volume makes clear that any serious study of human development must integrate culture and developmental perspectives which invariably produces more than the sum of its parts. It is a must read for scholars and practitioners alike.’
Michele Gelfand, Professor of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park