Taking Culture Seriously

Developmental psychologists have often found it difficult to take cultural factors seriously in their research. This is in part because the holistic notion of culture appeared to have global effects that are difficult to model as variables in research designs, and anthropologists have not been able to agree on a viable unit of culture. This paper proposes that treating culture as ‘models’ is a powerful way to conceptualize cultural aspects of human development, and that specific kinds of cultural models can easily be factored into research designs in developmental psychology.