The Mind in Context

This volume provides a corrective to the tendency towards essentialism in psychological disciplines, that a word resulting from a categorisation process corresponds to some deep reality in the material world, and is independent of context. The authors argue that context is an active ingredient of mind, which is influenced by all sorts of conditions. This trend has been exacerbated by the behaviourist model of stimulus > response when in fact the mind selects what will constitute a stimulus in various physical, social and cultural environments. The four parts discuss genes and the brain, cognition and affect, the interdependence of persons and the context of behaviour. Thus in the first section there is an essay on epigenetic inheritance (gene expression), in the second a consideration of meaning and the way in which emotional experiences are embedded in social relationships. In the third, social tuning of ethnic attitudes as an example of dispositions in context, and in the fourth there are analyses of behaviours in a number of group and cultural contexts.