The Mind in Context

by Batja Mesquita (Editor), Lisa Feldman Barrett (Editor), Eliot R. Smith (Editor)

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.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction

371 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Batja Mesquita is a social psychologist, an affective scientist, and a pioneer of cultural psychology. She is a professor of psychology at the University of Leuven, Belgium, and director of the Center for Social and Cultural Psychology at the University of Leuven. Before coming to Leuven, she was affiliated to Wake Forest University, the University of Michigan, Stanford University, and the University of Amsterdam. Mesquita is one of the world’s leading authorities on the psychological study of cultural differences in emotions. Her most recent research focuses on the role of emotions in multicultural societies. She studies how emotions affect the belonging of minoritized youth in middle schools, and the social and economic integration of “newcomers” (i.e. newly arrived immigrants). Mesquita has been a consultant for UNICEF and the WHO, and most recently, she was a member of the core group of scientific advisors for the Happiness and Well-being (SEH) Project, and initiative of the Vatican in partnership with the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN).

Reviews

[Heli · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful collection on works that bring good examples on how ones environment -, or here the word 'context' is used - affects behavior and mind. This work is something that helps psychology to slowly move toward being a systemic science, where parts, their relationships, and premises (context being a subcategory of premises) when relationships and parts are in one way and when in another, are described.
I couldn't help but notice how the authors would find use in Toomela's 'culture, speech and my self' due to it having defined so many terms explicitly and hierarchically that this book uses implicitly or has defined more loosely. Integrating these works would result in a revolution in psychology.

[Ogi Ogas · Rating 5 out of 5]

My ratings of books on Goodreads are solely a crude ranking of their utility to me, and not an evaluation of literary merit, entertainment value, social importance, humor, insightfulness, scientific accuracy, creative vigor, suspensefulness of plot, depth of characters, vitality of theme, excitement of climax, satisfaction of ending, or any other combination of dimensions of value which we are expected to boil down through some fabulous alchemy into a single digit.