Culture is a powerful force in human behavior. In fact, it can be stronger than life itself. The human infant enters the world cultureless, but by adulthood he or she is immersed in his or her culture. This is true of every aspect of a person’s existence: attitudes, values, beliefs, and ideals, overt motor activity, and even the very structure of thought. It is strong enough to hold the sex urge at bay, leading to premarital chastity and even voluntary vows of celibacy for life; it is strong enough to deny satisfactions when the fulfillment of those satisfactions seems impossible (as when people choose to die from starvation because they consider certain foods to be unclean); it is strong enough to cause people to disembowel themselves or shoot themselves to remove the stain of dishonour.
Like other complex human phenomena, culture is hard to define. Yet, despite its elusiveness, the concept is a central one in various academic disciplines, from history to philosophy to sociology to psychology.
In a broad sense, culture refers to the social behaviour and institutions of all human societies. A more narrow definition might include the beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits that characterize a particular society at a given time. It has been customary to refer to the cultures of individual societies, such as the Seneca or Eskimo or North American Plains cultures, and to speak in general terms of “Eskimo culture” or the “cultures of the northwestern United States.”
While cultural processes may be influenced by natural factors (e.g., climate), they are more often determined by other cultural forces. It is for this reason that it is useful to study the relationships between cultures and other processes that affect development.
One characteristic of cultural processes is their capacity to spread and diffuse. Within limits of desirability on the one hand and the possibility of communication on the other, cultural elements can move about the globe in an almost instantaneous fashion. Amber from the Baltic, early coins from the Middle East, and macaw feathers found in northern Arizona all show evidence of such movement.
Another characteristic of cultural processes is their ability to adapt to the natural environment. Some examples of this are the tailored fur clothing and hemispherical snow houses of some Eskimo cultures and the sedentary horticultural farming lifestyles of some Indian tribes after they acquired herds of livestock.
It is important to understand the roles of both ponderable and imponderable cultural forces in human development. Moreover, it is necessary to go beyond the simple demonstration that culture matters by investigating how and why different cultures differ in their beliefs and values. Only then will we have an understanding of how differences in these values lead to differing levels of happiness, achievement, and development. This is the task that awaits us. The research that follows is intended to explore these issues. It is our hope that this research will help to advance the field of developmental science.