How Culture Molds Habits

August 8, 2000 9:37 PM

How Culture Molds Habits is a fascinating article. Read this article, tally another point for nurture. I've long thought this was true, but Nisbett's supposedly gathered rather a lot of data proving it is so. The article raises some interesting parts of the study, but I think the ramifications bear some considering. I'd be interested in reading the full study when it's published, but I haven't a clue where to get the Psychological Review. And can you imagine what the advertising execs will do with this stuff? Ads tailored to the way you think. Wheee. It does, of course, raise some fun questions about religion and politics.
posted by fable (4 comments total)

...link courtesy of Follow Me Here.
posted by fable at 9:40 PM on August 8, 2000

Here's how to get the article when it is published: Go to any college or university library. Find the journal stacks. All of the available professional journals are displayed alphabetically by title. Find Psychological Review. It is a fairly prestigious psychology journal so any university library should carry it. Current issues are usually in the stacks. However, some libraries keep current issues in a general reading area for awhile so you might have to look around.

I am not the author of the study but I am a professor of psychology and I agree that this study is significant. Psychological Review is a place for research reviews, which means that the author has compiled and distilled credible evidence from a wide range of psychological, linguistic, neurological, and other kinds of research. I look forward to reading it. It will probably come out in December.
posted by jtm at 6:07 AM on August 9, 2000

Ad agencies already make ads targetted to the way we think.
posted by Doug at 10:53 AM on August 9, 2000

Maybe we should be talking about this in terms of memes, and if this sort of blind propagation of behaviors is good or bad for the future of the human race. It may be a holdover from primitive days: "watch, fit in, learn, repeat then survive." But we have evolved imagination and a society that allows us the time and other means to direct the expansion of our mind any way we wish. So are traditions that keep us living for instant gratification, living day to day, just getting by at a comfortable level a detractor from growing out of the problems our society is plagued by? If we can control how we let culture mold our habits(you've seen those individuals-and you may be one of them yourself-who doesn't let their history or fads infiltrate their lives), what would be the next most intelligent step?
posted by ForeverBoy at 10:47 AM on August 10, 2000