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On the Intentionality of Cultural Products: Representations of Black History As Psychological Affordances

A cultural-psychological analysis emphasizes the intentionality of everyday worlds: the idea that material products not only bear psychological traces of culturally constituted beliefs and desires, but also subsequently afford and promote culturally consistent understandings and actions. We applied...

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Autores principales: Salter, Phia S., Adams, Glenn
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5003080/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27621712
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01166
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author Salter, Phia S.
Adams, Glenn
author_facet Salter, Phia S.
Adams, Glenn
author_sort Salter, Phia S.
collection PubMed
description A cultural-psychological analysis emphasizes the intentionality of everyday worlds: the idea that material products not only bear psychological traces of culturally constituted beliefs and desires, but also subsequently afford and promote culturally consistent understandings and actions. We applied this conceptual framework of mutual constitution in a research project using quantitative and qualitative approaches to understand the dynamic resonance between sociocultural variance in Black History Month (BHM) representations and the reproduction of racial inequality in the U.S. In studies 1 and 2, we considered whether mainstream BHM artifacts reflect the preferences and understandings of White Americans (i.e., psychological constitution of cultural worlds). Consistent with the psychological constitution hypothesis, White American participants reported more positive affect, better recognition, and greater liking for BHM representations from the schools where White Americans were the majority than BHM representations from the schools where Black students and other students of color were the majority. Moreover, as an indication of the identity relevance of BHM representations, White identification was more positively associated with judgments of positive affect and preference in response to BHM representations from White schools than BHM representations from the schools where Black students were in the majority. In studies 3 and 4, we considered whether BHM representations from different settings differentially afford support or opposition to anti-racism policies (i.e., cultural constitution of psychological experience). In support of the cultural constitution hypothesis, BHM representations typical of schools where Black students were in the majority were more effective at promoting support for anti-racism policies compared to BHM representations typical of predominately White schools and a control condition. This effect was mediated by the effect of (different) BHM representations on perception of racism. Together, these studies suggest that representations of Black History constitute cultural affordances that, depending on their source, can promote (or impede) perception of racism and anti-racism efforts. This research contributes to an emerging body of work examining the bidirectional, psychological importance of cultural products. We discuss implications for theorizing collective manifestations of mind.
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spelling pubmed-50030802016-09-12 On the Intentionality of Cultural Products: Representations of Black History As Psychological Affordances Salter, Phia S. Adams, Glenn Front Psychol Psychology A cultural-psychological analysis emphasizes the intentionality of everyday worlds: the idea that material products not only bear psychological traces of culturally constituted beliefs and desires, but also subsequently afford and promote culturally consistent understandings and actions. We applied this conceptual framework of mutual constitution in a research project using quantitative and qualitative approaches to understand the dynamic resonance between sociocultural variance in Black History Month (BHM) representations and the reproduction of racial inequality in the U.S. In studies 1 and 2, we considered whether mainstream BHM artifacts reflect the preferences and understandings of White Americans (i.e., psychological constitution of cultural worlds). Consistent with the psychological constitution hypothesis, White American participants reported more positive affect, better recognition, and greater liking for BHM representations from the schools where White Americans were the majority than BHM representations from the schools where Black students and other students of color were the majority. Moreover, as an indication of the identity relevance of BHM representations, White identification was more positively associated with judgments of positive affect and preference in response to BHM representations from White schools than BHM representations from the schools where Black students were in the majority. In studies 3 and 4, we considered whether BHM representations from different settings differentially afford support or opposition to anti-racism policies (i.e., cultural constitution of psychological experience). In support of the cultural constitution hypothesis, BHM representations typical of schools where Black students were in the majority were more effective at promoting support for anti-racism policies compared to BHM representations typical of predominately White schools and a control condition. This effect was mediated by the effect of (different) BHM representations on perception of racism. Together, these studies suggest that representations of Black History constitute cultural affordances that, depending on their source, can promote (or impede) perception of racism and anti-racism efforts. This research contributes to an emerging body of work examining the bidirectional, psychological importance of cultural products. We discuss implications for theorizing collective manifestations of mind. Frontiers Media S.A. 2016-08-29 /pmc/articles/PMC5003080/ /pubmed/27621712 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01166 Text en Copyright © 2016 Salter and Adams. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Salter, Phia S.
Adams, Glenn
On the Intentionality of Cultural Products: Representations of Black History As Psychological Affordances
title On the Intentionality of Cultural Products: Representations of Black History As Psychological Affordances
title_full On the Intentionality of Cultural Products: Representations of Black History As Psychological Affordances
title_fullStr On the Intentionality of Cultural Products: Representations of Black History As Psychological Affordances
title_full_unstemmed On the Intentionality of Cultural Products: Representations of Black History As Psychological Affordances
title_short On the Intentionality of Cultural Products: Representations of Black History As Psychological Affordances
title_sort on the intentionality of cultural products: representations of black history as psychological affordances
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5003080/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27621712
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01166
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