Seeking a Rapprochement Between Anthropology and the Cognitive Sciences: A Problem‐Driven Approach

Abstract

Beller, Bender, and Medin question the necessity of including social anthropology within the cognitive sciences. We argue that there is great scope for fruitful rapprochement while agreeing that there are obstacles (even if we might wish to debate some of those specifically identified by Beller and colleagues). We frame the general problem differently, however: not in terms of the problem of reconciling disciplines and research cultures, but rather in terms of the prospects for collaborative deployment of expertise (methodological and theoretical) in problem-driven research. For the purposes of illustration, our focus in this article is on the evolution of cooperation.

Suggestions of Power: Searching for Efficacy in Indonesia's Hypnosis Boom

“…Yet the analytical significance of the seminar format could easily have been overlooked, were it not for the participant observation method, which confronted me as a researcher with the same differentials in experience as my informants, and the years of psychological research into suggestibility (and other interactional affordances), which identified patterns through which I could explain them. Though psychological experiments are far from exhaustive, and often framed in ways that reflect the cultural biases of Euro‐American researchers (Whitehouse and Cohen , 411), I thus agree with Blackman (, 577) that closer engagement with social psychology should be a priority for social and anthropological theory. Indeed, by putting experimental findings in dialogue with ethnographic observations it might, ultimately, be possible to develop a theoretical model of felt experience that has the “structured precision” (Hemmings , 562) of affect itself.…”

“…Not only do we develop new capacities for joint attention and shared intentionality as we grow (Tomasello ), psychological experiments indicate that certain interactional ecologies and topologies routinely potentiate distinctive forms of embodied experience, albeit via mechanisms that remain poorly understood. A well‐known example is the “synchrony effect,” whereby participation in synchronous activity, such as communal ritual, elicits intense feelings of “bondedness” and “moral unity” (Whitehouse and Cohen , 406–407). Especially relevant to this article is the observation that certain topologies heighten the plasticity of human subjectivity, enabling others to induce felt experience via a process of “suggestion” (Blackman ; Borch ; Humphrey ).…”

Turning Tides: Prospects for More Diversity in Cognitive Science

“…Although our intention was to include anthropology in the broadest sense, our criticisms focused on cognitive and cultural anthropology. Levinson and Whitehouse and Cohen as well as Barrett et al. remind readers that a broader sense of anthropology is what is needed in current research and theory.…”

“…As emphasized by Astuti and Bloch , Barrett et al. , and Whitehouse and Cohen , anthropology also brings important theoretical questions to the table—even though Levinson and Whitehouse and Cohen express doubts about whether the subfield of (English‐speaking) cognitive anthropology, as currently constituted, is equipped to be a player. But the division of labor is an ongoing negotiation.…”

Why Anthropology Remains Integral to Cognitive Science

“…Yet these observations neither entail the lack of anthropological contribution nor its impending divorce from cognitive science. After all, attendance at the meeting of an academic society is not an accurate measure of cross-disciplinary contribution; the interdisciplinary hostility of a few scientists does not constitute interdisciplinary incompatibility; and advancements in cognitive psychology do not entail losses for anthropology.Second, the presence of anthropology may not be evident in all areas of cognitive science, but that is certainly not the case for CSR (see Whitehouse & Cohen, 2012). Whether it concerns the Neolithic mind, the biogenic foundations of shamanism, or the cognitive and evolutionary roots of religion, anthropologists have made an unmistakable impression on the field.…”