From description to explanation : a dynamic approach to understanding culture
Event Title
International Interdisciplinary Conference: Advances in Comparative Culturology
Location
MBG06, Lam Woo Lecture Theatre, Patrick Lee Wan Keung Academic Building, Lingnan University
Start Date
16-5-2025 11:15 AM
End Date
16-5-2025 11:45 AM
Language
English
Description
Culture is elusive—pervasive yet often unnoticed. As Clyde Kluckhohn famously noted, "Culture is like the air we breathe." Its complexity is reflected in the existence of over 160 definitions (Steinmetz, 1999), prompting scholars to develop numerous approaches to study it. While these approaches have provided valuable insights into the development of diverse cultural traditions, they remain primarily descriptive and correlational. This limitation parallels the early phases of many scientific disciplines, which initially identified their subject matter as substances or structures—fire with phlogiston, heat with caloric, and life with vital fluid. Over time, these sciences evolved to understand their subjects as dynamic processes: combustion for fire, random thermal motion for heat, and complex systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium for life. Similarly, understanding culture demands a shift from static description to dynamic explanation. In response to this challenge, my collaborators and I proposed the dynamic constructivist approach, which examines the causal influence of culture on cognition, affect, and behavior. This framework enables new research directions for understanding how individuals navigate multiple cultural systems and their psychological effects. To illustrate these possibilities, I will present research from my lab on racial essentialism, cultural mixing, and cultural attachment. Taken together, these findings offer deeper insights into the complex processes underlying cultural conflicts worldwide.
Document Type
Presentation
Recommended Citation
Hong, Y. (2025, May 16). From description to explanation: A dynamic approach to understanding culture. Presented at the International Interdisciplinary Conference: Advances in Comparative Culturology, Lingnan University, Hong Kong.
From description to explanation : a dynamic approach to understanding culture
MBG06, Lam Woo Lecture Theatre, Patrick Lee Wan Keung Academic Building, Lingnan University
Culture is elusive—pervasive yet often unnoticed. As Clyde Kluckhohn famously noted, "Culture is like the air we breathe." Its complexity is reflected in the existence of over 160 definitions (Steinmetz, 1999), prompting scholars to develop numerous approaches to study it. While these approaches have provided valuable insights into the development of diverse cultural traditions, they remain primarily descriptive and correlational. This limitation parallels the early phases of many scientific disciplines, which initially identified their subject matter as substances or structures—fire with phlogiston, heat with caloric, and life with vital fluid. Over time, these sciences evolved to understand their subjects as dynamic processes: combustion for fire, random thermal motion for heat, and complex systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium for life. Similarly, understanding culture demands a shift from static description to dynamic explanation. In response to this challenge, my collaborators and I proposed the dynamic constructivist approach, which examines the causal influence of culture on cognition, affect, and behavior. This framework enables new research directions for understanding how individuals navigate multiple cultural systems and their psychological effects. To illustrate these possibilities, I will present research from my lab on racial essentialism, cultural mixing, and cultural attachment. Taken together, these findings offer deeper insights into the complex processes underlying cultural conflicts worldwide.
Additional Information
Speaker
Ying-yi HONG (Chinese University Hong Kong)
Ying-yi Hong is the Choh-Ming Li Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). She earned her Ph.D. in personality and social psychology from Columbia University. Before joining CUHK, she taught at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Her research focuses on culture and cognition, multicultural identity, and intergroup relations. She worked on projects using experimental social psychology methods to examine identity and intergroup relations during major events, such as handover of Hong Kong’s sovereignty to China in 1997, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011, Hong Kong’s social events in 2015 and 2019, and COVID-19-related conspiracy beliefs. Ying-yi is the recipient of the Otto Klineberg Intercultural and International Relations Award in 2001, International Society for Self and Identity Outstanding Early Career Award in 2004, and Nanyang Award for Research Excellence in 2013, and the Outstanding Contributions to Cultural Psychology Award in 2020. She was Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University in 2018 and the Senior Research Fellow of Hong Kong Research Grant Council (2021-26). She is currently serving on the Board of Directors of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP). More information about her research is available at www.yingyihong.org.