Culture, Self and Identity: Interactivist Contributions to a Metatheory for Cultural Psychology

Abstract

A complete and thorough grasp of culture eludes psychology because of the pervasive dualism that pervades psychology and Western thought more broadly. Drawing on interactivism, a process model for human phenomena, we make two main points: first, culture cannot be reified, seen as distinct from the self, nor can it be treated as something objective or subjective; and, second, agency and culture are intertwined and distributed across levels of knowing. We explore how interactivism provides powerful resources for modeling the relationship between culture and the person and indicate how interactivism is generally compatible with social practice, hermeneutic, dialogical and narrative insights but situates them within a developmental ontology. We consider implications of interactivism for existing theories like internalization, self-construal theory and individualism—collectivism.