Prof Rita Astuti OLD6.11 and Prof Charles Stafford OLD6.02

This course is compulsory on the MSc in Social Anthropology (Learning and Cognition). This course is available on the MSc in Anthropology and Development, MSc in Anthropology and Development (Management) and MSc in Social Anthropology. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

The course will start by examining the contribution that the study of human psychology can make to anthropology. After discussing why anthropologists should pay attention to psychology and why psychologists should pay attention to anthropology, we will examine a range of psychological findings (for example, on infants’ knowledge of the physical and mental world) and their relevance to anthropology. Throughout, the course will focus on the relationship between mechanisms of cultural transmission, both informal and institutional, and what anthropologists have called 'culture' and 'society'. We will look at the way universal human capabilities develop and are used during different stages of life to create unique cultural understandings. Topics covered include ‘innateness’, 'theory of mind', informal and formal education, emotions, expertise, and the nature of different types of beliefs. We will consider how themes of this kind - elaborated in cognitive anthropology and in cognitive science more generally - lead to a reconsideration of classic anthropological concerns, including kinship, religion, politics and economics.

15 hours of lectures and 10 hours of seminars in the MT. 10 hours of lectures and 10 hours of seminars in the LT. 2 hours of lectures in the ST.

M Cole, Cultural Psychology; D Holland and N Quinn, Cultural Models in Language and Thought; E Hutchins, Cognition in the Wild; J Lave, Cognition in Practice; M Bloch, How We Think They Think; D Sperber, Explaining Culture; P Boyer, Religion explained; R Astuti, G Solomon and S Carey, Constraints on Conceptual Development; M Tomasello, The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition.

Exam (100%, duration: 3 hours) in the main exam period.