Primary process emotion, identity, and culture: cultural identification's roots in basic motivation

PRIMARY PROCESS EMOTIONS, IDENTITY, AND CULTURE The study of culture and psychology has generated a number of influential theoretical perspectives (e.g., Henrich et al., 2010; Markus and Kitayama, 2010). Less attention, however, has been directed at the psychological basis of cultural experience. What is it about cultural symbols that leads humans everywhere to create them? And, why do certain cultural symbols, be they religion, guns, food, or music hold such emotional weight for many of us? A simple answer could be “Humans can only survive in groups. We need shared symbols to communicate and cooperate with each other” This is essentially true, but here I argue that primary-process emotions identified by the field of affective neuroscience, further reflected upon in the context of several developmental theories, can elucidate the emotional nature of cultural experience. Culture, we shall see, is important not just because it teaches the skills needed to survive in a particular social and physical environment: It also satisfies a primary emotional need for security and predictability. I argue that a primitive attachment to culture goes beyond cognitive abilities and language to the very basis of human emotion and motivation. Thinking about cultural symbols in this way helps to understand the strength, and it can be argued, irrationality, of feelings and behaviors sometimes associated with them.