What does it mean for culture to ‘shape’ cognition? (opens in new tab)

Human culture and cognition vary widely across groups, but how exactly culture ‘shapes’ cognition remains underspecified. In this review, we outline four qualitatively different pathways by which culture can shape cognition. In this framework, culture can (i) privilege some cognitive processes, while leaving alternative processes intact; (ii) prune unused alternative processes, which are irretrievably lost; (iii) produce new cognitive processes; or (iv) have no effect on cognition at all. To ...