Dear RSF:

Please join us in the library at 11:00 on Wednesday, February 19, for Visiting Scholar Shinobu Kitayama’s presentation, “How Culture Shapes the Mind: Brain Plasticity and the Diversity of Mentality.” 

Kitayama received his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Michigan, and his B.A. and M.A. from Kyoto University in Japan.  He is the Robert B. Zajonc Collegiate Professor of Psychology and Director of the Culture and Cognition Program at the University of Michigan, where he has been since 2003.  The second edition of his Handbook of Cultural Psychology was released in 2018. 

Currently, Kitayama is using his three decades of empirical research in cultural psychology and neuroscience to develop a monograph arguing that the human mind is shaped and transformed by social and cultural contexts, rather than biology. He is exploring how different socio-cultural environments influence the relationship between peoples’ subjective, psychological health and their objective, biological health. He is also studying how culture, social class, and other factors affect individuals’ cognition, motivation, emotions, and perceptions of the self.