Table of content

Editorial: Huib Wursten

Shannon Murphy:  Neuroscience of inclusion: New skills for New Times.

Tatyana Fertelmeyster and Thorunn Bjarnadottir: Mothering away from a Motherland.

Jussara N. Pereira de Souza: Country Culture & Personality: What comes first?

Huib Wursten: Cross-cultural psychology. Some observations

Fernando Lanzer:  Culture and Psychoanalysis: What Freud and Jung missed

Christina Roettgers:  Responsibility in relation to individual, group and global concerns. A philosophical view

Articles

Editorial: Huib Wursten editorial-cross-cultural-psychology/

Shannon Murphy:  Neuroscience of inclusion: New skills for New Times.

Our brain is not wired for inclusion, no matter how well-intentioned one may be. The brain needs help to engage across cultures and differences effectively. It’s a paradox that the very hallmarks of the best of humanity, such as the ability to demonstrate kindness, compassion, care, understanding, open-mindedness, and empathy, are not always easily engaged across differences.

For the full article:  Neuroscience-of-inclusion-new-skills-for-new-times/      

Tatyana Fertelmeyster and Thorunn Bjarnadottir: Mothering away from a Motherland.

This article has been long in the making. We – Tatyana and Thorunn – two women from entirely different cultural backgrounds, from Russia and Iceland, with different reasons for and experiences of cultural transitions and navigating very different family dynamics- celebrate 25 years of our friendship in 2024. We invited about 20 women with very diverse cultural backgrounds and lived experiences to offer their collective wisdom to those who navigate different cultures while parenting or navigate parenting while mastering cultural nuances.

For the full article: mothering-away-from-the-motherland/

Jussara N. Pereira de Souza: Country Culture & Personality: What comes first?

A frequent question is what influences an individual more: her/his culture or her/his unique physical and psychological features.

The author dealt with this question in practice, especially when assessing people for different job positions in European countries, where the specific requirements of the work, in terms of competencies and abilities, should be combined with being able to deal with diverse cultural backgrounds.

This paper shares the author’s experience in an intercultural assessment center. Personality and culture were the bases from which to understand that unique person in front of you, leading to ideas as indications of possible future performance. The paper explores the diverse perspectives on these kinds of processes and how to ensure accuracy and fairness.

For the full article: Country-culture-personality-what-comes-first/

Huib Wursten: Cross-cultural psychology. Some observations

One big question is still puzzling me after 34 years of consultancy for top Fortune companies as well as international organizations: why is this body of knowledge in what I prefer to call “Intercultural Management” not taken more seriously by major policymakers?

Why do Governments seldomly invite experts in this field to explain how the values we can identify play a decisive role in how democracy is defined, in the set-up of societal institutions, in economic priority setting, taxing policies, immigration, welfare, etc.?

In this paper, possible reasons are formulated as to why the accumulated knowledge in this field does not always get the attention it deserves.

For the full article: Cross-cultural-psychology-some-observations/

Fernando Lanzer:  Culture and Psychoanalysis: What Freud and Jung missed

Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung were the founding fathers of psychoanalysis and have influenced generations of psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychotherapists worldwide to this day. This paper explores the fact that they were oblivious to cultural differences, treating culture as if it were a universal phenomenon rather than having differentiating characteristics. Being oblivious to such differences also means they were unaware of how their unique cultures influenced their upbringing, professional development, and even their own thinking about culture. Knowing what we know today about culture allows us to examine psychoanalysis in a different light and better understand how it was created and developed to become what it is in the 21^st Century.

For the full article: Culture-and-psychology-what-freud-and-jung-missed/

Christina Röttgers:  Responsibility in relation to individual, group and global

concerns. A philosophical view.

Feeling overwhelmed and guilty: in the face of recent and ongoing catastrophes and crises, people in privileged countries feel increasingly challenged by a call for responsibility as much as a feeling of helplessness. This paper reflects on the meaning of responsibility in relation to the different societal levels – the individual, the group and the global one – and offers a few practical ways to deal with the dilemma. In addition, it might serve the intercultural practitioner to shed a multidisciplinary light on much-strained terms.

For the full article: How-to-take-responsibility-in-todays-world/