Criticisms
Cultural cognition has been subjected to criticisms from a variety of sources. Some rational choice economists as well as some psychologists have suggested that the theory (and ones based on the cultural theory of risk generally) explain only a small fraction of the variation in popular risk perceptions. Some adherents to the cultural theory of risk, including Mary Douglas herself, have criticized cultural cognition for a conception of values that is too tightly modeled on American political disputes and that implicitly disparages the “hierarchical” worldview. Finally, some scholars who emphasize elements of the psychometric paradigm suggest that the influence of cultural values on risk perceptions is best understood as simply an additional source of interference with the rational processing of information.
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Famous quotes containing the word criticisms:
“I have no concern with any economic criticisms of the communist system; I cannot enquire into whether the abolition of private property is expedient or advantageous. But I am able to recognize that the psychological premises on which the system is based are an untenable illusion. In abolishing private property we deprive the human love of aggression of one of its instruments ... but we have in no way altered the differences in power and influence which are misused by aggressiveness.”
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
“The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour. Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes.”
—William James (1842–1910)