Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Cognitive Medical Anthropology

  • Reference work entry
Encyclopedia of Medical Anthropology

Introduction

The term cognitive medical anthropology does not refer to a recognized and clearly demarcated field of study but rather to a body of work that addresses topics of relevance to medical anthropologists while also reflecting cognitive anthropological interest in “the relation between human society and human thought” (D’Andrade, 1995, p. 1, italics removed).

Initially labeled as the “new ethnography,” “ethnoscience,” ”ethnosemantics,” or “ethnographic semantics” (Casson, 1994), the emergence of cognitive anthropology dates to the beginning of what has been called the “cognitive revolution” in the late 1950s (D’Andrade, 1995). After a “long cold winter of objectivism” and the domination of behavioristic theories, the cognitive revolution ”was intended to bring ’mind’ back into the human sciences” (Bruner, 1990, p. 1). A recurring commitment expressed in much of the cognitive anthropological literature is to describe and represent cultural knowledge in a manner compatible with...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 599.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 549.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Bauer, M. C., & Wright, A. L. (1996). Integrating qualitative and quantitative methods to model infant feeding behavior among Navajo mothers. Human Organization, 55, 183–192.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Boster, J. S. (1980). How the exceptions prove the rule: Aguaruna plant classification (Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1980).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Cain, C. (1991). Personal stories: Identity acquisition and self-understanding in Alcoholics Anonymous. Ethos, 19, 210–253.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Capps, L., & Ochs, E. (1995). Constructing panic: The discourse of agoraphobia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Casson, R. W. (1994). Cognitive anthropology. In P. K. Bock (Ed.), Psychological anthropology (pp. 61–96). Westport, CT: Praeger.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Clement, D. C. (1982). Samoan folk knowledge of mental disorders. In A. J. Marsella & G. M. White (Eds.), Cultural conceptions of mental health and therapy (pp. 193–213). Dordrecht, Netherlands: Reidel.

    Google Scholar 

  9. D’Andrade, R. (1976). A propositional analysis of U.S. American beliefs about illness. In K. H. Basso & H. A. Selby (Eds.), Meaning in anthropology (pp. 155–180). Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

    Google Scholar 

  10. D’Andrade, R. (1995). The development of cognitive anthropology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  11. D’Andrade, R. G., Quinn, N. R., Nerlove, S. B., & Romney, A. K. (1972). Categories of disease in American-English and Mexican-Spanish. In A. K. Romney, R. N. Shepard, & S. B. Nerlove (Eds.), Multidimensional scaling: Theory and applications in the behavioral sciences, Vol. II (pp. 9–54). New York: Seminar Press.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Fabrega, H., Jr. (1970). On the specificity of folk illnesses. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, 26, 305–314.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Fabrega, H., Jr., & Silver, D. B. (1973). Illness and shamanistic curing in Zinacantan: An ethnomedical analysis. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Farmer, P. (1994). AIDS-talk and the constitution of cultural models. Social Science & Medicine, 38, 801–810.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Frake, C. O. (1961). The diagnosis of disease among the Subanun of Mindanao. American Anthropologist, 63, 113–132.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Frake, C. O. (1969 [1962]). The ethnographic study of cognitive systems. In S. A. Tyler (Ed.), Cognitive anthropology (pp. 28–41). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Garro, L. C. (1983). Variation and consistency in a Mexican folk illness belief system (Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Irvine, 1983).

    Google Scholar 

  18. Garro, L. C. (1986). Intracultural variation in folk medical knowledge: A comparison between curers and non-curers. American Anthropologist, 88, 351–370.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Garro, L. C. (1988). Explaining high blood pressure: Variation in knowledge about illness. American Ethnologist, 15, 98–119.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Garro, L. C. (1994). Narrative representations of chronic illness experience: Cultural models of illness, mind and body in stories concerning the temporomandibular joint (TMJ). Social Science and Medicine, 38, 775–788.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Garro, L. C. (1996). Intracultural variation in causal accounts of diabetes: A comparison of three Canadian Anishinaabe (Ojibway) communities. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 20, 381–420.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Garro, L. C. (1998a). On the rationality of decision making studies: Part 1: Decision models of treatment choice. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 12, 319–340.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Garro, L. C. (1998b). On the rationality of decision making studies: Part 2: Divergent rationalities. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 12, 341–355.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Garro, L. C. (2000a). Remembering what one knows and the construction of the past: A comparison of cultural consensus theory and cultural schema theory. Ethos, 28, 275–319.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Garro, L. C. (2000b). Cultural meaning, explanations of illness, and the development of comparative frameworks. Ethnology, 39, 305–334.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Garro, L. C. (2000c). Cultural knowledge as resource in illness narratives: Remembering through accounts of illness. In C. Mattingly & L. Garro (Eds.), Narrative and the cultural construction of illness and healing (pp. 70–87). Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  27. Garro, L. C. (2001). The remembered past in a culturally meaningful life: Remembering as cultural, social and cognitive process. In H. Mathews & C. Moore (Eds.), The psychology of cultural experience (pp. 105–147). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  28. Garro, L. C. (2002). Hallowell’s challenge: Explanations of illness and cross-cultural research. Anthropological Theory, 2, 77–97.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Garro, L. C. (2003). Narrating troubling experiences. Transcultural Psychiatry, 40, 5–43.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Garro, L. C., & Mattingly, C. (2000). Narrative as construct and construction. In C. Mattingly & L. C. Garro (Eds.), Narrative and the cultural construction of illness and healing (pp. 1–49). Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  31. Good, B. (1994). Medicine, rationality, and experience: An anthropological perspective. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  32. Goodenough, W. H. (1957). Cultural anthropology and linguistics. In P. Garvin (Ed.), Report of the seventh annual round table meeting in linguistics and language study (Monograph Series on Language and Linguistics, No. 9 (pp. 167–173)). Washington, DC: Georgetown University

    Google Scholar 

  33. Goodenough, W. H. (1963). Cooperation in change. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

    Google Scholar 

  34. Hallowell, A. I. (1955). Culture and experience. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Google Scholar 

  35. Hill, C. E. (1998). Decision modeling: Its use in medical anthropology. In V. C. de Munck & E. J. Sobo (Eds.), Using methods in the field (pp. 139–164). Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira.

    Google Scholar 

  36. Hubert, L., & Schultz, J. V. (1976). Quadratic assignment as a general data analysis strategy. British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology, 29, 190–241.

    Google Scholar 

  37. Kayser-Jones, J. (1995). Decision making in the treatment of acute illness in nursing homes: Framing the decision problem, treatment plan and outcome. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 9, 236–256.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. Lutz, C. (1985). Depression and the translation of emotional worlds. In A. Kleinman & B. Good (Eds.), Culture and depression (pp. 63–100). Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  39. Mathews, H. F. (1982). Illness classification and treatment choice: Decision making in the medical domain. Reviews in Anthropology, 9, 171–186.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Mathews, H. F. (1987). Predicting decision outcomes: Have we put the cart before the horse in anthropological studies of decision making? Human Organization, 46, 54–61.

    Google Scholar 

  41. Mathews, H. F. (2000). Negotiating cultural consensus in a breast cancer self-help group. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 14, 394–413.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Mathews, H. F., & Hill, C. E. (1990). Applying cognitive decision theory to the study of regional patterns of illness treatment choice. American Anthropologist, 92, 155–170.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Mathews, H., Lannin, D. R., & Mitchell, J. P. (1994). Coming to terms with advanced breast cancer: Black women’s narratives from Eastern North Carolina. Social Science and Medicine, 38, 789–800.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Nardi, B. A. (1983). Goals in reproductive decision making. American Ethnologist, 10, 697–714.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Price, L. (1987). Ecuadorian illness stories: Cultural knowledge in natural discourse. In D. Holland & N. Quinn (Eds.), Cultural models in language and thought (pp. 313–342). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  46. Quinn, N. (1978). Do Mfantse fish sellers estimate probabilities in their heads? American Ethnologist, 5, 206–226.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. Quinn, N., & Holland, D. (1987). Culture and cognition. In D. Holland and N. Quinn (Eds.), Cultural models in language and thought (pp. 3–40). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  48. Romney, A. K. (1994). Cultural knowledge and cognitive structure. In M. Suárez-Orozco, G. Spindler, & L. Spindler (Eds.), The making of psychological anthropology II (pp. 254–283). Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace.

    Google Scholar 

  49. Romney, A. K. (1999). Culture consensus as a statistical model. Current Anthropology, 40, S103–S115.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  50. Romney, A. K., Weller, S. C., & Batchelder, W. H. (1986). Culture as consensus: A theory of culture and informant accuracy. American Anthropologist, 88, 313–338.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  51. Ryan, G., & Martínez, H. (1996). Can we predict what mothers do? Modeling childhood diarrhea in rural Mexico. Human Organization, 55, 47–57.

    Google Scholar 

  52. Sargent, C. (1982). The cultural context of therapeutic choice: Obstetrical care decisions among the Bariba of Benin. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Reidel.

    Google Scholar 

  53. Sargent, C. (1989). Maternity, medicine and power: Reproductive decisions in urban Benin. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  54. Stoner, B. P. (1985). Formal modeling of health care decisions: Some applications and limitations. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 16, 41–46.

    Google Scholar 

  55. Tyler, S. A. (1969). Introduction. In S. A. Tyler (Ed.), Cognitive anthropology (pp. 1–23). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

    Google Scholar 

  56. Weller, S. C. (1983). New data on intracultural variability: The hot-cold concept of medicine and illness. Human Organization, 42, 249–257.

    Google Scholar 

  57. Weller, S. C. (1984a). Cross-cultural concepts of illness: Variation and validation. American Anthropologist, 86, 341–351.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  58. Weller, S. C. (1984b). Consistency and consensus among informants: Disease concepts in a rural Mexican town. American Anthropologist, 86, 966–975.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  59. Weller, S. C., & Baer, R. (2001). Intra-and intercultural variation in the definition of five illnesses: AIDS, diabetes, the common cold, empacho, and mal de ojo. Cross-Cultural Research, 35, 201–228.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  60. Weller, S. C., & Romney, A. K. (1988). Systematic data collection. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  61. Weller, S., Pachter, L., Trotter, R., II, & Baer, R. (1993). Empacho in four Latino groups: A study in intra-and inter-cultural variation in beliefs. Medical Anthropology, 15, 109–136.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  62. Weller, S. C., Ruebush, T. R., II, & Klein, R. E. (1997). Predicting treatment-seeking in Guatemala: A comparison of health service research and decision-theoretic approaches. Medical Anthropological Quarterly, 11, 224–245.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  63. Weller, S. C., Baer, R., Pachter, L., Trotter, R., II, Glazer, M, García de Alba García, J. G. & Klein, R. E. (1999). Latino beliefs about diabetes. Diabetes Care, 22, 723–728.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  64. White, G. M. (1982a). The ethnographic study of cultural knowledge of ‘mental disorder.’ In A. J. Marsella & G. M. White (Eds.), Cultural conceptions of mental health and therapy (pp. 193–213). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Reidel.

    Google Scholar 

  65. White, G. M. (1982b). The role of cultural explanations in “somatization” and “psychologization,” Social Science and Medicine, 16, 1519–1530.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  66. White, G. M., & Kirkpatrick, J. (Eds.). (1985). Person, self, and experience: Exploring Pacific ethnopsychologies. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  67. Young, J. C. (1978). Illness categories and action strategies in a Tarascan town. American Ethnologist, 5, 81–97.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  68. Young, J. C., & Garro, L. C. (1994 [1981]). Medical choice in a Mexican village. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.

    Google Scholar 

  69. Young, J. C., & Garro, L. C. (1982). Variation in the choice of treatment in two Mexican communities. Social Science and Medicine, 16, 1453–1465.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Linda C. Garro
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Human Relations Area Files, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

    Carol R. Ember  & Melvin Ember  & 

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2004 Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers

About this entry

Cite this entry

Garro, L.C. (2004). Cognitive Medical Anthropology. In: Ember, C.R., Ember, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Medical Anthropology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-29905-X_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-29905-X_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-306-47754-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-387-29905-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation