ABSTRACT
The layers of influence could be unpacked beginning with the biggest doll of all culture. Culture was the reservoir of socially transmitted values and meanings. Academics could be lined up more or less across a divide. Evolutionary theory has been something of a growth industry in the social sciences—widening its empire from biology to include neuropsychology, linguistics, medicine, and sociology. Cross-cultural psychologists have generally argued that there are no significant differences in the human genotype between different cultures or races. The peer group has assumed enormous importance for researchers in the last decade as a result of a variety of sociological and epistemological changes. In psychology, there was a growing disenchantment with methods that seemed to have misled researchers about children’s real abilities. Adult social behaviour, which most of us experience as an effortless stream, actually involves highly skilled behaviour.
