Heritage culture

Today, I look at two studies that I thought were important especially to white professionals working with clients different from themselves. First, Cobb, Schwartz & Martinez (2025) published “A Theory of Cultural Continuity: Heritage culture retention as an important psychological motivation” in Psychological Review.  Here’s the edited abstract:

In this article, we advance the thesis, called the cultural continuity hypothesis, which states that heritage culture retention represents an important psychological motivation that underlies a wide array of human behaviors and that is important for positive psychosocial functioning. Cultural continuity entails the purposeful preservation of salient features of one’s heritage culture across time and is both functional and adaptive. By integrating diverse bodies of literature across disciplines, we provide robust evidence for consistent and universal value attached to the goals that serve to satisfy the need for cultural continuity and that these goals are present from an early age. We also provide robust evidence that the successful attainment of goals related to satisfying the need for cultural continuity is important for psychosocial health and well-being. We conclude by providing explicit criteria that would subject the cultural continuity hypothesis to rigorous empirical tests, followed by future directions for heritage culture retention research. Cultural continuity appears to be an important psychological motivation that transcends populations and contexts and that is important for positive human functioning. 

I thought this was an interesting hypothesis, especially as there is far greater cultural diversity than ever in the US but lots of cultural tensions. The next study looks at the cultural appropriation. Kirby, Gündemir, Carter, Schwanold & Ketzitzidou-Argyri (2023) published “The Role of Intraminority Relations in Perceptions of Cultural Appropriation” in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.  Here’s the edited abstract:

Adopting the customs of outgroup cultures (e.g., cultural appropriation) is controversial. Across six experiments, we examined perceptions of cultural appropriation from the perspective of Black Americans (N = 2,069), particularly focusing on the identity of the appropriator and its implications for theoretical understanding of appropriation. Participants expressed more negative emotion and considered appropriation of their cultural practices less acceptable than comparable behaviors that were not appropriative (Studies A1–A3). However, participants perceived White appropriators more negatively than Latine (but not Asian) appropriators, ultimately suggesting that negative perceptions of appropriation do not merely stem from concerns about preserving rigid ingroup–outgroup boundaries. We originally predicted that shared oppression experiences would be key to different responses to appropriation. Instead, our findings most strongly supported the notion that differences in judgments of appropriation by different cultural groups are primarily tied to perceptions of similarity (or difference) across groups—rather than oppression similarity itself. For example, when Asian Americans and Black Americans were framed as part of a common ingroup, Black American participants expressed less negativity toward Asian Americans’ appropriative acts. These findings suggest that perceived similarities or shared experiences shape the likelihood of welcoming outgroups into one’s cultural practices. More broadly, they suggest that the construction of identities is key to perceptions of appropriation, even independent from the way in which people appropriate. 

I found this a nice complement to the previous article. If cultural continuity is important to psychological health and well-being, it likely plays a role in the construction of identity. I thought it was fascinating that Black Americans resent appropriation by White Americans more but it was easy to create a common perceived ingroup of Asian and Black Americans. Identity formation always entails examining similarities and differences and we should expect that to apply to cultural identity.