Differentiation levels of cultural mediation within a socio-cultural sphere: a re-evaluation of the concept of culture.

Matusov and Smith (Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science 46: 3, 2012) use a genealogical analysis of the US middle class to show how classic concepts of identity do not only represent historically, politically, and culturally local phenomena, but also contribute to them. Their analysis nicely exemplifies how culture, as semiotic mediation, guides and constrains both societal as well as intra- and inter-personal structures. As not only the traditional notion of identity, but also the mainstream concept of culture, represents a limiting understanding of the person-culture relation, the first part of this article re-evaluates two main understandings of culture within psychology and then argue for a semiotic mediational conception that simultaneously guides and constrain not only intra- and inter-individual mechanisms, but also structures the socio-cultural sphere.

A dance between the general and the specific: implications for the self concept.

After discussing the cultural and the psychological basis of the phenomenon of homophobia, Madureira comes to the conclusion that a dance between the general and the specific is necessary for overcoming homophobia. What is the relation of such a dance and the self-concept? How the self concept may be explicated from a more dynamically constituted perspective is discussed. The relation of homophobia as a boundary phenomenon and Boesch's conception of the familiar and unfamiliar then leads to the conclusion of the person situated in a sphere, as co-inhabitants of other persons as well as the media they employ.