Shared Knowledge Matters: Culture as Intersubjective Representations

The intersubjective representation approach to culture focuses on cultural members’ shared knowledge representations about the culture that they are in. Members of the same culture tend to share certain knowledge representations of the central characteristics of the culture. These shared cultural representations are established and perpetuated through dynamic communicative processes. Recent empirical research has provided support for the incremental value of intersubjective cultural representations in research on cultural identity, social cognition, and behaviors. The intersubjective representation approach complements extant research on culture as self and external artifacts. In doing so, it allows for a more comprehensive understanding of culture’s role in social and personality psychological processes.