Review of The mind in context.

The Mind in Context, by Batja Mesquita, Lisa Feldman Barrett, and Eliot R. Smith (Eds.). New York: The Guilford Press, 2010, 372 Pages (ISBN 978-1-60623-553-9, US $50.00 Hardcover) The purpose of this edited volume is to challenge a predominant tendency toward an error of essentialism, or the attempt to explain psychological phenomena in terms of internal, static mental entities that are independent of and seemingly hermetically sealed from the outside world. Instead the introductory chapter of The Mind in Context advances the principle: that mental processes and behaviour emerge from a profound and complex interaction between person and environment. It is important to note at the outset that a reader seeking an abstracted, sterilized, encyclopaedic list of essential elements making up this perspective would be well advised to look elsewhere. Rather, and in keeping with the theme of the book, the editors have assembled a lively collection of exemplars: chapters by prominent scholars each exploring the influence of in a focused area of interest. The disadvantage of this approach is that the book can feel somewhat overextended. The significant advantage, however, is that the reader experiences each chapter in the of the others, a juxtaposition that allows for the emergence of resonances, themes, and common principles across domains. In elaborating on the principle the contributors to this book emphasise the mind's mechanisms, situation-sensitivity, and agency over its content, permanence, and passivity. While written in large part by and for social psychologists, the volume should be of interest to any scholar fascinated by the mind's ecological nature. The early chapters examine the principle within physiologically oriented domains of inquiry. Chapter 2 discusses how epigenetic factors, reflecting the impact of physical and social contexts and experiences, can have an enduring influence on gene expression. In Chapter 3 the authors examine patterns of connectivity in the brain, making the point that cognitive complexity is not reducible to activation of isolated brain areas but rather that activity in any one region is sensitive to its neural context of changes in other parts of the brain. Chapter 4 deals with the field of social neuroendocrinology. Through a review of illustrative findings ranging from child upbringing to sexual behaviour, the authors describe how evolved physiological responses, such as increases or decreases in testosterone or prolactin, are sensitively tuned to specific social contexts. The next set of chapters concentrates on social and cognitive psychology. In Chapter 5, emotion is conceptualised as an interactive process, with emotions enacted in a relational context. The functional character of is examined, along with a discussion of how its meaning and dynamics are constrained by the interpersonal and cultural milieu including norms, communicative goals, and the emoting of others. In Chapter 6, we are reminded that contexts can make some thoughts easier to think than others. The author explores the incidental feeling accompanying metacognition, such as the degree of processing fluency experienced during memory recall or thought generation. Contextual influences on how these metacognitive factors are attributed can shape judgments, for example when familiarity of a belief is mistaken for credibility, or easily processed stimuli are judged as pleasing. Chapter 7 offers an overview of the situated cognition perspective in social psychology, highlighting key processes whereby social cognition unfolds in the moment, in the here and now of motivated action within a specific environment. Because of this interdependence of mind and the attitudes, expectations, norms, and goals of interaction partners can constrain private thought and overt behaviour. The middle chapters of the book examine situated views of the person. …

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