CULTURE IN DEVELOPMENT
Humans are a cultural species. Many species of animals have simple forms of culture-in the sense that individuals acquire specific beliefs and behaviors from others-but human culture is unparalleled in its complexity and consequence (Bornstein, 2010; Tomasello et al., 1993; Tomasello, 2010). The distinctive customs, values, beliefs, knowledge, and languages (Vandenbos, 2006) that compose human cultural repertoires exert considerable influence on every aspect of our lives, including the development of our minds and bodies (Amir & McAuliffe, 2020). Human culture is also fundamentally cooperative; we regularly collaborate, coordinate, and work together through the use of other species-unique characteristics such as joint attention, cooperative communication, and teaching. In general, the literature concerned with this discrepancy has moved away from terminology such as WEIRD, Western versus non-Western, developed versus developing, industrialized versus traditional, and high- versus middle- and low-income countries, and settled on a global population distinction of the minority world (where fewer people live) versus the majority world (where most people live; Alam, 2008). We adopt this terminology in this chapter.
