ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the argument that cultural theory encompasses disparate and contradictory theoretical stances. Depending on empirical data at hand, cultural theory can change from rigidity to flexibility, from methodological collectivism to methodological individualism. The cultural theory provides a basic distinction between on the one hand 'cultural bias' defined as 'shared values and beliefs' and on the other, 'social relations' defined as relationships between individuals. Mary Douglas addressed the problem of cross-cultural comparison and has developed the grid-group theory model to compare societies irrespective of their place in time and space. Analysis of social structure, of how people are interconnected to form various aggregates, has been a long-standing theoretical problem in social anthropology. The Empirical findings about how American individuals perceive various risk issues, such as climate change, nanotechnology, guns, vaccines and abortion, arguably demonstrate that 'cultural world views' explain risk perception.
