ABSTRACT
Culture as a measurable construct is a legitimate topic of psychological study and attention (Dana, 1993; Matsumoto, 1996; Ponterotto, Casas, Suzuki, & Alexander, 1995; Rule-Goldberger & Veroff, 1995). Neuropsychology, as part of the larger discipline of psychology, has long considered culture an important element affecting perception (Vygotsky, 1978) and cognitive development, because culture determines what cognitive activities are valued by a society (Ardila, 1995). With the growing diversity of the U.S. population, the practice of psychology, generally, and of neuropsychology, specifically, will have to meet the challenges posed by cultural diversity (Echemendia, Harris, Congett, Diaz, & Puente, 1997; Iijima-Hall, 1997; Llorente, Pontón, Satz, & Taussig, 1999; Yeo & Gallagher-Thompson, 1996). In order to consider culture as a variable impacting the study of brain-behavior relations among Hispanics, however, clinicians and researchers alike must begin with an operational definition of Hispanic culture, so they can understand the ways in which it differs from their own and the ways it impacts data obtained from the patient. This chapter describes worldview as the cultural cognitive grid from which behavior derives, and then precedes to define Hispanic culture in the United States following an anthropological paradigm.
