Cognitive Anthropology and Cognitive Psychology are both empirical sciences that aim at contributing to a comprehensive picture of human reasoning and action by taking a cognitive perspective on cultural and psychological phenomena. However, the two disciplines take different angles on these topics with respect to content and methods. The position that a stronger integration of the two angles will provide desirable synergy effects is substantiated with regard to three aspects: the different methodologies (field studies vs. experiments), the often observed division of labour (analysis of culture-specific contents vs. analysis of general cognitive processes), and the cultural constitution of cognition. As such synergy effects will not emerge automatically, we discuss some implications for research practice resulting from the goal of a stronger cooperation between the two disciplines, and present some successful projects.
