Cognition in the Christian reformulation of Tonga: Motivation, internalization, and schemas

Christian missionaries came to Tonga in the 19th century with the intention of converting the Tongans to Christianity and transforming Tongan society to fit with European-Victorian ideals. The missionaries were successful in their conversion efforts. However, traditional Tongan society was not merely replaced: cultural ideals blended. How this occurred, and the degree to which cultural features were affected, was based in part on the role of cognition. Cognitive and psychological concepts of culture change are applied to existing literature in an attempt to clarify the picture of culture change in Tonga. In addition, schema tendencies are identified through the proposed models of schema centrality and schema replacement. These new concepts are discussed as they affect the form and shape of culture change.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Anthropology and Ethnic Studies

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Year

1998

Author dc:creator

• Arin, Dorothea Neal

Contributors dc:contributor

• William Jankowiak

Statement dc:rights

• IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

https://oasis.library.unlv.edu/rtds/952

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:oasis.library.unlv.edu:rtds-1951