~ Top Artifacts ~
Top Artifact #1 – Module 11
Color & Emotion
Hupka and colleagues (1997) researched the association of color to emotions that are described in the United States, Germany, Mexico, Poland, and Russia. They found some cross-cultural similarities and some differences as well. For instance, Americans and Russians both connected the color black to the emotion of envy. In contrast, however, in addition to black, Americans also linked green and red to envy whereas, in Russia, the other envy associated colors were purple and yellow. The diversity in an individuals’ perception on colors is an example of the individual factors of diversity between individuals, or between many individuals.
In the event that you are given twelve colors to “group” together – which colors would you group, and why?— what is your reasoning for such categorizing? Do any of those categorizations associate color to emotion? Or perhaps the colors you categorize would relate to an object or an event that provokes an emotion. For me, it was all of the above.
Black, Purple, Green, Pink, Blue, White, Orange, Yellow, Red, Violet, Brown, and Gray.
These colors I was given, listed above, and was asked to group and categorize them with an explanation as to why they were grouped together and what their categorizations were. I pulled out the colors Black, White, and Gray from the list first. The basics; the “colors” used first used in television; and frequently in American life; For example “It’s not always black and white” is an American saying that is expressive of the moral wrongs and rights in life or the two contrasting sides of a debate and “the gray area” that some people might fall into which involves the questioning of moral reasoning or the sharing of some (but not all) beliefs from both sides of the debate. After this categorization, I was left with colors:
Purple, Green, Pink, Blue, Orange, Yellow, Red, Violet, and Brown,
Next, I thought of emotions; Love, Passion, Sensation and Sexual Desire. I chose this category, because I was inclined to group Pink, Purple, Violet and Red. When I was done with two groupings, I was left with:
Green, Blue, Orange, Yellow, and Brown,
…and that wasn’t a hard categorization or grouping to make, at all. Because, these are the colors of nature, of course; Grass, Trees, Leaves, Sky, Ocean and Dirt.
Here you can see the representation of the groupings that I made and the rationale that went along with my categorizations. Associations between the descriptions of emotions as they relate to each one of the 12 colors and the categorizations that I made are very interesting.
Reference:
Hupka, R. B., Zaleski, Z., Otto, J., Reidl, L., & Tarabrina, N. V. (1997). The colors of anger, envy, fear, and jealousy: A cross-cultural study. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 28(2), 156 171.. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022197282002
Top Artifact #2 – Module 3- An Object of my Culture:
It wasn’t easy and I ended up choosing the most obvious object – My smartphone. In an attempt to find another (not so obvious choice), I thought of other technological apparatuses that the U,S, is “known” for, and the thoughts made me realize quickly that objects in our culture do not stand out to us like objects of other cultures do. This is because of the normalcy of it existing and being used in the everyday life of an American, which is exactly what makes it an object of American culture. Technology and advancements are the American way of life and anything which represents the actuality of technology or desire for continuous advancing is indeed an object of American culture.
Pictured above is my smartphone; the screen of which is occupied by the front page of my personal social media Facebook page. This is the case too, for over 200 million other Americans. The picture is split into four and visual effects are added called “filters” all of which I was able to do conveniently using this object of American Culture.
Top Artifact #3 – Module 5 – Parental Values
TOP ARTIFACT #4 – MODLUE 9
GENDER-STEREOTYPES WITHIN CULTURES
It’s easy to forget when talking about stereotypes that, although they are often harmful, and sometimes negative, assumptions about a whole group, stereotyping occurs quite innocently other times. Most important to remember however; is that stereotypes are usually derivative of only a piece of the truth— and the manner in which they surface is usually by the inferences made during the natural cognitive processing of stimuli when our brains are given pieces of information. In order to understand it, we categorize, group, match, and compare. This is a skill we are taught to use from an early age. This explains why many people have an opinion one way or the other about certain occupations being gender-specific or even gender discriminatory. Statistics will show that in some of these occupations, men are the majority, or women are the majority— with those truths, overgeneralizations are made, and— BAM– born is the stereotype.
Prompted by the module instructions, I asked the friend of a family member what gender they associated to each career/job and compared his answers to my own.
The man, Francis, is about 60 years old and was born and raised in a “poorer” suburb outside of Paris, France. Of the 13 occupations listed, we matched answers on all of them except two; Lawyer and Chef.
Beyond those two differences, we agreed on the rest. This could be because of the ramification of generalizing partial truths, or it could be personal opinion gained from personal experience; However, overall, in terms of cultural comparisons, I think stereotyping exists in most industrialized countries and had the same beginnings and disadvantages in each culture.
..and again, lets not forget the partial truths. Forbes.com cites, “The sectors that are growing, like education and healthcare, are predominantly women’s employment. The December [2019] jobs report confirms this and indicates that education and health services, which are seen as more female dominated, added 36,000 jobs. Jobs in the mining and manufacturing sectors—viewed primarily as male-oriented industries—lost 21,000 jobs collectively. Women are also highly represented in government service jobs, standing at 58%, and holding 56% of positions in financial-related roles… [and] women have also started to occupy jobs that were once considered male oriented.”
Kelly, J. (2020 Jan 13) Women Now Hold More Jobs Than Men In The U.S. Workforce.
Top Artifact #5- Module 14- Cultural Syndromes of Distress
“Pfeiffer (1982) has identified three dimensions for understanding how cultural syndromes of distress emerge. First, he cites culture-specific areas of stress, including family and societal structure and ecological conditions. For example, koro might be best understood as resulting from the unique emphasis on potency in certain cultures that emphasize paternal authority. Second, culture-specific shaping of conduct and interpretations of conduct may mean that certain cultures implicitly approve patterns of exceptional behavior. An example is amok, in which aggression against others “broadly follows the patterns of societal expectations” (p. 206). Third, Pfeiffer argues that how a culture interprets exceptional behavior will be linked to culture-specific interventions. Some disorders that were once considered to be culture-specific have become less so over time. One example is anorexia nervosa.” (Muth, 2020)
- Discuss the importance of culture in shaping the expression of psychological disorders.
- Differentiate between the etic and emic approach in cross-cultural studies
- Make a list of symptoms of distress widely observed across different cultures, and explain each pattern briefly.
- Observe and point out the conditions that are common to all these patterns of symptoms across cultures.
- Describe the psychological disorders found in your culture. Give examples for your descriptions.