Assignment Takeaways

A5 Takeaway

For assignment five we were instructed to choose an article that examined a country outside of the U.S. in relation to one of the chapters taught in this course such as culture and personality or culture and development. We were then asked to provide a brief summary of the study and it’s findings and compare these findings to what is found in American culture. I chose an article that examined the relationship between culture and development in England, India, and Japan. In the study, data was collected from mother’s from all three countries on their competency expectation for their children of various tasks. The results were quite shocking to me. Findings showed that in Japan, competence was expected at an earlier age in education/self-care and environment independence. However, Indian mothers expected competence at a much older age than Japanese and England mothers in education/self-care, compliance, peer interaction, and communication. India and Japan are both collectivistic cultures yet development in their separate cultures are different. This is quite different from how it’s taught. I’ve learned about these countries and their cultures from a more general or broader scale so I never stopped to consider that differences may exist between them. For example, in my positive psychology class we were taught that culture plays a major role in the development and manifestation of our well-being yet culture was still only discussed in terms of collectivism and individualism. Now I know that culture is a lot more complex than just individualistic and collectivistic and much more research needs to be done to truly understand the relationship between culture and development.

A4 Takeaway

Assignment four required us to find advertisements in North America and another country and compare and/or contrast how they portrayed women and men or marketed to each gender. I chose to compare India with the U.S. and found that they portray men and women in nearly the exact same way. Both countries sexual women and objectify them as sex objects for men. In many of the ads I browsed through women were displayed in revealing clothing, sexual positions, or dominated by the men in the ad with them. However men were not sexualized, instead ads chose to highlight men’s masculinity and “machoism” showing them doing dangerous or athletic activities like free hand rock climbing, basketball, or dominating over a submissive woman. I was shocked to find that these old fashion ideals still prevail in our society – men as dominating while women are submissive. It showed me just how well enculturation works as described by Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory. Ads (the macrosystem) reinforce this dangerous idea of men and women and their role in society and their relationship with one another. Children exposed to these types of ads grow up believing that women are sexual beings who are the objects of men and men are allowed to do as they please to women. Both of these beliefs are dangerous and can potentially promote violence amongst women. Luckily, this also showed how we can dismantle this type of ideal – by promoting a more positive and healthier ideal of men and women in our macrosystem to children.

A3 Takeaway

For this assignment we were instructed to analyze blog posts of a student who elected to study abroad and describe the changes in their perspective from their first blog to their last. Additionally, we were instructed to pinpoint any cultural differences the students identified, whether or not we would like to study abroad, and why we chose the particular country that we did. I chose a female studying abroad in Seoul, South Korea who, overtime, grew to appreciate the togetherness promoted in its collectivistic culture. I chose the location specifically to see how someone from an individualistic culture would respond to being placed in a collectivistic culture and from my analysis I was not disappointed.

This assignment highlighted the benefits of a collectivistic culture such as simplicity, homogeneity, similarity, and togetherness. It showcased the beauty of these elements and how they are not such a bad thing, which I previously kind of thought they were. The blogger showed me how easy it is to integrate this new culture into her own, and that it was even possible. She refuted my previous idea that someone had to be either individualistic or collectivistic. Recently, I interacted with a patient at the psych unit I work at who was an immigrant from a collectivistic culture. Although they had been residing in America for some years they still behaved in ways from their original culture which led me to believe that it isn’t possible to integrate the two cultures but after doing this exercise I know that not to be true. It is possible to integrate behaviors from another culture without having to be completely stripped of your own culture. I realize that this may be easier for others and that the patient I interacted with previously may not have chosen to integrate elements from our individualistic culture into their own as the blogger did upon returning home.