#psyc372

For my final set of posts, I wanted to be able to apply different concepts that I noticed or learned about in the book to more real life instances and experiences I’ve had or known about, instead of just using my own life as examples as I reiterated what was in my textbook or readings.

As a result, I set out to find the sections from the last few chapters of the textbook that caught my interest the most, the focused on how they impacted my life directly or pop culture. While my posts are slightly shorter than before as a result, I actually enjoyed these more as I was able to use a lot more self-reflection and have more of an opportunity to look at different cultures, countries and media in order to gain a better understanding of how these cultures outside of my own realm of experience (may it be by age, geographic location or political climate) have affected my life or appeared within my own culture.

I did not rely as heavily on the textbook for these posts because, while I found the readings interesting, I wanted to be able to show other research I had done in trying to understand these topics better. For example, while learning about Amok, I was incredibly surprised to find out there was an episode of Star Trek that actually used the idea of Amok for the purpose of the episode itself.

I also felt that the section on Kohlberg was very enlightening for me as it allowed me to understand that just because there are people who have different morality than I do, it doesn’t mean they have less morality, theirs was just a different kind. The list of factors involving that were interesting to me as well, suddenly my grandma agreeing with Trump for no other reason than he’s the president and you’re supposed to makes a lot more sense.

While reading chapter 12, I was particularly interested in Kohlberg’s stages of moral development. This model is referred to as the “most influential model of moral reasoning in psychology.” This view projects how underlying cognitive abilities affect moral reasoning on three different levels. Level one, The Preconvential Level suggests that people will interpret morality on a calculation of how much better or worse off they would be for acting in one way versus another. This level focuses more on how one’s behaviour would provide the best overall return to them, what satisfies their own needs as opposed to other’s needs.

The second level, The Conventional Level focuses on how one’s moral actions help maintain and facilitate the social order. This level is almost like conformity, where moral behaviour is seen more on whether or not you follow the rules set or violate them. Not about questioning where the rules came from or why they are there. It’s about maintaining the social order.

The final level, The Postconventional Level is a deeper and more individualistic level. In this form of reasoning, one bases their behaviours on the consideration of abstract ethical principles of what is right or wrong. The idea is that whether or not others agree with you on what is right and wrong are a separate matter and that good behaviour is seen as something consistent with a set of universal principles of justice and individual rights.

I found this interesting because I had never stopped to think that there were three different stages of morality, or the processing of moral behaviour. As I personally identify with the third level, I would often be confused or angry at friends or family who fell into the other two categories. For example, I am very vocal about being anti-Trump, but I have family members who will disregard the behaviour because he is the president, and therefore to contradict him is seen as wrong. The importance of maintaining a social order where the president is listened to and respected is more important than deciding whether or not they believe or agree with him.

I also found it very eye-opening in regards to friends I have who fall more under the level one behaviour. I had always felt that they maybe needed a little bit of prodding to do the right thing and that their moral compass wasn’t as strong. In reality, theirs is just different than mine and is more focused on taking care of themselves over others, which isn’t always a bad thing.

One thing that really interested me while I was reading was the section in our textbook about the different parenting styles. While I had heard the term “Tiger Mom” before on TV and friends joking about it, I did not fully understand the extent of the parenting style until I read the different types of parenting styles. After reading them, I was able to understand why my own mother is uncomfortable of the idea of being called a “Tiger mom” even in a joking manner.

Tiger Moms follow the far more authoritarian parenting style, this is defined as a style that involves “high demands on children, with strict rules and little open dialogue between parent and child.” (Heine pg. 181). Children who grow up in this environment are often on strict schedules and receive little to know warmth or responsiveness from their parents, this causes them to constantly strive for acknowledgement from their parents, leading to successful futures as they study and practice extra-curriculars excessively, of course, all of these activities have been pre-approved by parents.

There is a downside to this parenting style though, children who grow up in this type of environment can grow into rebellious teenagers, feeling suffocated and trapped under their parents. This is found particularly in Western culture, where authoritative is preferred.

Authoritative parenting is defined as a “child-centered approach in which parents hold high expectations of the maturity of their children, try to understand their child’s feelings and teach them how to regulate those feelings” (Heine 181). This style allows children to develop independently, while still having the warmth and boundaries set by their parents. In Western cultures, children who grow up in these environments often excel in school and become very self-sufficient adults.

After reading the example given in the text about Amy Chua and how she defines herself as a tiger mom, I can now understand why my mom doesn’t like to be called a Tiger Mom, as she is has an authoritative parenting style and probably disagrees on some of the practices of authoritarian parenting on a fundamental level.

For this post, I decided to go back to one of the first readings we did in class because it talked about one of my favourite themes of studies in Psychology. Apes and babies.

Now, that sounds weird, but to me it’s equal parts hilarious, fascinating and adorable. In the study conducted by Herrmann, Call, Herna´ndez-Lloreda, Hare, and Tomasello in 2007, they gave a series of tasks to chimpanzees, orangutans and two-year old children (Tomasello & Herrmann 2010). In this study, the babies and the apes were very similar to babies and they all scored similarly in certain cognitive tasks and processes. However, when it came to more complex social tasks, the human babies excelled over the apes. This is because humans developed a greater brain capacity for these issues as their lives became more social through evolution, weaker physically, stronger intellectually (Tomasello & Herrmann 2010). This is a reoccurring theme between humans and great apes in our similarities and abilities to communicate. Dr. Jane Goodall’s work with apes over the years is an excellent example of this amazing connection our species share.

However, these studies haven’t been without their setbacks. In the thirties, a comparative study was done by Dr. Winthrop Niles Kellogg when he raised a newborn chimp (Gua) and his newborn son (Donald) at the same time. The study was a success for the first little while, then Gua with her smaller processing abilities hit the inevitable wall and was unable to continue developing. No big deal. However, a short time later, Dr. Kellogg ended his study very abruptly and Gua was returned to her facility. While a reason was never overtly specified to my knowledge, a large contributing factor was the fact that Donald had begun making chimp noises and imitating his sister’s ape like behaviour (Nuwer, 2014).

This was a term I that had never crossed my path before reading Chapter 7. Cultural ghettos are explained in the text as an area within a town or city where the residents can keep old cultural traditions without much interaction with the host culture, like San Francisco’s Chinatown (Heine, 259). This tends to happen during the process of acculturation, which is defined as, “the process by which people migrate to and learn a culture that is different from their original (or heritage) culture” (Heine, 258). There are countless reasons why people would move to a different culture, along with different personalities and goals of those moving, as a result some will move more towards either cultural ghettos or more homogenous neighbourhoods, where they would be more noticeable as different.

The extensive variables found around an individual’s or family’s choice to move to another culture make the study of acculturation very complicated. Migrants often experience a rollercoaster when moving to a host culture, either as sojourners (temporary move) or immigrants (permanent move) (Heine 260). When first arriving, all of the excitement and adventure that comes with the new location create a almost honeymoon like state, then culture shock hits. This can be extremely negative for some and it takes a while to move into the more stable adjustment at the ends of the rollercoaster when people are finally able to settle into their new homes (Heine, 260-261).

I found this chapter incredibly fascinating because there were variables to migration that I had never thought of, such as cultural distance which is the difference between their home culture and their host culture (Heine, 264). The ability to settle in to new cultures during the migration process is far more complex than I had thought previously. While I knew that clearly moving from one country to another would be no easy feat, there were things I had never considered as a potential barrier or issue as I have never experienced such a thing. Things as simple as connecting with neighbours or ordering a coffee at the local Tim Horton’s are far more difficult to some than others and I was very ignorant to these factors.

One issue that has always been important to me is Men’s Health and Toxic Masculinity. The first time I experienced the whole effect of Toxic Masculinity occurred two years ago while I was employed as an RA at my university. I was a female living on an exclusively male floor. One girl, thirty-five boys.

Now, this may seem completely unprecedented, weird, and even dangerous. But let me start this by saying that I loved my floor and the young men on it unconditionally, and there was never a time I felt unsafe on that floor. I felt like Wendy and the lost boys, or one big sister with an army of little brothers.

This also meant that when they hurt, I hurt. And they hurt a lot.

Western society and culture had framed the male human as being the breadwinner, the strong ones. This makes it incredibly hard to show emotions or feelings for young men, specifically bad ones. This hyper-masculine culture creates an unsafe and harmful environment for men and boys to be able to express themselves in healthy manners for fear of being seen as feminine.

While reading, I was introduced to The Sambia, a people who live in Papua New Guinea (Heine, 15). Their view on masculinity marks an almost haunting resemblance to that of Canada’s, with a much more extreme method of addressing the matter. The Sambia believe that women’s wombs contaminate their sons in utero, making femaleness innate and maleness something that must be cultivated (Heine, 15). For the Sambia, in order for young men to develop their masculinity properly, they must go through extensive initiation procedures in order to allow them to become men (Heine, 15).

However, there is a very key component of the Sambian rituals that differ so vastly from that of Western Culture, to many of us reading it would be seen as alarming. Unlike in Western Culture, where homosexuality is viewed as “unmanly” or “feminine”. Homosexuality in Sambian culture is not only revered and accepted, it is ritualized in the performance of fellatio on one another to increase manliness (Heine, 16-17). While I won’t go into the actual detailed process of this, it is a ritual almost all members of Western culture would positively balk at.

Moving back to my experience with my floor (my boys). There were many who self-medicated and participated in risky and destructive behaviour because it “wasn’t manly” to show their emotions, such as crying over bad tests, being homesick, etc. While the consequences and ritualizing of masculinity in the Western world is nowhere near the level seen in the Sambian people. The fear of being unmanly or feminine is very real in both cultures and is seen as something that must be avoided at all costs.

This case study was a perfect illustration of the basis of cultural psychology as I understand it. While as human beings, almost all of us are subjected to the same cognitive processes and psychological matters. It is fascinating to see how they change in different parts of the world. For example, the encouragement of homosexual acts to improve masculinity would never been seen as an option in the Western world. Yet it is common sense to the Sambian.

I found myself repeatedly going back to chapter one after reading this, because I did not fully realize myself how ignorant I was to the study of cultural psychology until I was introduced to the concept of WEIRD. WEIRD stands for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic societies (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010b). Because so many of those selected to participate in cultural studies where of the same or very similar cultures, the views we must look at mainly consist of a very narrow and unique group (Heine, 23). Furthermore, I refer to the idea of the Sambian culture as Toxic Masculinity because based on my culture and world views I feel it is. That doesn’t mean the Sambian people feel this way at all, and there could be many that disagree with me. Because our cultures and views are different.

So, to me, my boys having someone they could come talk to, cry to, vent to at two or three in the morning was important to me to allow them to feel safe as men to address these concerns. But to someone of the Sambian people, I would only be further contaminating them and making it impossible for them to ever be viewed or respected as men.

At first, I had absolutely no idea how to start this blog. Blogging isn’t my thing, never has been. So, when I saw this as a component to my class I was positively terrified. I had no idea what to say and how to make it sound informal like a journal entry while keeping in mind the goals of the assignment itself which is to illustrate my knowledge of the material in this course. So, I very intelligently decide to try to find a blog site to post these things as written responses.

I am not technologically inclined, and Tumblr is the only account that has worked for me thus far so here we go. I felt weird opening a blog with responses, so I decided that I was going to talk a little bit about myself before diving right into the course material to try to make it seem a bit more blog like (mostly for my own processing).

My name is Chelsea, I am a fourth-year student at a University in Nova Scotia Canada. I am a Religious Studies major and Psychology minor with an interest in moving towards International Law and Human Rights Law. I am the oldest of three and come from Ontario Canada where I was raised in a single parent home.

I elected to take this class because I love different cultures, different people and new experiences. I want to be able to understand better why humans are the way we are in the hopes that someday I may be able to help make this world a little bit better.

I am far better at verbalizing my thoughts and words than writing and often feel as though my written work is too vague or doesn’t convey the message I am hoping to. Hopefully this assignment will help me improve upon that, while simultaneously illustrating my understanding of the class as I will be endeavouring to “write as I speak” which, while in many academic forums I have been harshly criticized for, should ideally help me more in this assignment.

With that, I would like to thank you for stopping by, and I hope this blog proves to be as interesting and successful as I hope it will be.