Culture and Socialization

1. Culture and Socialization

2. “we all begin with the natural equipment to live a thousand kinds of lives but end having lived only one.” Clifford Gertz

3. Key Questions • How do people become socialized into particular cultural worlds? • How do we acquire culture? • How do child-rearing experiences differ around the world?

4. Look for these themes • How universal predispositions become shaped in culturally specific ways. • How do people’s experiences as infants and children influence the way they think and act.

5. Sensitive periods • Time in development that allows for ease of acquiring skills • Provides evidence of preprogramming.

6. Language acquisition • Human are capable of recognizing around 150 phonemes; no language uses more than 70. • Sound categorization

7. Language • Within a year we begin to loose the ability to understand phonemes not in our native language. • Shibboleths “Lollapalooza”

8. Fig. 4.1

9. Is there a sensitive period for cultural learning? • Methodologically difficult to study • Why? • Minoura (1992) looked at when Japanese born children left Japan • <9 felt relatively distant from Japanese culture • 9-15 in between • >15 experienced America through Japanese cultural lense

10. Fig. 4.2

11. Divergent childhood experiences • Imagine your first weeks in the world. What was your life like? Consider your environment, your caretakers, your routines?

12. Weisner (2002) • “Parents and children are engaged in activities, which in turn are loosely organized into a daily routine of life, and in turn, into a ‘cultural career’—a way of life that engages the self, identity, and our sense of personhood and meaning”

13. Contentious claims? • 1. Healthy development and well-being donot necessarily require many of the scripts and activities that currently preoccupy Western parents. • Well-being is the engagement in everyday activities and routines deemed desirable by one’s cultural community an the psychological experiences produced by that activity

14. Well-being is found outside the self • Outside ‘pedagogical’ verbal stimulative, achievement driven pathways • Outside just parent/child dyad

16. Sleeping arrangements • Burton and Whiting (1961) surveyed 100 societies and found the US was the only to provide a separate room in the first months of life. • Shweder et al. (1995) Orissa India and Chicago.

17. Socialization is the process by which a person becomes a member of a new culture • Is something that emerges from thousands of exchanges between caregivers and infants and later peers. • Bidirectional

18. Individualism and Collectivism • Individualism: person pursues autonomy, independence and personal achievement at the expense of the group • Collectivism: emphasis is on group success and individual aspirations are at times put aside for attainment of group goals

19. Write 5 words that describe yourself

20. I • Expresses the notion of personal distinctness and separateness with an emphasis on personal attributes, instead of social responsibility and duty. • I persons describe themselves as independent, assertive, competititive, self assured, efficient, self-sufficient.

21. C • Interdependent Connected with other human beings and experience themselves as part of an encompassing social relationship • Orientation towards social norm is suppose to maintain social harmony Your place is often defined through an assigned role (sometimes rooted in religion) India C person describes self as attentive, respectful, dependent, empathic, self controlled.

22. Individualistic/Independent Industrialized west Collectivistic/Interdependent Traditional/east

23. Attachment styles • Attacment theory hypothesizes that infants and parents are biologically prepared to establish close attachment (Bowlby, 1969). • Biological affordance; can look at how it varies cross culturally

24. Attachment • Secure (62%) • Avoidant (23%) • Anxious/ambivalent (15%)

26. Attachment is influences by who the child spends time with as well as the most common practices in the culture.

27. Developmental transitions • Terrible 2’s • Riding on the bus in Africa • Adolescence • HRAF study of 175 cultures • All socieities thought of it as distinct period of restructuring and role learning (not cultural invention) • Opportunities and choices

28. Individualistic/Collectivistic response difference • Autonomy and independence may be the key

29. Dependency conflict in West • American middle class “oh what a good boy, you did that all by yourself, no come here and give me a hug” • “You are so independent, I’m so proud of you. Good job” • Independence is praised but rewards are sought.

30. Rebellion is found in cross cultural evidence but not universal (44% for boys and 18% for girls). • Individualism and modernity seem to increase difficulties.

34. Sleeping arrangements • What were your sleeping arrangements. Consider number of rooms, gender and age. • Did it change with time? If so, what meaning to you attribute to that?

35. Fig. 4.3

36. India • Incest avoidance • Protection of the vulnerable • Female chastity anxiety • Respect for hierarchy

37. America • Incest avoidance • Sacred couple • Autonomy ideal

38. Dominican Republic

39. Definitions • Traditional: make living directly from the land, have not become disconnected from the land • Industrialized: to organize the production of something as an industry: food, clothing, etc. • Takes these things out of the personal domain

40. San Bushman

44. Ache of Paraguay

48. Gusii of Kenya