Culture and Social Psychology - Assignment Example

?Define and describe the field of social psychology. Discuss three (3) areas where social psychology is relevant to a multicultural approach in psychology. Explain in detail using examples from your readings. Social psychology is the field of science that makes use of scientific techniques to understand the way the anticipated or real presence of other people in the surroundings influences an individual’s tendency to think, feel and act. Social psychology is an umbrella term that covers a whole range of subjects associated with sociology. These subjects include but are not limited to social perception, group behavior, group conformity, leadership and prejudice. Study of social psychology goes beyond the examination of social influences to cover the topics of social interaction as well as perception. Multicultural psychology deals with the differences of thoughts that are grounded in cultures, on the basis of which certain behavioral attributes are considered socially acceptable or otherwise. Three areas in which social psychology is related to the multicultural approach to psychology are social dominance, stereotyping, and enemy image. Social dominance has always been among the subjects that have been the focus of attention of the multicultural psychology. Where there is multiculturalism, there is segregation at least on the basis of culture. Where there is segregation, there is hierarchical setup, in which some cultures become more dominating and influential than others. This has a direct impact on the daily life of people belonging to those cultures. People belonging to the more dominant culture assume more power and decision making authority in the society as compared to the followers of the undermined culture. Most often, people belonging to the dominating culture exercise their assumed power by spreading negative rumors about those that follow the inferior culture. With the passage of time, as these rumors become more commonly known and identified in the society, they take the form of tags with which the members of inferior cultures are labeled. This is achieved through sustained efforts on all levels and several forums are involved in this including television, radio, newspapers, magazines and comic books. Today, blonde people are stereotyped as dumb. This may be totally wrong, but this is how they have been identified in the comic books and literature for decades. This also proves that segregation or stereotyping may not always be the result of belongingness to an inferior culture, but it can have any basis ranging from color to race and culture. However, this promotes an enemy image culture in which people play a blame game to hold one another accountable for the resulting social disorder. The resulting matrix of social psychology is relevant to a multicultural approach in psychology. What assumptions associated with Western psychology limit its applicability to African American culture? Support your answers by briefly comparing and contrasting the assumptions of Western psychology with African American culture. List at least three (3) assumptions and briefly explain why they may not apply to African Americans. Three assumptions associated with the African American culture that limits its tendency to be applied the Western psychology upon are discrimination, extended family modeling and communalism. African Americans have remained subjected to discrimination for a major part of the history of America. This has had many negative effects on the mental health of the African Americans. An extended family modeling of households is more common. Communalism is important for African American families. The single most important element that the Western psychology is characterized by is equality. Western psychology promotes the view that people should not be characterized according to the financial status, race or religious affiliation. Instead, all human being should be considered equal. This assumption is grounded in the fact that all human beings have similar nature, yet different bodies. All human beings have same needs, likes and dislikes, wishes and fears. The study of psychology is more concerned with human nature rather than human body. Therefore, there has to be equality in the study and dealing of human psychology. Before Western psychology can be applied to treat the issues of the African American community, it is imperative that measures be taken for the psychological counseling of this community to help it come out of its long borne psychological problems. Western psychology does not favor extended family modeling. In the contemporary age, family system in many countries in the West is greatly endangered. With more and more people being identified as homosexual and with increased tendency of people to cohabit rather than marry as well as people’s use of contraception in sex, family system in the West is at the verge of extinguishment. Contrary to this, African Americans still swell in large families and their familial structure is greatly preserved as compared to various other communities in America. African communalism is …essentially and basically a socio-ethical doctrine, not economic; whereas socialism, as I understand it, is primarily an economic arrangement, involving the public control of all the dynamics of the economy.... (Not) everything that can be asserted of communalism can be asserted also for socialism, and vice-versa. (Gyeke cited in Lassiter, 1999). Communalism is important for the African American communities because they need to have their concerns identified and voice raised at some level. Communalism provides the African Americans with the opportunity to have their say while remaining in their comfort zone. These factors limit the application of Western psychology upon the African Americans. What assumptions associated with Western psychology may limit its applicability to Asian American culture? Support your answers by briefly comparing and contrasting the assumptions of Western psychology with Asian American culture. List at least three (3) assumptions and briefly explain why they may not apply to Asian Americans. The first and the foremost assumption associated with the Asian American culture that limits its tendency to be applied the Western psychology upon is the fact that many people commonly misinterpret the normative cultural patterns of the Asian Americans as their psychological problems. They are stereotyped to have special aptitudes in the fields of math and science whereas in reality, the parenting style of most Asian Americans is authoritarian in contrast to the non-authoritarian model used by most of the European Americans. Even after they have been in America for several generations, they can not get the label of foreigners off them. This can be fundamentally attributed to the fact that the Asian Americans try to keep stuck to their original Asian values and yet try to merge into the indigenous American culture otherwise. All concepts of Western psychology are primarily grounded in scientific research and have a rationale behind them that has the support of a lot of research and practice. A behavior that clashes with the scientific principles and research findings is not approved of by the Western psychology. This is the fundamental cause of clash between the Western psychology and the Asian Americans. Media and literature have played a very important role in promoting the negative stereotypes about the Asian Americans. From the exaggerated depictions of exotic, sex-hungry Asian women to the gangster-involved, sexually abusive characteristics of Asian men, movie producers perpetuate the gender, race and class inequalities of Asian Americans by allowing these demonizing Asian characteristics to appear over and over in their box office movies. Examples of such characters appear in popular Asian-American movies such as The Year of the Dragon (1985), The Joy Luck Club (1993), Lethal Weapon 4 (1998), and Return to Paradise (1998). (Mahdzan, n.d., p. 1). Asian Americans share an authoritarian style of parenting. They tend to exercise much more rights over their children than what is considered normal or necessary by the Western psychology. In many countries in the West, parents are not allowed to slap their children. If they do, they may be held accountable for that. This is not the case with Asian parents. Asian parents slap their children whenever they feel like without having to fear from any external force. Asian Americans, although live in America, but can not forget the way they were brought up and the authoritarian parenting style is grounded in their nature. Hence, Asian Americans retain their “foreigner” tag for generations. Describe the cultural values of Latino Americans, as identified in your course readings. What are the special features of Latino/a culture that affect parenting, child development and mental health? Why are these features of interest to multicultural psychologists? The behavior of Latino Americans is characterized by their interdependence. The distinct values of Latino Americans include but are not limited to familismo, personalismo, respecto, contolarse, aquantarse, marianismo and machismo. Familismo means family orientation and commitment towards family. Personalismo is the term coined for an individual’s choice of building relationships with people rather than institutions. Respecto, as the name implies, stands for respecting one another’s role in the structure of a family. Contolarse means self-containment, aquantarse is the word used for an individual’s tendency to cope with difficult situations with patience and courage. Marianismo means one’s adherence to the feminine gender roles including mother, sister and daughter, and one’s tendency to take care of them. Machismo means one’s adherence to the male gender roles. It includes providing for the family and protecting it. Of these cultural values, familismo, personalismo, respecto, aquantarse, marianismo and machismo all affect parenting. A parent’s commitment towards family is fundamental to the fulfillment of his/her job as a parent. Likewise, the parent’s interest in building relationships determines his/her level of affection with the children. Like the children respect parents, parents also have to respect their children to a certain limit in order to build the perfect bond with them. Parents face all obstacles and encounter all challenges in order to be able to provide for their children. Marianismo and machismo enable the mother and father to identify and fulfill the duties associated with their respective roles. All these cultural values including contolarse are also conducive for optimal growth and development of the children on both the physical and psychological level. The aforementioned features of the Latino Americans are of particular interest to the multicultural psychologists because they provide them with an in-sight to this very important community of Americans. Latino Americans form a significant portion of the total population of America, so knowing their cultural values means learning a lot about American culture. To be a Latino means that in the 2000 U.S. census, you were counted as one of 35.3 million people, of any race, classified as “Hispanic,” and that you were part of a group that comprised 12.5% of the total U.S. population. It means you are part of a group that now equals, or has surpassed, African Americans in number. (Rodriguez, 2004). In order to be able to work successfully in a multicultural society, the multicultural psychologists have to have a fair understanding of the norms and cultures of every community that makes part of a society. Discuss at least four (4) reasons why traditional individual psychology is not adequate to fully understand American Indian and Alaskan Native culture. Use specific examples from your readings to illustrate your answer. How do your observations relate to the field of multicultural psychology? Among the several reasons why traditional individual psychology is not adequate to fully understand American Indian and Alaskan Native culture, the four most obvious reasons are as follows: Firstly, American Indians and the native Alaskans form tiny groups who are with a lot of diversity. Secondly, their history is not very well understood because no such literature has been preserved for them. The third potential reason why they can not be characterized by their individuals’ psychology is the fact that they have always mixed up into people from other cultures and have not maintained a distinctive identity of their own. Had they lived like a “typical” Native American with some reservation, it would have been possible to identify their individualistic traits. And last but not the least, a vast majority of the Indian Americans prefer to hide their identity in an attempt to escape being negatively stereotyped the way Indian Americans often are. Individual psychology does not give sufficient idea of the culture of the native Alaskans and the American Indians because they are extremely diverse. “The culture, language, physical features, and history of American Indians are as diverse as that of Europeans” (Baggs, 1997). Within each community, one can find several groups with contradicting views, opinions, norms, values and practices. So studying the psychology of an individual will not tell how the community thinks, feels or acts as a whole. In such cases, we conventionally take help from the literature, but again, that is very limited. They have great affinity with people from other cultures and easily abandon their original values to adopt the new ones. A multicultural psychologist conducts a detailed study of the various cultures that make part of the society. In order to achieve this, the multicultural psychologist studies the demographic details of the various cultural groups. To know more about individual groups, the multicultural psychologist not only meets people from those groups in person, but also consults other people to see if their opinion matches with his/her judgment about the groups. Concepts gained through this primary research are verified through secondary research, that primarily involves study of literature regarding the cultural groups. The primary and secondary researches go side by side. Since I have based my argument on my personal observation of the Indian Americans and Native Alaskans as well as my review of literature, I can say that the observations I made are related to the field of multicultural psychology. References: Baggs, S. W. (1997). American Indian Stereotypes: 500 Years of Hate Crimes. Retrieved from http://www.dickshovel.com/jank.html. Lassiter, J. E. (1999). African Culture and Personality: Bad Social Science, Effective Social Activism, or a Call to Reinvent Ethnology. African Studies Quarterly. 3(2). Retrieved from http://web.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v3/v3i2a1.htm. Mahdzan, F. (n.d.). Asian Americans. Retrieved from http://mahdzan.com/fairy/papers/asian/. Rodriguez, C. E. (2004). What It Means to Be Latino. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/americanfamily/latino3.html. Read More