Cultural Differences in Conceptual Models of Depression - Assignment Example

Cultural Differences in Conceptual Models of Depression Culture is the way of life that a person, an organization or a group of people practices. People and or organisations have their way of doing things. Culture is very important as it contributes very much to a person’s productivity, (Schouten & Meeuwesen, 2006). Cultural differences among people arise from ethnicity, nationality and family background and individual experiences. These aspects bring fundamental differences among people.

The differences affect person’s practices, behaviours, beliefs and influence a person’s expectations of one another. Some examples of cultural differences are; A family set up is defined by different culturesTime concept is not of the same importance in all cultures, in Asian countries time perception is past oriented, in Latin America they live on the present time while North American and Western Europe they are future oriented (Baumeister, 2005). Expressions are distinguished according to their importance.

For instance, snow is part of everyday life for the Eskimos while the Zulus have numerous words for the green color. In some cultures, shaking of hands in horizontal direction is a sign of meaning no while in others it is a sign of saying yes (India).Another good example is the eye contact. In Latin America and in some Asian cultures, children avoid the glance as a way of showing respect to the authority. Physical distance during interactions varies with different cultures. Some people in Middle East stand so close when talking while in Europe people maintain some distance when talking.

The display of emotions differs in different cultures; some cultures get very emotional while others do not. Many African cultures do not allow men to cry when exhibiting anger, frustration, and fear and do not allow men to show emotions openly. This is rather different in European cultures. In working places managers are trained how to deal with different cultures exhibited by the different ethnic groups. The globalization makes it possible to find that Japanese, American and a German are working in the same organization.

Cultural different is important because different people have different ways of looking at things, different dressing mode and different ways of expressing goodness or personality. Cultural differences can be a source of conflict if it is not well understood. As such, it is very important for every person to take time and understand different culture around which that person is (Karasz, 2005). The culture score of where a person comes from define a person’s personality score. The way of life and the way of doing things right from childhood determines the personality of a person.

The beliefs and learning experiences in the family setting plays a big role in the personality of a person. Personality score contains a single normal distribution that is replicated in each human society (culture). Person’s psychological aspects have a big effect of that person’s personality. This indicates that culture scores and personality scores are very much related (Li & Kirkup, 2007). However, the aspect of personality scores differs very much across a number of cultural groups. In US, there is cultural of individualism and therefore a person expresses him/herself individually while in Asia, there is a culture of self-reliance and people define themselves in terms of groups.

Essentially, culture scores influences the development of personality score. There are both culture and universal specific aspects of variation in personality. References Baumeister, R. F. (2005). The cultural animal: Human nature, meaning, and social life. Oxford University Press.Karasz, A. (2005). Cultural differences in conceptual models of depression.Social science & medicine, 60(7), 1625-1635.Li, N., & Kirkup, G. (2007). Gender and cultural differences in Internet use: A study of China and the UK.

 Computers & Education, 48(2), 301-317.Schouten, B. C., & Meeuwesen, L. (2006). Cultural differences in medical communication: a review of the literature. Patient education and counseling,64(1), 21-34.