Psychology of Personality and Cultural Socialization - Essay Example

Q Ans. Three ways in which my culture has influenced who I am include my dressing, my values, and my perceptions. Although I am very selective in my clothes, and try to purchase only the most trendy, stylish, and appealing clothes, yet one major factor that I always take care of while purchasing clothes is my culture. While there is a lot of variety of clothes available in the market, the range of clothes I have to select from is the one that is considered acceptable in my culture. In my culture, people generally do not live in extended families. The nuclear family system is more popular in my culture. I would also like to live in a separate home with my spouse after getting married, though I would ensure that I maintain constant contact with my parents as the respect of elders is one of the major values of my culture. My culture does not approve of homosexuality. Accordingly, I am against the legalization of gay marriages, which is an example of how my culture has influenced my perceptions. My cultural socialization has played a very important role in shaping my attitudes, values, and behaviors. Having grown up in a culture where the roles and responsibilities of the male and female gender are fairly defined, where people believe that one’s actions should be ethically and morally justifiable, and where people are very clear about what behaviors to execute in the society and what to deter from, my attitudes, values, and behaviors are a personification of my culture. I have learned them from people around me including my family and friends. Media has also played a very important role in keeping me informed of the latest trends and traditions that are gaining acceptability in my culture. Q. 2: Ans. People keeping track of our likes and dislikes, the trends and fashion popular among us, and our lifestyles in general use this information to gain benefits. This is happening at all levels; including domestic, national, and international. Domestically, small and large enterprises keep track of the ways in which the advancement of technology is changing the contemporary lifestyle, and thus make and introduce such products and services that are more consistent and appealing with the prevailing lifestyle and standard of living. For example, the growth of popularity of mobile phones among the people has encouraged mobile making companies to introduce newer models every few months. In order to sell their products, these companies heavily advertise and market their products. Every ad suggests that the right thing to do is to change your mobile phone, even if you bought the newest model few months ago because an even newer model has arrived in the market. This is essentially behavioral manipulation. Likewise, government controls our behavior by imposing taxes upon products and services that have become necessities for us. From electricity bills to mobile phone cards, we pay tax everywhere. A way to reduce the amount of payable tax would be to limit our consumption of these services, but we sure cannot do that if we want to live a happy and fulfilling life in the present age. Internationally, our insufficiency of general knowledge is being used by powerful countries to justify their actions and wars inflicted by them upon other countries. A lot of news channels use yellow journalism and twist the facts in such a way that even the wrong actions of the government look right. Q. 3: Ans. Some of the main perspectives on the psychology of personality are the psychoanalytic perspective, the humanistic perspective, the trait perspective, and the social cognitive perspective (Cherry, 2014). The psychoanalytic perspective of personality places emphasis upon the significance of the unconscious mind and the experiences an individual gets during the early childhood. The humanistic perspective of personality places emphasis on the study of psychological growth, personal awareness, and freewill of an individual, thus adopting a more positive outlook on the nature of an individual. This perspective is focused at exploring means to help an individual achieve his/her optimal potential. The trait perspective of personality focuses at the identification, description, and analysis of the particular features comprising human personality. Understanding of these features helps the psychologists comprehend differences among people in a better way. The social cognitive perspective of personality studies the significance of self-efficacy, observational learning, cognitive processes, and situational influences. Every day, we come across cases that require in-depth study of the psychology of personality. Typical examples of such cases are criminal offenses. Mail Online from the UK reported that a woman having multiple personalities sketched all 17 alter egos of her (dailymail.co.uk, 2014). “Karen Overhill took on a range of personalities to escape the trauma, such as Sandy, 18, a depressed binge eater, and Jensen, an 11-year-old black boy who drew the sketch” (dailymail.co.uk, 2014). Analysis of this case from the perspectives on the psychology of personality helps a psychologist connect the behavior of this woman to her life experiences. For example, the psychoanalytic perspective of personality identifies the abuse this woman experienced during her childhood by her father and grandfather as the cause of the development of multiple personalities in her. The humanistic perspective of personality helps draw a connection between this woman’s behavior and her attempts and will to protect herself. A greater understanding of the personality traits of this woman can be attained using the trait perspective. The social cognitive perspective of personality helps the psychologist identify situational influences that might have caused this woman to display alter egos. When a case is analyzed from all these different sorts of perspectives on the psychology of personality, this provides the analysts with a holistic analysis of the subjects involved in the case, the underlying motivations and factors that instigated them to behave in a certain manner, and how they relate to or originate in the life history of the subjects. These different perspectives sketch not only the internal but also a range of external factors that make an individual behave in a certain way. References: Cherry, K. (2014). Personality Perspectives. Retrieved from http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/personality-perspectives.htm. Dailymail.co.uk. (2014, Feb. 19). Patient with multiple personalities sketches her 17 alter egos. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-489655/Patient-multiple-personalities-sketches-17-alter-egos.html. Read More