environmental factors that influence our cultural identity

Thinking about your college or university, how would you explain your microculture to someone unfamiliar with your culture? Notice that the U.S. does not make it into the top five or the bottom five. We can often make these determinations by talking to the other person. And many hospitals and healthcare settings are applying these findings. One argument remains the most highly discussed among psychologists, anthropologists, and students through centuries of study of human behavior; the argument between environmental influence or innate factors as the origins of behavior and personality. Sometimes the environment changes a geneeither its DNA sequence or its activity level. Identity formation is a process through which, particularly in modern societies, individuals are able to choose from an array of . It affects everyone, no matter who you are or where you live. Culture and the Environment: How Cultural Values Influence Global Ecologic Practices, 2013 study by economists George Halkos and Nickolaos Tzeremes in the, Interview: Kim Wasserman and Juliana Pino of the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, Dispelling the Myth: Why State Tax Breaks for Businesses Do Not Spur Economic Growth, Impact of Disproportionate Air Pollution and Heat Exposure on Pregnancy. Definition Cultural identity is the sense of belonging towards a culture. Enter your email address to subscribe to CPR. Explain the meaning of each factor. By Warren Throckmorton, PhD. This simple exercise demonstrates how often and easy it is for stereotypes to enter into our heads. The study uses a performance measure framework in which countries per capita emissions are fed as inputs and in which GDP per capita data is used as outputs. The third factor of collective self-esteem is public collective self-esteem, or the degree to which nonmembers of a group evaluate a group and its members either positively or negatively. Why? Changes in these areas help create a healing environment that is psychologically supportive for patients, families, and staff. Work Cited. How do you view this group in all four types of esteem: private collective, membership, public collective, and importance to identity? I understand the social, economic, and political systems of other cultures. Personality informs people's beliefs, values, and attitudes, and scientists have found that personality factors can influence our likelihood to engage in environmentally sensitive practices.The Big Five Personality trait model is . Households in the highest quintile had incomes of $104,097 or more. In fact, many religious texts describe martyrdom as a holy calling. Maybe youve belonged to a religious organization your entire life. Was this interpersonal interaction appropriate? July 25, 2019. The established language, religion, behavior, values, rituals, and social customs of a society. In 1988, intercultural communication research Stella Ting-Toomey developed face-negotiation theory to help explain the importance of face within interpersonal interactions.37 The basic idea behind face-negotiation theory is that face-saving, conflict, and culture are all intertwined. Just as an FYI, Cinco de Mayo is the date (May 5, 1862) observed to commemorate the Mexican Armys victory over the French Empire at the Battle of Puebla that conclude the Franco-Mexican War (also referred to as the Battle of Puebla Day). This factor is difficult to quantify rigorously, but the authors have shown how cultural attitudes may be directly related to a countrys overall ecological efficiency. In fact, within the latest edition of the book examining these characteristics, Hofstede and his colleagues title the chapter on uncertainty avoidance as What is Different is Dangerous, calling out the threat factor people in high uncertainty avoidance cultures feel.31 Cultures at the high end of uncertainty avoidance include Greece, Portugal, Guatemala, Uruguay, and Belgium Flemish; whereas, cultures at the low end of uncertainty avoidance include Singapore, Jamaica, Denmark, Sweden, and Hong Kong. The environment can have a large impact on a person's identity. Face is the standing or position a person has in the eyes of others. communication. I know about other cultures religious beliefs and values. I enjoy being with people from other cultures and getting to know them. When it came to trait affection received, all four groups differed from one another. Chances are, youve probably never heard of the Republic of Kiribati, but its a real country in Oceania. Employees (oops! plee@psu.edu PMID: 16128238 Some factors that influence identity are external, such as socioeconomic status, ethnicity, or culture. As such, facework should be viewed as a necessary component for understanding any form of interpersonal interaction but is especially important when examining interpersonal interactions that occur between people from differing cultural backgrounds. Second, call out the stereotype in your mind. For example, in most of the United States, when you are talking to someone, eye contact is very important. List the various stereotypes that you can think of for the following different groups: Gay Male, Transgendered Male, African American Male, Hispanic Female, White Male, and Pakistani Female. We often refer to microcultures as local cultures because they do tend to exist among a small segment of people within a specific geographical location. The college marching band provides students with opportunities that foster student development, defined as the personal growth and identity development of students due to environmental factors in higher education. According to a 2013 report from the U.S. Census department (using income data from 2012), here is how income inequality in the U.S. looks: Households in the lowest quintile had incomes of $20,599 or less in 2012. Explain the concept of collective self-esteem. Although this was historically true, the ages of flight attendants has changed: 16-24 year olds (4.9%), 25-34 year olds (16.8%), 35-44 year olds (29.7%), 45-54 year olds (28.2%), and 55+ year olds (21.4%). Make a list of five co-cultural groups that you currently belong to. Abstract. I understand how daily life is enacted in other cultures. Dont try to find evidence to support or negate these stereotypes or prejudices. As such, women are placed in a subservient position to their husbands are often identified socially by their husbands. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! When we go out of our way to be culturally intelligent, we will encourage others to do so as well. ADVERTISEMENTS: 2. They do make it a point to note, however, that even between countries with similar levels of ecologic efficiency, one can see a great disparity in cultural attitudes and values. Ultimately, research examining these differences have shown that people from indulgent countries are more open to other cultures, more satisfied with their lives, and are more likely to communicate with friends and family members via the Internet while interacting with more people from other cultures via the Internet as well. Thursday, December 4th, 2014 Marianne WaasDecember 4th, 2014 Bookmarks: 113 Comments: 2. Cultural intelligence involves the degree to which an individual can communicate competently in varying cultural situations. Some cultures are widespread, and have a large number of people who associate themselves with those particular values, beliefs, and origins. These influence all social processes including business, education and life in general. Ellen was walking around in a foreign country and was completely unaware that she presented herself in public was seen as an insult to Allah and society. _____4. However, that may not be the only intention we have when interacting with someone from another culture. Other people think of traditional dress like that seen from Kashmir in Figure 6.1. First, when it comes to engaging with people from other cultures, we need to be fully in the moment and not think about previous interactions with people from a culture or possible future interactions with people from a culture. The terms low-context culture (LCC) and high-context culture (HCC) were created by Hall to describe how communication styles differ across cultures. To determine power differences within a culture, Hofstede originally was able to examine cultural value survey data that had been collected by IBM. Most Asian countries are considered collectivistic cultures because these cultures tend to be group-focused. There are several factors that influence an identity. For this study, the researchers studied 606 participants in four different countries: Denmark, Iceland, Poland, and the United States. Each of the four factors exists on a continuum from 5 (not culturally intelligent) to 25 (highly culturally intelligent). What are the factors and forces that influences one's view on the self? The term ethnocentrism can be defined as the degree to which an individual views the world from their own cultures perspective while evaluating other cultures according their own cultures preconceptions, often accompanied by feelings of dislike, mistrust, or hate for cultures deemed inferior. Table 6.1 Low-Context vs. High-Context Cultures, You may be wondering, by this point, how low-context and high-context cultures differ across different countries. Admittedly, in Hofstedes research, there does tend to be a difference between females and males on these characteristics (females tend to be more relationally oriented and males more assertive), which is why Hofstede went with the terms masculinity and femininity in the first place. 16-38). Define the term stereotype and explain its implications for interpersonal communication. Members of a microculture will usually share much of what they know with everyone in the greater society but will possess a special cultural knowledge that is unique to the subgroup.6 If youre a college student and youve ever lived in a dorm, you may have experienced what we mean by a microculture. _____13. Roy and Jalissa still would get together regularly and go shopping, go to the movies, have dinner, etc. Basically, it can be considered as owning the culture and its various boundaries of ethnicity, nationality, language, religion, and gender. The fact is that most aspects of human development are initially determined by the persons genetic makeup, whether that is indirectly or directly. People tend to make decisions in a manner that conforms with culturally mediated beliefs about morality. Cultural orientation where individuals focus on the past or present and not in the future. _____2. Lastly, go into all intercultural interactions with the right attitude. Lastly, its time to realize that your stereotype may not be that factual. Every individual belongs to a wide range of groups, and we can evaluate these groups as either positive or negative. According to Hofstedes most recent data, the five countries with the highest power distances are: Malaysia, Slovakia, Guatemala, Panama, and the Philippines.26 The five countries with the lowest power distances are Austria, Israel, Denmark, New Zealand, and Switzerland (German-speaking part). Moral development is strongly influenced by interpersonal factors, such as family, peers, and culture. Cultural orientation where individuals focus on the future and not the present or past. We also tend to think our own culture is generally right, moral, ethical, legal, etc. http://www.loc.gov/resource/g3200.ct000725/, Jason S. Wrench; Narissra M. Punyanunt-Carter; and Katherine S. Thweatt, http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED399684.pdf, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, Strong Distinctions Between In and Out-Groups. _____10. Remember, the goal of being mindful is to be open, kind, and curious. Please take a second and complete their measure: James L. Mason created a cultural competence tool for service agencies (. People in all cultures try to maintain and negotiate face in all communication situations. One of the biggest misunderstandings new people studying culture have is that an individual can have their own personalized culture. All rights reserved. 4 - 9) of your reading: Understanding Culture. Characteristics of a culture that values cooperation and harmony and considers the needs of the group to be more important than the needs of the individual. Which facet of collective self-esteem does this represent? While research suggests that genetics play an important role in personality, it is also important to recognize that other factors do have an influence. More simplistically, face is essentially a persons reputation and feelings of prestige within multiple spheres, including the workplace, the family, personal friends, and society at large.44 For our purposes, we can generally break face down into general categories: face gaining and face losing. Admittedly, this episode aired in July 2001, so we were just a few short months before 9-11 and the public awakening to a whole range of issues occurring in the Middle East. Research has examined how an individuals collective self-esteem impacts their interpersonal interactions.11 The researchers found that during interactions in which multicultural persons felt that their heritage culture was being positively evaluated, they were more likely to perceive the interaction as intimate, they disclosed more and perceived their interaction partner as more disclosing, they enjoyed the interaction more, and they were more likely to indicate that they felt personally accepted.12 Furthermore, individuals with high collective self-esteem generally had more favorable interactions with people of differing cultures. Some groups we hold tightly to, while we only see ourselves as peripherally associated with others. In this fast-paced survey of research on how culture shapes cognition, Nalini Ambady examines the neural evidence for socio-cultural influences on thinking, judgment, and behavior. In this case, was Jalissa culturally intelligent? Many factors go into influencing personality, including genetics, environment, parenting, and societal variables. During your interaction, you say, So, whats your favorite football team? In this moment, youve taken the one stereotype you had and used it to help engage in an interaction. Think about your own dominant culture. In an Islamic country where a woman wearing revealing clothing is a violation of Islamic law, Ellen was violating the cultures dress code. Obviously, these two incidents have gone down in the annals of presidential history as cultural faux pas. However, U.S. citizens have clung to the title American without ever giving thought to those other countries that exist on these two continents. Before continuing, take a minute and complete the Cultural Intelligence Questionnaire in Table 6.2. In his 1959 book, The Silent Language, Hall states, culture is communication and communication is culture.19 In the previous chapter, we talked about the importance of nonverbal communication. President George H. Bush once held up his hand in a V for Victory salute to an Australian audience only to find out later that this was the equivalent of the middle finger in the United States. In fact, culture becomes such an ingrained part of who we are that we often do not even recognize our own culture and how our own culture affects us daily. When faced with a decision, individuals use cultural values to determine the appropriate course of action. Maybe you live in a dorm that values competition against other dorms on campus, or one that doesnt care about the competition at all. Low eco-efficiency is also strongly correlated with high uncertainty avoidance. But this asymmetry toward industrialized. Previous research has indicated the importance of cultural practices and services in sustaining cultural identity for Indigenous peoples, which is a major . _____3. An additional variable is used to describe the effect of a countrys greenhouse gas production on environmental valuation, placing value on a pollutant-free environment. We are often born into our cultural identities. GROVE CITY, Pennsylvania, October 26, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Mark Twain said once: "Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated." We mean cast members) who work for the Disney company quickly realize that there is more to working at Disney than a uniform and a name badge. 3. Over the years, there have been numerous definitions of the word culture. Cultural values influence a myriad of topicseducation, wealth distribution, government oversightbut the extent to which these values influence environmental attitudes is not well documented. The authors are then able to examine the ratio of economic value created to emissions created and define this as a countrys eco-efficiency. Many organizations are known for creating, or attempting to create, very specific microcultures. Furthermore, individuals from more indulgent cultures tend to be more optimistic, while their restrained counterparts tend to be more cynical. In fact, in the 1980s only 19% of flight attendants were male, and today 26% of flight attendants are male.15 Are all flight attendants female? I can vary my rate of speech if an intercultural encounter requires it. The term "environment" also serves to group together diverse considerations, including biological and physical factors, both in the intra-uterine environment and after birth, as well as social environment including family environment, various kinds of life events, and experiences in the wider world. Cultural orientation marked by immediate gratification for individual desires. Roy and Jalissa originally met in graduate school. CHCECE001 Develop cultural competence and CHCDIV002 Promote Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander cultural safety. Ultimately, we can define these types of cultures in the following way: A society is called masculine when emotional gender roles are clearly distinct: men are supposed to be assertive, tough, and focused on material success, whereas women are supposed to be more modest, tender, and concerned with quality of life. If you need another example, just think of St. Patricks Day, which evolved from a religious celebration marking the death of St. Patrick on March 17, 461 CE, to a day when everyones Irish and drinks green beer. The aspect of an individuals self-worth or self-image that stems from their interaction with others and evaluation of their various social groups. When a culture appears to waiver from what our culture has taught is right, moral, ethical, legal, etc., we tend to judge those cultures as inferior. There are various factors that can affect self-concept, these include: age, sexual orientation, gender and religion. When looking at this definition, its important first to highlight that different cultures have different perceptions related to both courses of action or outcomes. What are the established language, religion, behavior, values, rituals, and social customs within your society? An average person would score between 12-18. Lien is both a social sanction for enforcing moral standards and an internalized sanction.41 On the other hand, mien-tzu stands for the kind of prestige that is emphasized in this country [America]: a reputation achieved through getting on in life, through success and ostentation.42 However, David Yau-fai Ho argues that face is more complicated than just lien and mien-tzu, so he provided the following definition: Face is the respectability and/or deference which a person can claim for himself from others, by virtue of the relative position he occupies in his social network and the degree to which he is judged to have functioned adequately in that position as well as acceptably in his general conduct; the face extended to a person by others is a function of the degree of congruence between judgments of his total condition in life, including his actions as well as those of people closely associated with him, and the social expectations that others have placed upon him. Every one of us has grown up in a unique cultural environment, and this culture has impacted how we communicate. In this case, the stereotype of the young flight attendant simply doesnt meet up with reality. Listed below are the environmental factors that influence our cultural identity. Lets look at a real stereotype that plays out. Second, we have motivational CQ, or the degree to which an individual desires to engage in intercultural interactions and can easily adapt to different cultural environments. I would have no problems accustoming myself to the routines of another culture. The results also indicated that trait affection given was significantly associated with the individualism-collectivism, masculinity-femininity, and uncertainty avoidance dimensions of cultures. According to Hofstedes data, the U.S. is 16th from the bottom of power distance, so we are in the bottom third with regards to power distance. Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices. By definition, were all Americans. More . _____9. Identify several different ways to create better intercultural interactions. Others are relatively small, with only a small number of people who associate themselves with that culture. Figure 2.4. This belonging can be justified with the shared set of companionship, principles or beliefs of living. The importance of microcultures goes back to Abraham Maslows need for belonging. Affectionate communication is conceptualized as a persons use of intentional and overt communicative behaviors to convey feelings of closeness, care, and fondness in the form of verbal statements, nonverbal behaviors, and social support.35. _____17. Perhaps you live in a dorm that is allegedly haunted. Hofstede refers to this as being more relationally oriented. Also, if you find that your mind is shifting, recognize the shift and allow yourself to re-center on your interaction with the other person. For example, an invitation to a party would be addressed to Mr. The two of them considered themselves as highly culturally intelligent people. Face-negotiation theory ultimately concerned with three different types of face: self-face (concern for our face), other-face (concern for another persons face), and mutual-face (concern for both interactants and the relationship).39 As you can see from Ting-Toomeys last assumption in her theory above, individuals who are competent in facework can recognize when facework is necessary and then handle those situations appropriately, effectively, and adaptively. However, if the person comes back and says, I really dont care. For understanding culture, Hofstede acknowledges that this distinction ultimately has a lot to do with work goals.28 On the masculine end of the spectrum, individuals tend to be focused on items like earnings, recognition, advancement, and challenge. The other countries did not differ from each other with regard to trait affection given. Do not be concerned if some of the items appear similar. For example, if youre someone who has always lived in Charleston, South Carolina, then being a member of the Southerner cultural group may be a very important part of your identity. _____7. We raise this example because often the larger culture coopts parts of a co-culture and tries to adapt it into the mainstream. The degree to which those people and organizations with less power within a culture accept and expect that power is unequally distributed within their culture. In many cases, the environment influences the expression of genes. Society Does our identity begin its cultivation from the moment we're born? They may have their own exclusive stories, histories, mascots, and specializations. Another very important researcher in the area of culture is a man by the name of Geert Hofstede. Informal guidelines about what is acceptable or proper social behavior within a specific culture. Hofstede also refers to these tendencies as being more assertive. The media can also influence and perpetuate gender stereotypes. You may be wondering how this ultimately impacts interpersonal communication. But researchers have also found the environments that children from the same family share with each other exert a much weaker influence on their personalities than the environments that each child experiences . Almost half of flight attendants today are over 45 years of age. With the exception of masculinity/femininity, each factor has a statistically significant effect on environmental performance metrics. Over the years, the two graduated and went to different jobs that were close to each other. Just like a baby born to an English-speaking family isnt going to magically start speaking French out of nowhere, neither will a person from one culture adopt another culture accidentally. We tend to seek out environments with qualities that make us feel comfortable physically and . Power distance and individualism exert the strongest forces. Although some stereotypes are accurate, many stereotypes that we may possess are based on faulty information or overgeneralizations of entire groups of people. Environmental psychologists realize that to change behavior and attitudes towards the environment, scientists and policymakers must understand people's personalities. Furthermore, people who are not brave are often banished from the tribe. For example, the median income for the average U.S. household is $51,100.24 When discussing household incomes, we use the median (middlemost number) because its the most accurate representation of income. One day Roy and Jalissa were hanging how in a store when Roy found an African Mask. Environment influencing cultural identity Forum rules IMPORTANT: Student's support in our forum will now be a part of our Premium Subscription service.

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