Changing Cultures

Simply by comparing your current culture ways to how your ancestors, even your grandparents and different, older, generations it is easily seen that culture is not constant, it is always changing and adapting to the changing environments. One aspect that seems to be increasingly changing is the idea of individualism. This means that individuals are prioritizing their own personal goals before the other members of their culture. This idea can be compared to those cultures/people that are collectivistic, which means that these individuals encourage more importance of collective goals of the whole group and but the groups goals ahead of their own. In my own culture I can think of one example that shows how this is changing. This is just a simple example to put the idea across of what I'm talking about. My grandmother, about 60 years ago, would have lived on a farm with her mom and dad and 8 other siblings. This large family everyday would work together on the farm, to provide for the family as a whole. The dad would work and bring home the money, the mom would cook and clean for the whole family, and the children would do chores around the farm. At the end of the day everything was do to help each other out. Today, in my family, it is more individualistic. For example, often anyone of us would not want to eat whatever the rest of the family was cooking so that person would then cook their own separate supper. Fend-for-ourselves-meals we would call it. Now,thats not to say that my mom wasn’t there to cook for me and my siblings, we just choose to make our own food because we often had other plans and were busy off doing our own thing with our friends. Less time is spent with the family as a whole, and we tend to put ourselves ahead of others. Another example ties into the feminist movement. Females are becoming more independent and individualistic. Compared to before there are higher rates of women getting an education, having jobs, etc. Why is this happening some people might ask? The world is becoming a demanding place and financial stress puts people in positions where they have to start fending for themselves. Media and Tv and social networks allow for people to connect with their friends and entertain themselves without actually having to leave the house. This means that there is less time spent with others, and more time with yourself. In other cultures who do not experience these things they tend to be collectivists, there helping each other out and interacting more with other members of their culture. With the way technology is growing, who knows, maybe we will loose collectivist cultures altogether. 

Friday the 13th

Since this month of February has the famous Friday the 13th in it I thought it would be appropriate to discuss legends, superstitions and myths that are held within different cultures. You may have heard of things like umbrellas being opened in the house is bad luck, or that at the time 11:11 you are to make a wish. What these are are superstitions held in cultures. What is ironic is that most people often find these superstitions ridiculous, or know that they obviously hold no truth, yet they still practice in them. How do these things come about, or in other words, how are ideas spread in cultures? One factor that causes ideas to spread within a culture is if the ideas are based on emotion. Researchers have found that statements containing emotion are more likely to be remembered and repeated among individuals. Another factor that causes ideas to spread and persist is if the ideas are minimally counterintuitive. This means that statements are slightly unusual, but not too crazy of an idea. We often see counterintuitive ideas in the bible, such as the virgin birth. So with that in mind it makes sense that these superstitions persist in culture, even though we know they are not likely true events. For example, consider the superstition "make a wish at 11:11" (if you havent heard of this, it simply means if you see a clock say 11:11 you are to make a wish and it will come true), this superstition evokes emotion. It evokes a positive, joyful emotion in the hopes that your wish will come true. But, at the same time, it is counterintuitive because does making a wish at a certain time mean it will come true? I like to think yes,because lets face it that would be awesome, but put gently, there doesn't seem to be any logic to that. I will end this blog with a few random and strange superstitions that are held around different cultures around the world that I have found online. Enjoy!

1)Carrying an acorn will keep you young forever

2)Eatting Lettuce will keep you from having children

3)An awkward silence means angels are passing over

4)Never give gloves as a present, it is bad luck

5)Seeing a goat means good luck

6)Eat grapes at midnight for good luck

Pluralistic Ignorance

One topic that has been brought up in class has been the idea of pluralistic ignorance and the idea of it, and how it may relate to the persisting "rape culture" we see in societies today. To start off this blog post I will first give a brief definition of what pluralistic ignorance is. Pluralistic ignorance is the tendency for people to misinterpret the thoughts and attitudes that other people have. When this occurs people will often make statements that does not reflect their own thoughts, but what they think other people want to hear, when in actuality most people are in the same position. For instance, we can look at the 'hooking up' scene that is occurring among university students. People think that hooking up is normal and participate in the act because they think its what other people think is normal, but really the majority of people are uncomfortable with it. Another interesting, but also touchy subject where pluralistic ignorance could be evident is in the "rape culture" in today's society. Rape culture is a term designed to show the ways that society normalized male sexual violence, sexual remarks against women, or even rape. You can often see examples of this portrayed in music videos were women are depicted as sexual objects. How can one say the rape is normal? That's horrible. And clearly, you would think, one of right mind would not say that rape is normal. The thing is though, this whole rape culture is seen as normal, but why? This awful thing is occurring because of pluralistic ignorance. People may not feel empowered enough to speak out, maybe they want to fit in and act/say things that they think is socially acceptable and appealing to others. Maybe they think its funny, or cool, or whatever it  is, people are continuing to act this way because they think its normal and that they would be turned down or belittled if they spoke out. How can we stop this? If we can get people to realize what people actually think then a new 'norm' can form. This could be done through ways such as hosting interventions for self affirmation, or for peer pressure  control. Interventions on how to speak up, or interventions that simply inform the public about pluralistic ignorance. Just as new cultural ideas and norms can be made in culture, lets hope that very soon there is a new cultural norm that minimizes the on going rape culture we are experiencing in this present time and age. 

The Ratchet Effect

In culture psychology there is an important idea that is known as the ratchet effect. This is analogous effect that cultural ideas and inventions are things that you can add onto without loosing any of the previous information/ideas. This means that cultural ideas are subject to innovations and modification, and this occurs through social transmission. One personal example that I relate to is my hair straighter. In order to have the hair straightener that I have in the present time I will have to go back hundreds of years to explain this. First there would have been the idea of someone wanting to have straight hair (now i'm not sure when or why this occurred, that would need further research), and thus a new cultural idea was born. This new idea of having straight hair would have been social transmitted, meaning that many people were practicing this new behavior and it was catching on and spreading. The ratchet effect comes into play where there are modifications to this process. I'm not sure how it would have first started or what the procedures were like back in the day, but first hand I can remember myself having to straighten my sisters hair with a iron and an iron board. Now, well into the 21st century there have been many modifications and many different hair straightening tools, so my sister no longer has to bring out the iron and ironing board. There are even chemicals that some people use to permanently straighten their hair! Basically every single object, practice or behavior started off as a new idea, a cultural invention, then through consistent repetition of a particular idea innovation can occur. Another great example is cars! Just think about what the first moving machine was like and what we now have on the roads today.