Chapter 3 & 4 Flashcards
Animals vs Human
Difference in level of sophistication
Engaging in shared intentionality allows cultural learning
• Learning not only from others but through others
• Simply put, we don’t learn just from watching
Tomasello’s Study
Ape and Human Cognition: What’s the Difference?
• Children understand intentionality, social learning, and communication on a complex level
• Provides the foundation for cooperation with other humans along with social learning and communication
• Humans can create and transmit a culture in a sophisticated manner
Enculturation and Socialization
Culture must be learned and practiced through a prolonged process
• It’s like everything new that we learn, it takes time before it becomes natural to us
• Think of sequential processing vs parallel processing
Enculturation and Socialization
People are there to help us learn
• Tell us when we make mistakes
• To a degree, John Locke was right
• We are born with a “blank slate”
Constant across Cultures in Enculturation and Socialization
People wishing to become competent, productive adults
Different across cultures in enculturation and socialization
Meaning of competent and productive
Socialization
Process in which we learn and internalize rules and patterns of behavior that are affected by culture. This process, which occurs over a long time, involves learning and mastering, societal and cultural norms, attitudes, values and beliefs systems.
Enculturation
The process by which individuals learn and adopt the ways and manners of their specific culture.
Socialization and enculturation agents
• People, institutions, and organizations that ensure socialization and enculturation occurs
• Schools
• Family members
• Parents who instil values in children
Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory
Human development is a dynamic interactive process btw individuals and various ecologies that range from the proximal, immediate environment to the more distal. (Microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, chronosystem.)
• Studying children in relation to their particular contexts is key to
understanding development
• Children contribute to their own development by interacting with and influencing people around them
Microsystem
The immediate surrounding, such as family, school, peer group, with which children directly interact
Mesosystem
The linkage between Microsystems, such as between school and family
Exosystem
The content that indirectly affects children, such as parent’s work place.
Macrosystem
Culture, religion, society
Chronosystem
The influence of time and history on the other systems
Culture, Parenting, and Families:
Family
Most important microsystem to child’s development
Observing parents enables understanding the essence of a culture
How cultural rules and values are reinforced and passed on from generation to generation
Whiting and Whitings’ Six Cultures Study
Anthropologists collected field data in Mexico, India, Kenya, USA, Okinawa, and the Philippines.
Goal - To examine child rearing and children’s behavior in varied cultural context
Findings- Child’s behavior and personality is connected to
characteristics of the broader ecology. Women’s work roles contribute to children’s social behaviors
Diversity in Parenting as a Function of Economics
Diverse economic conditions produce varied enculturation processes based on the particular culture.
Caregiving environment reflects set of goals
• Physical health and survival
• Promotion of behaviors leading to self-sufficiency
• Behaviors that promote other cultural values
Parenting goals
• Provide motivation and framework for raising children in the best possible way
• Lead to variations in parenting behaviors across cultures
Parents’ beliefs about their roles as caregivers influences their behaviors
• Parental ethnotheories: Parental cultural belief systems
• Motivate and shape what parents think is the right way to parent their children
What are the four global parenting styles?
Authoritarian parent, Permissive parent, Authoritative parent, Uninvolved parent
Authoritarian parent
Expects unquestioned obedience and views the child as needing to be controlled.
Permissive parent
Allows children to regulate own lives with few firm guidelines
Authoritative parent
Promotes a firm, fair, reasonable and affectionate
parenting style.
This style is seen as promoting psychological healthy, competent, independent children who are cooperative and at ease in social situations.
Uninvolved parent
Does not respond appropriately to children and is
indifferent. Parents are often too absorbed in their own lives.
What are the two key characteristics when describing parenting styles?
Demandingness and Responsiveness
Demandingness
Degree in which parents set down rules and expectations for behaviors
Responsiveness
Degree parents are sensitive to their children’s needs
• Love
• Warmth
• Concern
What is the most representative cultural difference in parenting behaviors?
Sleeping arrangements
—Parental behaviors vary based on parental goals
What are areas in which cultures vary as per studies that have
used HOME Inventory?
• Warmth and responsiveness
• Discipline
• Stimulation/teaching
Parenting Behaviors and Strategies are…
Congruent with developmental goals dictated by culture
Spanking
A typical rearing experience for children
Spanking may often have short-term effects
• There is a lesson to be learned but does child actually learn it?
Is spanking a form of violence towards the child?
• Anger = violence
Domain-Specific Approach to Parenting
• Focuses on parenting behaviors rather than general styles
• Emphasizes the complexity of enculturation process by distinguishing between the domains of parent–child socialization
– Protection and control
– Reciprocity
– Guided learning and group participation
• Parenting practices must be appropriate for the domain in which the child is functioning
Siblings
Play a pivotal role in the enculturation of children
• May be biologically or nonbiologically related based on cultures
Roles - Tutors, buddies, playmates, and caretakers
Skills learnt from siblings
• Perspective-taking, social understanding, and conflict negotiation
Repeated and prolonged interaction makes older siblings influential role models to younger siblings
Extended and Multigenerational Families
Extended families - Members other than parents and children
Multigenerational families - Grandparents in addition to parents and children or just children
Role in child-rearing process
• Presence of a maternal grandmother cancels the negative outcomes in teen mothering
• Share resources, emotional support, and caregiving
Postfigurative Cultures
Cultural changes is slow, socialization occurs primarily by elders transferring their knowledge to their children. Elder hold their knowledge necessary for becoming a successful and competent adult.
Low peer influence on socialization
Cofigurative Cultures
Cultural change occurs more rapidly, adults continue to socialize their children, but peers play a greater role in socializing each other. Young people may have to turn to one another for advice and information.
Moderate peer influence on socialization
Prefigurative Cultures
Culture is changing so rapidly that young people may be the ones to teach adults. The knowledge that adults hold may not be sufficient for the next generation, and adults may need to look to younger people for advice and information.
High Peer influence on socialization
Exposure to Peer Groups
Cultures vary in exposure that children have to their peer groups
• In industrialized countries, children spend significant time with
same-aged peers
• In solitary farm settlements, children have limited options to
interact with a wide range of playmates
• In hunting and gathering societies, children socialize with
multiple-age peers
Peers and Bullying
Bullying by peers is recognized as a serious public health issue
Olweus’s criteria for defining bullying:
• Intentional physical or psychological harm
• Based on a power imbalance between the bully and victim
• Repeated over tim
Peers and Bullying (pt 2)
Rate of bullying varies across cultures
Cyberbullying: Bullying through electronic means (internet, social media)
Cross-national comparisons may become difficult, if cultures define bullying in different ways
Culture in Educational System
Formalized mechanism of instruction in many societies and cultures
• Teaches and reinforces cultural values
Culture and Educational System
School Systems:
Content taught in schools reflect the choices regarding what a
culture believes is important to learn.
School industrializes cultural values and attitudes and is a significant contributor not only to the intellectual development of the child but, just as important, to the child’s social and emotional development.
Parental and familial values
Cultural differences in parenting beliefs about education
impact children’s educational experiences.
Ex: Chinese mother found to place very high value in education versus European mother valued education but worried about burnout.
Attitudes and appraisals of students
Students around the world approach their academic work with
different worldviews, attitudes, and attributional styles
• Differences can be attributed to parental variations
Ex: Asian American were found to have significantly stronger desire to please parents, reported higher pressure, and higher levels of parental support than Europeans Americans.
Teaching practices and school environment
• Differences exist in the classroom in terms of teaching style,
and expectations across cultures
• Actual behaviors contribute to children’s academic
achievement
Ex: U.S. teachers tend to use praise to reward correct responses but teachers in Japan focus on incorrect answers and use them as example to lead into discussion of the computational process and math concepts.
Conclusion of Chapter 3
• Each culture’s way of raising children represents that culture’s way of ensuring values and norms are transmitted to those children
• Practices are ritualized to transmit information from generation to next generation
• Contemporary theories
– Children’s active processing of information results in reproduction of culture and production of new elements
• Enculturation is a life-long proces
Human Development
Change in people based on different levels of:
• Biological, physical, cognitive, emotional, and social
Development
Changes that show greater complexity, organization, and competencies
Developmental contextualism
Theory that states that multiple levels of a developing child (biological to the psychological, social relational, and socialcultural) are intertwined and function as an integrated system. Developmental contextualism stresses that it is the relation between these changing multiple levels that consitutes human development.
Culture and Temperament
Socialization starts from the first day of life
• Characteristics a child is born with determine how its caregivers react and interact with it
Are children of different cultures born with different biological
predispositions to learn certain cultural practices
What Is Temperament?
Biologically based style of interacting and responding to the
environment that exists from birth
Easy temperament
A very regular adaptable, mildly intense style of behavior that is positive and reponsive
Difficult temperament
Characterized by an intense, irregular, withdrawing style that is generally marked by negative moods
Slow-to-warm-up
Infant needs time to make transitions in activity and experiences. Though they may withdraw initially or respond negatively, given times and support they will adapt and react positively.
Goodness of fit
Degree to which a child’s temperament matches the expectations and values of the parent, environment, and culture
Goodness of Fit between Temperament and Culture
• Mismatch - Negative child outcomes
• Good match - Better child outcomes
Dispositions and behaviors must be considered in relation to specific culture
• Possess different meanings in different cultures
Cross-Cultural Studies on Temperament
Different temperaments at birth make children of different cultures respond to the environment differently
• Evoke different responses from caregivers and the environment
• Produce fundamental differences in learning and social experiences, worldview, and culture as children grow older
Differences in infant temperament help parents teach and reinforce cultural practices
Dimensions of Temperament
- Activity level (gross motor activity, moving arms and legs)
- Smiling and laughter (being sociable)
- Fear (distressed in novel situations, behavioral inhibitors )
- Distress to limitations (distressed when infant goal is blocked)
- Soothability (soothing baby in distress probability)
- Duration of orienting (level of attention of infant with no distractions)
Behavioral Inhibition
When children show signs of wariness, discomfort, or distress during challenging, or unfamiliar situations
• Linked to adjustment and social competence
Shyness is treated differently in different cultures
Stigma of introversion
ntroversion is often misunderstood as shyness, but introverted people often simply seek low levels of stimulation from their environment
Shyness
Shyness has been associated with more negative characteristics in
some countries, while others not so much
– U.S. not a very desirable trait
– Asian cultures view it as a more acceptable trait to have
Temperament and Shyness
We always have to consider the environment
– Urban vs Rural areas
– Being shy in urban area might not be as bad vs rural area
• Rural area, less density of people, less probability of making
friends
– But also consider what is acceptable in your culture
• This makes it difficult for newer generations who grew up in
areas different than there parents.
Attachment
Special bond that develops between the infant and the primary
caregiver.
• Provides the infant with emotional security
• Quality of attachment has lifelong effects on the relationships with loved one
Bowlby’s evolutionary theory
• Infants have a preprogrammed, biological basis for becoming attached to their caregivers (shown as smiling and cooing)
• Attachment relationship between caregiver and child is a survival strategy
Secure
Infant gets distressed when the mother leaves, but is easily
comforted when she returns. Infants are described as warm and responsive to their caregivers
Ambivalent
Infant is distressed when the mother leaves, but sends mixed
signals upon return, they seek and shun her attention. Mothers are described as insensitive and less involved
Avoidant
Infant is not distressed when the mother leaves and upon return
avoids reuniting with her. Children shun their mothers, who are suspected of being intrusive and overstimulating.
Cross-Cultural Studies on Attachment
Strange Situation study
• Infants are separated from mothers for a brief period of time and a stranger is introduced to the infant
• Quality of attachment is assessed from the infant’s reaction to the separation and the mother’s return
Meaning of separation differs across cultures.
Researchers have questioned the appropriateness of different
categories of attachment.
Maternal sensitivity has different meanings in different cultures.
What are the three cultural models of attachment?
Psychological Autonomy, Hierarchical Relatedness, and Hybrid
Psychological Autonomy
There are strong emotional bonds between infant and one or few caregivers. Infants are conceptualized as autonomous, unique individuals.
Hierarchical Relatedness
Infants in this cultural environment have a sense of security not based on a specific caregiver or relationship, but security within a network of community.
Hybrid
This cultural model emphasizes unique attachment relationships with one or few caregivers and at the same time, view the social community as another integral part of the network of attachment.
Piaget’s Theory: Cognitive Development
A speciality in psychology that studies how thinking skills develop over time. The major theory of cognitive development is that of Piaget.
Psychologist focused on how children perceive and come to understand the world around them.
Piaget’s four stages
Sensorimotor stage-> Preoperational stage-> Operational stage-> Formal Operational stage
Sensorimotor Stage
Children understand the world through their sensory perceptions and motor behaviors
Preoperational Stage
Children use symbols, such as language, to understand the world around them.
Operational Stage
Children develop the ability to think logically about concrete objects
Formal Operational Stage
Individuals develop the ability to think logically about abstract concepts
Conservation
An awareness that physical quantities remain the same even when they change shape or appearance
Centration
The tendency to focus on a single aspect of a problem
Irreversibility
The inability to imagine “undoing” a process
Egocentrism
The inability to step into another’s shoes and understanding the others person’s point of view.
Animism
The belief that all things, even inanimate objects, are alive.
This is were children get “imaginary friends”
Assimilation
The process of fitting new ideas into a preexisting understanding of the world.
Accommodation
The process of changing one’s understanding of the world to accommodate ideas that conflict with existing concepts
What are Piaget’s Theory’s focused Four central questions? (Pg.99 and100)
- Do Piaget’s stages occur in the same order in different culture?
- Are the age that Piaget associated with each stage of development the same across all cultures?
- Are there cultural variations within, rather than between, Piaget’s stages?
- Do non-Western cultures regard scientific reasoning as the ultimate developmental end point?
Zone of Proximal Development
The gap between the actual developmental level of a child and the potential developmental level that the child is capable of, with some assistance by more knowledgeable other (such as parents, teachers, or more experienced peers)
Moral Reasoning
Moral principles and ethics provide guidelines for people’s behavior with regard to what is appropriate and what is not
Morality
Influenced by underlying, subjective, and implicit culture in which it is embedded.
Serves as the basis of laws
What is Moral?
Types of rules as differentiated by children
• Moral - Applies to everyone, cannot be changed, and are
based on values
• Conventional - Applies to certain groups, changeable, and are
based on agreed-upon norms
• Personal - Applies to individuals, changeable, and are based
on the preferences of a specific person
Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development - Stages
Preconventional
• Compliance with rules to avoid punishment and gain rewards
Conventional
• Conformity to rules is defined by others’ approval or society’s
rules
Postconventional
• Moral reasoning on the basis of individual principles and
conscience
Cross-Cultural Studies of Moral Reasoning
Some aspects of Kohlberg’s theory of morality are universal.
Some studies raise questions about universal generalizability of
Kohlberg’s highest stage (postconventional).
People from different cultures reason differently about moral
dilemmas.
Fundamental differences in morality as a function of culture form
the basis for the possibility of major intercultural conflicts.
Three Ethics Approach to Moral Reasoning
What was Kohlberg missing:
—Interdependence
—Community
—Spirituality (Religious Aspect)
Three Ethics Approach to Moral Reasoning
Ethic of:
• Autonomy: Emphasizes individual rights and justice
• Community: Emphasizes interpersonal relationships and
community
• Divinity: Emphasizes the centrality of religious beliefs and spirituality
One ethic is not considered more morally advanced than the
others
Discussion of Moral Reasoning
Think about the three ethical approaches to moral reasoning.
Which of the three approaches do you adopt when thinking about
moral issues?
Does it depend on the particular issue?
