Cultural influences on individual attitudes, identity and behaviours

Question 1

What are the two sub headings under this topic?

Answer 1

Enculturation and Acculturation

Question 2

What study supports enculturation?

Answer 2

Wang

Question 3

What study supports acculturation?

Answer 3

Berry, Ince, Nap

Question 4

What is enculturation?

Answer 4

When people learn the necessary norms and skills in the context of their own culture

Question 5

What is acculturation?

Answer 5

The process by which people change as a result of interaction with a new culture

Question 6

Describe Berry’s model of acculturation

Answer 6

• has 4 acculturation strategies ( 4 strategies that someone might follow when being introduced to another culture)
• Assimilation ( low maintenance of heritage culture, high maintenance of new culture
• Separation ( high maintenance of heritage culture, low maintenance of new culture )
• Integration ( high maintenance of heritage culture, high maintenance of new culture)
• Marginalisation (low maintenance of heritage culture , low maintenance of new culture)
• Which strategy someone follows depends on the degree to which they try to hold onto their heritage culture, how much they try to maintain their previous cultural identity and how much they wish to engage with their new culture

Question 7

WAng

Answer 7

• To investigate whether the emotional content of mother-child conversations would be different for American and Chinese participants..
• White American and Chinese mothers participated in this study and were asked to record conversations with their children relating to four different events, each relating to a different emotion: happy, sad, scared or angry.The conversations were then analysed.
• American mothers offered significantly more explanations than Chinese mothers for the emotions felt by their child and by others when discussing events with their children.
• American mothers and their children were significantly more likely to choose personally-focused events to discuss, while Chinese mothers and their children were more likely to talk about social themes.
• American mothers elaborated (gave more details about the events being discussed) significantly more than the Chinese mothers.

-“For American mothers, emotions constitute an important aspect of the child’s self and therefore need to be explained and elaborated on fully in order to facilitate the child’s emotion understanding and individuality. For Chinese mothers, in contrast, emotions are consequences of social interactions between the child and significant others and therefore are instrumental for reinforcing behaviour and conduct

Question 8

Nap

Answer 8

-.to explore the association between acculturation, mental health and treatment effect.” (p.530)

Surinamese, Moroccan and Turkish immigrants that were sufficiently fluent in Dutch and who had attended outpatient mental health clinics.
-Questionnaires measuring acculturation, need for care/support, mental health and general state of health were used as part of the general registering of patients in the clinics. They were followed up six months later to determine treatment outcomes.

There were lots of findings, but only the following are relevant to us:

• Surinamese immigrants (those from a former Dutch colony) had most relevant skills and maintained fewest traditions compared with other immigrants, while reporting most social integration and least sense of loss of their former culture.
• Turkish immigrants had the fewest relevant skills and highest preservation of traditions, while reporting least social integration and the greatest sense of loss.
• Depression was separately but significantly (p<0.0025) associated with lack of skills, poor social integration and a sense of loss of heritage culture.

-Acculturation strategy is related to mental health.
“More cultural maintenance … appeared to be correlated with more symptoms…” “… healthy migrants are capable of maintaining their culture of origin and successfully adapting to the new society as well, while vulnerable migrants or patients are not.” (p.536)
“Participation seems to be a favorable factor specifically for treatment effect, possibly by facilitating communication and therapy commitment. Patients who are more adapted to the new society might be more involved in treatment goals and may receive more qualitative treatment from their therapist.” (p.536)