Influence of culture on relationships Flashcards
Definitions of culture
“Culture is considered to be group-specific behavior that is acquired, at least in part, from social influences.” (McGrew)
“Culture … is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” (Tylor)
The three aspects of culture that we will study
(i) A culture is shared by a group of people
(ii) A culture is acquired or learned from others
(iii) Cultural variation is due to differences in acquisition of beliefs, attitudes and behaviour
Cultures can be ranked on a continuum between the two poles of individualism and collectivism. What are the general differences that Hofstede identifies?
General differences:
Individualistic = Emphasis on individual, their rights, goals, aspirations, I’ rather than ‘we’ Western, industrialised, capitalist societies
Collectivistic = Emphasis on collective responsibility, wider family, ‘We’ rather than ‘I’, Goals of society, Eastern, non- industrialised, non-capitalist societies
What are the romantic differences that Hofstede identifies?
Romantic differences:
Individualistic = Stress on importance of romantic love, Individual choice of partners, Less expectation of permanence, Higher rates of divorce
Collectivistic = Stress on responsibility to family, Arranged marriages, Greater expectation of permanence, Lower rates of divorce
How else is the continuum useful?
This distinction / continuum may be useful in helping us to understand cultural differences in relationships, as well as changes over time.
Research evidence by Hofstede
In a worldwide study of 116,000 employees of IBM, Geert Hofstede (1980) found that the most fiercely independent people were from the US, Australia, Great Britain, Canada, and the Netherlands, in that order. In contrast, the most interdependent people were from Venezuela, Colombia, Pakistan, Peru, and Taiwan
According to Markus and Kitayama (1991)…
Most North Americans and Europeans have an independent view of the self as an entity that is distinct, autonomous, self-contained, and endowed with unique dispositions. Yet in much of Asia, Africa and Latin America, people hold an interdependent view of the self as part of a larger social network that includes one’s family, co-workers and others to whom we are socially connected.
Harry Triandis (1994) suggests that there are three key factors as to whether a culture becomes individualistic or collectivistic...
- complexity of a society
- affluence of society
- heterogeneity -> societies that are homogenous or ‘tight’, where members share the same language, religion.
Explanations of cultural variation: strong version (A01)
A widespread view among literary scholars and social scientists over the last decades has been that romantic love is a social construction specific to Western culture.
-The psychoanalyst E. Persons “best evidence that romantic love is not hard-wired into the emotional repertoire of humanity but is a cultural construct is the fact that there are so many cultures in which it is virtually absent.”
Strong version; love from literature
In some literary-critical accounts, it is even argued that romantic love is a cultural invention that can be traced back with precision to the courtly troubadour culture of twelfth-century France. According to yet another school, represented by the influential literary theorist Jonathan Culler, “the notion of romantic love (and its centrality to the lives of individuals) is arguably a massive literary creation.”
Evaluation of strong version (A02): Jankowiak & Fischer’s (1992)
Jankowiak & Fischer:
-The two anthropologists searched for romantic love in 166 hunting + gathering societies. They found clear evidence of passionate and romantic love. In almost all societies young lovers talked about passionate, romantic love and recounted tales of love. They concluded that romantic attraction is a distinct emotional motivational system present in all humans regardless of cultural background.
Evaluation of Jankowiak & Fischer -> evidence against the strong version.
- The results shows that the results are universal, which implies that romantic love is an innate property.
- They also used the ‘standard cross cultural sample’, which is designed to be a representative database of coded variables on maximally diverse and ethnographically best-described societies used by scholars in the social sciences.
- Also evidence against the strong theory is that these hunter gather societies haven’t been exposed to the literature and therefore it is innately ingrained in them
Issues with Jankowiak & Fischer
- They assume that the hunter-gather societies they have used in the study, are representative of the hunter gather societies that were in the EEA
- They are also most likely slightly influenced by the western world as they have had contact with them previously.
Evaluation: Alternative theory- evolution (IDA)
Jankowiak & Fischer’s results can be explained with reference to Pinker’s (1998) claim that ‘love’ is an adaptation designed to promote survival and reproduction. It does this by being involuntary: love is something that is not under voluntary control, so it signals to a partner that we are genuine. We cannot choose NOT to have the emotion, so we won’t behave like the rational calculators of SET and ET, so we can be trusted to stick around when times get tough.
-Evolutionary benefit: For men if their partner loved them, then they could ensure she would mother their child and for women she could ensure we would look after and provide for the child.
Explanations of cultural variation: moderate version (A01)
The claim that the influence of romantic love will vary between societies depending on socialisation, culture and tradition.
Factors that are involved in different cultures and societies; arranged marriage, religion, media influence, status within society, economic factors, traditions.
