Lecture 17 - Choice and Culture Flashcards
Arranged marriages
Too many options can be overwhelming
Choice overload
Autonomy might not be so important for more collectivistic cultures
1 study of Indian-american arranged marriages
Love partners: Happier at first but diminished
Arranged marriage: happiness rose steadily
*Arranged marriages do not equal forced marriages
New York Times story
Indian man (Vinit)
Graduated from Penn University
Hadn’t dated
Made good money
200 girls from India interested
Mom narrowed down to 10 girls
Then she found 1 (Anshu)
2 hour meeting with the girl to decide
Liked her
Accepted that this might be the right way to do it for him
“I had mixed feelings with
the concept. I didn’t think
I would necessarily go
through with it. But my
reservations got pushed to
the side when I met her. I
had an incredible feeling
that this was the right
thing to do.” Vinit
What his mom said:
”An American girl dates a
guy and she doesn’t know
much about him – how he
was brought up, his moral
standards. I trust my
parents to look for
someone who will give me
the life I’ve been brought
up to have.”
Miss Pandya
Studies on choice
Intrinsic motivation during exam for students
1 condition Free choice paradigm
Other condition don’t have choice
When choice, higher levels of intrinsic motivation
Mark Lepper study Intrinsic motivation
Computerized math learning game (Space quest)
Spaceship fantasy structure
Choice about spaceship design, route to take…. And personalization of character, etc.
Personalization + choice lead to higher motivation and performance
Associated with greater learning as well (better math performance)
This is the case for anglo-americans
Done with Asian-americans:
3 conditions: Personal choice, ingroup choice (someone else in the class), outgroup choice (another kid from a different school)
Results: more intrinsic motivation when ingroup choice, then personal choice, then outgroup choice
Sarah P’s study:
to see if mandatory reading logs hurt or helped
children’s intrinsic motivation to read. I conducted a study with 112
2nd and 3rd grade students. Half the students were in the mandatory
reading log condition, and had to read for at least 20 minutes each
night and have their parents sign it. The other half were given
voluntary reading logs, and told that reading logs were optional.
Students were assigned to condition by class.
I found that students who were given mandatory reading logs were less
interested and had more negative attitudes towards recreational
reading at the end of two months in comparison to their peers who had
been given voluntary reading logs.
Sheena Inyengar: The Art of Choosing (her book)
Rethinking the Value of Choice: A Cultural Perspective on
Intrinsic Motivation.
America = individualistic culture in which people possess a
model of themselves as fundamentally independent.
– seek to express our internal attributes in order to
demonstrate our uniqueness.
– making a choice allows us to display our attributes and to
show our uniqueness.
East Asia = collectivistic cultures in which people
possess a model of themselves as essentially
interdependent
– strive for interconnectedness and belongingness
with their social ingroups
– choices are intended to maintain harmony and
fulfill the wishes of those groups.
100 4th- 6th graders asked to work on anagram task.
½ Anglo-American ½ Asian American
6 topical categories – Family, Animals, San Francisco,
Food, Party, and House.
15 anagrams in each pile arranged from easiest to most
difficult.
Piles were pre-tested to assure equal difficulty.
3 Conditions:
(1) Personal Choice
(2) Experimenter Choice
(3) Mom’s Choice
Dependent Variables:
(1) Performance on anagrams
(2) Free Choice Intrinsic Motivation
Assumptions:
-do best when make your own choices
–only true when sense that self divided by others
Free choice paradigm (anagrams and markers)… (both conditions still did same activity)
Results:
-Anglo-americans did way more anagrams when self-chosen
Performance worsened when chosen by others
-Asian-americans did best when told chosen by mother, self, then by miss smith
Individualistic/independent vs. collectivistic/interdependent cultures
BUT (Prof’s note):Asian-american group, personal choice is pretty high too! Not significantly different!
But during free play there is a difference – Could reflect the fact that the kids were bicultural?
Done in China, still similar results, but mediated by relationship with mother… I think that’s what the prof said?
Mark Lepper Space Quest Math Game but with the cultures
10 year old children from Anglo
or Asian American Families
Space Quest Math Game used
by Cordova and Lepper (1996)
Several incidental choices made
in one of three ways:
(1) Personal choice
(2) In Group Choice
(3) Out-Group Choice
DV’s: self-reported interest &
test-retest of knowledge of
mathematical operations
Mark Lepper: Influence of choice on motivation depends on if we have an independent or interdependent sense of self
Although choice generally is associated with greater
motivation, its impact may depend on the cultural
background of the individual.
Deci’s perspective
Does this mean Asians don’t need autonomy as much?
No
Volition
Possible to consider output from others and still feel autonomous!
Here, might also feel forced to be individualistic! (ex: pressure to be unique, to compete)
And opposite for collectivistic
Choice and autonomy do not necessarily mean the same thing
- Autonomy is orthogonal
with collectivistic versus
individualistic
orientation.
“The issue of autonomy concerns the extent to which one
fully accepts, endorses, and stands behind one’s actions.”
“For Mr. Sethi, though, the
marriage wasn’t the inevitability
that it had been for his
immigrant parents. It was his
own choice. And yet in making
that choice, he was casting his lot
with the traditional way of life,
one that would bind him more
closely to his parents and to India
itself, and sustain that tie into yet
another generation of American
children – his own.
We might internalize how we feel about certain cultural practice (my parents did it, my grandparents did it)… and therefore it feels right for us, not forced
How did things turn out for Vinit?
Vinit Sethi
VP/Dir:Research/Partner,
Greenlight Capital LLC
23
We got a new PB — Prime Baby, that
is. Vinit and Anshu Sethi welcomed
baby Nikhil in September. Vinit’s note
to the team stated, “Mom and baby are
doing well. Dad is good. Brother Aarav
is amazed by the diaper consumption.”
Enough said.
Oct 2009, 12 years later
There is a continuum of arranged marriage
Forced: prearranged, woman doesn’t have choice
Traditional arranged marriage: Parents control process, but can still say no to some extent
Modern arranged marriage: (Like Vinit) asked if wants to do it this way, consenting to do it this way… but women don’t really feel like have choice to not do it this way
Modern arranged marriage with courtship: given options by parents, can date one of these people first… but some stigma associated with it
Introduction only arranged marriage: looser, suggested to meet some people from the same culture
Anshu (the woman)= traditional arranged marriage
Vinit (the man)= modern arranged marriage
90% Indians say would like a love marriage, but if haven’t found by certain age, would like help form parents
Example of non-autonomous agreement with
arranged marriage:
While she had always
known that she would “be
arranged” she said she was
shocked that it happened so
soon (age 19), and threw a
few tantrums. Eventually
though she accepted it and
has given up her plans of
finishing her education;
instead she will follow her
husband to London or India.
”I wish it didn’t have to be
this way,” she said, “but I
can’t really do anything
about it.”
Miss Rawat
“The primary reason for arranged
marriage still remains that many
families want to secure wealth,
property, and social status for
their children.”
Requirement:
Wheatish complexion ??
Choosing
Azhar Haidri, a 23-year-old Pakistani man, gained national attention in October 2010 for his novel
solution to a dilemma over wedding the woman he loves or going ahead with the marriage his family
arranged. He married both women, Humaira Qasim, 28, right, and Rumana Aslam, 21, in
Multan,within 24 hours. (Khalid Tanveer/Associated Pres
What is volition?
The power of using one’s
will.
Early 17th century (denoting
a decision or choice made
after deliberation): from
French, or from medieval
Latin volitio(n-), from volo
‘I wish’.
