Lecture 2 Flashcards
Body image
What is attractive is very different across cultures, but there are some commonalities, which have a common factor: health(y appearance):
- Clear complexion: clear skin.
- Bilateral symmetry: marker of good health.
- Average features (face): because genetic abnormalities can cause deviant face features.
Media
Has a very strong influence on body image and what we think we should look like. Media often portrays unattainable ideas, shaped by models, cosmetics, photoshop etc. This is a major influence on feelings of inferiority and can lead to health damage (tanning, plastic surgery etc.)
Differences in human biology
Human biology differs across cultures due to 2 reasons:
1. Innate / biological differences: result of a selection process over generations.
2. Acquired biological differences: selection pressures on one’s biology in 1 life-time, independent of genes.
Innate biological variability
Humans evolve due to selective pressures in their environments (available food, diseases etc.). Different environments have different selection pressures leading different populations to evolve different traits.
Example: skin color correlates with the ultraviolet radiation that reaches different parts of the globe.
Culture-gene coevolution
As culture evolve, it places new selection pressures on the genome, which also evolves in response to those pressures.
Example: cow domestication had led to the development of a mutation that allows us to process milk.
Western view on health
The western countries often use the biomedical model of health, where health is seen as the absence of a disease. And a disease has a specific, identifiable cause in or outside of the body.
Other views on health
Health is seen as an (in)balance between positive and negative forces and can derive form supernatural causes (Gods etc.).
Differences within Western cultures
- In the USA, the body is seen as a machine and doctors often prescribe surgery.
- In France, balance of the body is emphasised and rest is often prescribed.
Placebo response
Is much higher in certain countries, due to the belief about the effect medication has.
Promotion orientation
Striving to secure a positive outcome and to find pleasure. Focus on successes to strive for advancement. More common in Western/individualistic cultures.
Example: striving for sexual satisfaction.
Prevention orientation
Striving to avoid a negative outcome and to maintain security. Focus on weakness to avoid failure. More common in collectivistic cultures.
Example: using a condom.
Entity theory (of the world)
The world around us is fixed and beyond our ability to change it. There is an external locus of control and good choices are made because it looks good.
More common in non-Western cultures.
Incremental (toenemend) theory (of the world
The world around us is flexible and we are responsible to our efforts to change it. There is an internal locus of control and choices are made because it is good for the person.
More common in Western cultures.
Sense of control and SES
Your SES has a huge impact on your health, but your own sense of control over this matters al lot.
- High SES –> High control –> Good health outcomes.
- Low SES –> Low control –> Poor health outcomes.
- Low SES –> High control –> Good health outcomes.
Your subjective perception of wealth is a predictor of health. A sense of relative deprivation can lead to stress. This is most problematic in societies with great social inequality.
Ethnicity and SES
Racism and discrimination can cause stress, which puts people at risk for disease.
Epidemiological paradox
Hispanic Americans have a lower SES, but higher health. This is because of larger social support and more positive affect within their culture.
Religion and health
Religion often encourages healthy behaviours, increases social support and reduces stress. But it can also have negative health-effects (like refraining for vaccinations).
Diet
Cultural differences in diet have an enormous effect on health (like the normality of eating junk-food or meat).
Self-enhancement
The motivation to view oneself in a positive way. People have a strong need to see themselves like this.
Self-serving bias
The tendency to attribute our successes to internal, personal factors, and our failures to external, situational factors. People often judge themselves higher than the average on personal characteristics such as loyalty, creativity, social skills etc. These own evaluations maintain, because we are rarely confronted with contradicting evidence about this.
Strategies to maintain a positive self-image
- Downward comparison: comparing your performance with someone who has done worse than you.
- Compensatory self-reinforcement: acknowledge your poor performance, but immediately think of something you did well and your good qualities.
- Discounting setbacks: reducing the perceived importance of the domain on which you have performed poorly. (“math is not that important anyway”)
- External attribution: attributing the cause of our action outside of ourselves.
- Basking in reflected glory: nurturing yourself in the reflection of fame from a successful group that you are part of.
Cultural variation in self-enhancement motivations
93% of European-Canadians have high self-esteem and only 55% of Japanese people.
Asian people have less tendency for self-serving bias and a lack of enhancement motivation.
Independent vs. interdependent self-concept
- People with an independent self-concept remember more positive events and use more strategies to maintain a positive self-concept, than people with an interdependent self-concept.
- People with an interdependent self-concept are more inclined to do the opposite, like attributing succes to external factors or making a task more important in case of failure.
Origins of cultural differences in self-enhancement
There are differences in which ways parents teach their children self-enhancement:
- European-American parents focus on previous successes and strengths.
- Taiwanese parents focus on past transgressions and improvement areas.
