Social and Cultural diversity Flashcards
What does the term “multicultural” mean?
That we champion the idea of celebrating diversity and this can be age, sexual orientation, religion, social class, country of origin, race, and even health status.
What does cultural pluralism mean?
This term, suggests that a minority cultural group will keep their own unique cultural values, yet they still participate in wider or dominant culture.
What does culture refer to?
Customs shared by a group that distinguish it from other groups, values shared by a group that are learned from others in the group, attitudes, beliefs, art, and language which characterize members of a group often passed from generation to generation.
What is cultural relativity?
Cultural relativity connotes that a behavior cannot be assessed as good or bad except within the context of a given culture. The behavior must be evaluated relative to the culture.
How should counselors deal with cultural relativism?
The multicultural counselor must assess the client’s behavior based on the client’s own culture – not merely based on the counselor’s culture. The meaning or desireability of a trait or act is based on culture.
What is culture epoch theory?
This suggests that all cultures, like children, pass through the same stages of development in terms of evolving and maturing. Recently multicultural experts have come to believe that this is not a valid option.
What do social learning theorists believe?
Social learning theory emphasizes the environment rather than genetics or inborn tendencies. This model is generally associated with the work of Albert Bandura and his associates who noted that children who viewed live or filmed aggression imitated the behavior. This is known as social learning theory or observational learning.
Who is Daniel Levinson?
Levinson proposed a controversial stage-crisis view theory with several major life transitions. He wrote the books Seasons of a Man’s life and Seasons of a woman’s life and postulated a midlife crisis for men between 40-45 and for women 5 yards earlier. But his theory provides no statistical analysis so people don’t really buy it now. His stages are:
- Early adult transition (17-22) - individual makes decisions about college, the military, and breaking away from family. This is “leaving the family stage” and creating a dream of the ideal adult life
- Age 30 transition (28-33) - Person attempts to make the dream a reality
- settling down period
- midlife transition (40-45, though earlier for women) - stressful stage when the person questions his dream and acknowledges that goals may not be met and ideas about mortality beomce an issue.
- later adulthood (60-65) - makes peace w/the world
Why aren’t people currently into Levinson’s theories about midlife crises?
- He didn’t do much statistical analysis
- It is seen as biased against women since it doesn’t really deal w/womens’ development and instead proposes women receive fulfillment by meeting the needs of their husbands and families (men dream about work and women dream about marriage and family and lack long term goals).
What 4 factors enhance interpersonal attraction?
- Close proximity - the tendency for people who are in close proximity to be attracted to each other is propinquity
- physical attraction - research shows that while we like attractive people, we tend to end up with mates who are on our own levels of attractiveness. Though people typically assume attractive people are smarter, make more money, and they are typically better at getting help, swaying opinions, etc
- similar beliefs
- reciprocity of attraction - we are attracted to people who like us and find us attractive
What does contextualism imply?
That behavior must be assessed in the context of the culture in which the behavior occurs
Why was Carol Gilligan critical of Kohlberg’s theory of moral development?
She felt it was more applicable to males than females. It did not delineate the notion that women place more emphasis on caregiving and personal responsibility than men, who focus more on individual rights and justice.
What were Arthur Jensen’s views on IQ testing? (Jensenism?)
Jensen tried to prove that African Americans had lower IQs due to genetic factors.
What is the Tarasoff Duty?
The counselor has a duty to warn and protect an intended victim who may be the target of danger or violence.
What is a prognosis?
The probability that one can recover from a condition. When charting in a client’s file, the counselor would do well to discuss the length of treatment and the status expected at the end of treatment.
What is the famous 1971 Stanford Prison experiment?
This experiment, conducted by Philip Zimbardo, turned the basement of the Stanford University Psychology building into a mock-prison. He picked students to become both guards and prisoners and they both played their roles a little too well. Guards became aggressive and hostile and prisoners became passive. The experiment was shut down after 6 days as the prisoners were so harassed that they were becoming anxious, depressed, etc. The experiment explains how the atrocities of the holcausted and Abu Ghraib could have been carried out – it showed that people conform to social roles.
In 1973, this experiment was ruled as ethical but this would not be the case today. The case ultimately resulted in better, more stringent ethical guidelines.
Do people typically prefer a counselor of their same cultural background?
Yes. In most instances, clients prefer a counselor of the same race and a similar cultural background.
what is the frustration-aggression theory?
Frustration occurs when an individual is blocked so that he or she cannot reach an intended goal or the goal is removed. John Dollard and Neal Miller had a hypothesis that seers that frustration leads to aggression.
Albert Miller (REBT) disagreed with this but thought client’s believe it so they make what they believe true. Social psychologists disagree too but they think that when individuals lose their identity they become aggressive or violent. And the presence of weapons can increase the level of violence.
Who is Albert Ellis and what does he believe about the frustration-aggression theory?
Albert Ellis, the father of Rational Emotive Behavior therapy (REBT) does not agree with the frusteration-aggression theory (Dollard/Miller). He feels that unfortunately many clients do believe that frustration causes aggression but he thinks this dynamic is due to the client’s irrational thought process (I.e. believing it is true) rather than some automatic response pattern.
What is balance theory?
Balance theory suggests that people strive for consistency/balance in terms of their belief systems. I.e. people try to reduce or eliminate inconsistent or incompatible actions or beliefs. Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory is an example of balance theory (or cognitive consistency) because it suggests that people are motivated to reduce tension and discomfort, thus putting an end to the dissonance.
What is Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory?
This is an example of balance theory (reducing inconsistency). Festinger suggested that people are motivated to reduce tension and discomfort and thus put an end to dissonance. I.e. “I’d rather smoke 3 packs of cigarettes a day and enjoy myself than quit and live an extra year or two” is an example of cognitive dissonance in action. The person in this example has ‘changed the balance” by making his thinking consistent.
What are some ways people seek to reduce dissonance?
people don’t like inconsistency in their thoughts or attitudes vs. behavior. They reduce it using things like balance theory (they change the balance to make it fit) like Festinger’s theory or they use denial (“sure I smoke, but the research that says it’s dangerous is flawed”) which is also a form of cognitive dissonance.
What is a cultural norm?
A cultural norm describes how people are supposed to act – the expectations of how one should act. This is in contrast to a statistical norm that measures actual conduct.
What are mores?
Mores are beliefs and social customs regarding the rightness or wrongness of behavior. They develop as a given group decides what is good and bad for the welfare of the people. People are generally punished for violating the mores.
What are folkways?
Folkways, like mores, described correct, normal, or habitual behavior. They difference from mores is that breaking folkways generally results in embarrassment while breaking mores causes harm to others or threatens the existence of the group. (I.e. drinking a bowl of soup in the US vs. using a spoon would threaten a folkway. But if you kill people, you’d have violated mores and your behavior could result in serious punishment. (tip: Mores start with an “m” like “morals”)
Who is Frank Parsons?
He was the first pioneer to focus heavily on sociocultural issues. Called “the father of guidance” he is considered the first social reformer concerned with guidance in the US and wrote the book Choosing a Vocation.
What is universal culture?
Universal culture refers to that we all have similar or universal needs and requirements for food, water, air, and sleep regardless of cultural affiliation. Universal culture can be distinguished from national, regional, ratio-ethnic, and ecological culture.
What is ecological culture?
Ecological culture implies that cultural norms are often the result of practical and survival behaviors related to the climate or resources from the physical or geological environment.
What is eclecticism?
An “eclectic” position is one in which counselors can choose strategies from many different models and allows for the flexibility that multicultural therapists need.
What does emic mean?
Emic is a “culture-specific” perspective, from the word phonemic, meaning sounds in a particular language. It can be defined as an insider’s perception of the culture. A researcher or counselor using an epic frame of reference wants to know what somebody participating in the culture thinks. The mic viewpoint emphasizes that each client is an individual with individual differences. Opposite: etic view
What is an etic viewpoint?
The etic view adheres to the theory that humans are humans, regardless of background and culture, and thus the same theories and techniques can be applied to any client the counselor helps. So a counselor who values the “emic” will try to help by understanding the client’s specific culture while the “etic” counselor emphasizes sameness among clients, a universal perspective that transcends cultural boundaries. An etic therapist would not alter techniques when working with a client from a different culture or group.
