sociocultural studies Flashcards
Becker
Becker carried out a natural experiment to measure the role of globalization on attitudes toward body weight in Fiji. They wanted to see if introducing television to the island would lead to an increase in eating disorders. They studied two schools of girls. Until television was introduced, being overweight was seen as beautiful. Girls’ attitudes toward eating were measured before the introduction of television. The study was also a natural experiment - television was not an independent variable that was manipulated by the researcher, but the researcher took advantage of something that was happening in Fiji. The girls were given surveys and an interview to confirm the results of the survey. The researchers found a significant increase in negative attitudes toward body weight and a higher rate of dieting and purging behaviour. 77% reported that television had made them think differently about their body shape.
The study is a natural experiment, which in addition to meaning that the researcher did not manipulate the IV, it also means that there were no controls for confounding variables. The study was prospective, so it was able to see change over time. However, it was also an imposed etic approach. The test (survey) that was given to the girls was a Western test. This means that the researchers are assuming that the behaviour will be like the behaviours in the west. But the study does show an increase in disordered eating. Natural experiments cannot be replicated, meaning that it is not easy to determine the reliability of the results. However, other studies have shown that the introduction of Western media in places like China and India has led to similar results.
Norrasukunit and Uchida (2011)
Another study was carried out by N and Uchinda. They wanted to find out what happens when there is a conflict between one’s “local culture” and one’s “global culture.” The study that they did was a correlational study. They wanted to see if there was a correlation between a person’s attitudes about conformity and collectivism, their local culture and the risk of hikikomori – a disorder in which people isolate themselves from society. First, the participants were given a test to see their level of risk for hikikomori. They then gave them a test for their level of collectivism and attitudes toward Japanese society. They found that those participants who were at high risk for hikikomori were also those that scored low on both local culture (not agreeing with the conformity of Japanese society) and global culture (not identifying with the world of the Internet). The study indicates that this alienation increases the risk of hikikomori.
be more socially acceptable. Finally, there is the problem of how variables are defined. Although the participants are assessed for “risk for hikikomori”, none of the participants actually have hikikomori. There is, then, a concern about the validity of the findings.
Globalization is a big concept that is difficult to operationalize. This makes designing research to study its effect complicated. Much of the research done so far is relatively new, meaning that many of the studies have not been replicated to establish reliability. And yet, carrying true experiments where an independent variable is manipulated and a dependent variable is measured is rather unlikely. This means it will be difficult to know the extent to which globalization causes certain behaviours.
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strengths: offers insight to a complex social problem and possibly may generate ways to help people in high risk factors.
limitations:
quasi experiment does not allow for a cause and affect relation to occur
the use of only Japanese PPS sample limits generalization
Torres et al 2012
Barry et al 1959
Cohen (1981)
Bond and Smith
Shieh et al., 1999
Tajfel and Turner (1971)
Park and Rothbart
Nap et al 2014
Cheng et al
Aim: To investigate the effects of globalisation on identity development.
Method: In a sample of 713 undergraduate students from China, India, Colombia and the US, surveys were administered to all participants, including items measuring attitudes and behaviours towards their own local culture and the global culture.
The researchers also measured psychological adjustment, again using survey instruments.
Results: The results indicated that in all four countries, greater identification with the local culture was associated with fewer psychological symptoms and less identity distress.
Conclusion: The researchers used their data to develop a new typology for global identity. The major differences are that the categories are relabeled and redefined to reflect both global and local identity. The new categories were bicultural, globally assimilated, locally encapsulated, locally encapsulated and alienated.
1) To what extent does globalization affect behavior.
The interactions of Local and Global Influence allow for identity development to happen causing bidirectional identities, this can be seen in Chen et al (2008) study and Cheng et al (2008)
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-strength: most research done to asses Chinese identity development focus’s on Chinese american youth, however because cheng used Chinese participants from china directly, it offers a more valid argument
limitation: ideas and concepts of self personal identity may not apply in china since the concepts are very western, this raises question of survey instruments used to measure identity development in certain parts of the world along with mixed messages on values.
