Abdominal muscle spasm may accompany other symptoms that affect the gastrointestinal system including:
Knowledge, mission , education , autonomy , social construct , accountability , Culture , Compensation
Knowledge- uses well-defined and well-organized body of knowledge that is intellectual and describes phenomena of concern Mission- enlarges body of knowledge and subsequently imposes on its members the lifelong obligation to remain current Education- entrusts the education of its practitioners to institutions of higher education Social Construct- applies body of knowledge in services that are vital to human welfare Autonomy- functions autonomously in formulation of professional policy and in monitoring of its practice and practitioners Accountability- guided by a code of ethics that regulates the relationship between professional and client Culture- Distinguished by presence of specific culture, norms, and values that are common among its members; attracts individuals of intellectual and personal qualities who exalt service above personal gain and who recognize their occupation as their life work Compensation- strives to compensate its practitioners by providing freedom of action, opportunity for continuous professional growth, and economic security |
Good morning!
I have received a few email questions about the final exam - and I always figure the second time
I receive the same question is a good time to post an announcement
(since there might be confusing information posted somewhere).
Come to class - you will be given the access code after roll call.
See you Friday!
Foods like yogurt, miso, kimchi, sauerkraut, kombucha, and tempeh are rich in “good” bacteria called probiotics. They may help ulcers by fighting an H. pylori infection or by helping treatments work better.Oct 12, 2018
Conclusions: Omeprazole is a well studied and well tolerated agent effective in adults or children as a component in regimens aimed at eradicating H. pylori infections or as monotherapy in the treatment and prophylaxis of GORD with or without oesophagitis or NSAID-induced gastrointestinal damage.
Tests and procedures used to determine whether you have an H. pylori infection include:
Breath test. During a breath test, you swallow a pill, liquid or pudding that contains tagged carbon molecules. If you have an H. pylori infection, carbon is released when the solution is broken down in your stomach.
Your body absorbs the carbon and expels it when you exhale. You exhale into a bag, and your doctor uses a special device to detect the carbon molecules.
Acid-suppressing drugs known as proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), bismuth subsalicylate (Pepto-Bismol) and antibiotics can interfere with the accuracy of this test. Your doctor will ask you to stop taking those medications for a week or two before you have the test. This test is available for adults and children.
Scope test. You'll be sedated for this test, known as an upper endoscopy exam. During the exam, your doctor threads a long flexible tube equipped with a tiny camera (endoscope) down your throat and esophagus and into your stomach and duodenum. This instrument allows your doctor to view any irregularities in your upper digestive tract and remove tissue samples (biopsy).
These samples are analyzed for H. pylori infection. This test isn't generally recommended solely to diagnose an H. pylori infection because it's more invasive than a breath or stool test, but it may be used to diagnose H. pylori ulcers or if it's needed to rule out other digestive conditions.
H. pylori infections are usually treated with at least two different antibiotics at once, to help prevent the bacteria from developing a resistance to one particular antibiotic. Your doctor also will prescribe or recommend an acid-suppressing drug, to help your stomach lining heal.
Drugs that can suppress acid include:
Your doctor may recommend that you undergo testing for H. pylori at least four weeks after your treatment. If the tests show the treatment was unsuccessful, you may undergo another round of treatment with a different combination of antibiotic medications.
See your primary care doctor if you have signs or symptoms that indicate a complication of H. pylori infection. Your doctor may test and treat you for H. pylori infection, or refer you to a specialist who treats diseases of the digestive system (gastroenterologist).
Because appointments can be brief, and because there's often a lot to discuss, it's a good idea to be well prepared for your appointment. Here's some information to help you get ready for your appointment, and what to expect from your doctor.
At the time you make the appointment, be sure to ask if there's anything you need to do in advance, such as restrict your diet. Before your appointment, you might want to write a list that answers the following questions:
Your time with your doctor is limited. Preparing a list of questions to ask may help you make the most of your time together. For H. pylori infection, some basic questions to ask your doctor include:
As you talk, ask additional questions that occur to you during your appointment.
Your doctor is likely to ask you a number of questions. Being ready to answer them may allow more time to cover other points you want to address. Your doctor may ask:
negligent behavior often used terms such as failure to, lack of, incomplete, ineffective, and improper.
The categories of negligence are: failure to follow standards of care, failure to use equipment in a responsible manner, failure to communicate, failure to document, failure to assess and monitor, and failure to act as a patient advocate
2 The nurse failed to seek such a review and ordered the Orthoblock for use in the patient's ACF.
2. Read the article "Failing To Act Is Not An Option"
3. Discuss the following points:
4. You will earn between 1 and 5 bonus points for doing this activity, depending on the completeness of your answers.
https://www.nursingcenter.com/journalarticle?Article_ID=5265830&Journal_ID=54016&Issue_ID=5265824
NURSES HAVE AN obligation to communicate changes in a patient's condition to the healthcare provider in a timely fashion. When a patient's condition deteriorates, a nurse's failure to act violates this fundamental responsibility, undermines patient safety, and has potentially severe consequences for the patient and nurse alike. The following court case summary and discussion illustrate the peril of failing to act.
Mary Long* was admitted to the hospital with cholelithiasis and common bile duct dilation and evidence of a bowel obstruction, leading to a diagnosis of acute cholecystitis. After undergoing a procedure to remove the gallstones, a nasogastric (NG) tube was inserted as prescribed by the physician. No further orders were written regarding what actions to take if the NG tube was dislodged or removed.1
Hospital records indicated that Ms. Long removed the NG tube within 2 days after insertion and refused to let the nurses reinsert it. The nurses did not replace the NG tube or inform the prescribing physician that the tube had been removed and not replaced. Ms. Long subsequently underwent surgery for a bowel obstruction. At the time of discharge, she had been diagnosed with 12 different medical conditions and experienced many post-op complications.1
Ms. Long (plaintiff) sued the hospital, hospital system, and two RNs (defendants) for failing to comply with the physician's order for an NG tube and for "failure to properly treat...diagnose...and monitor" the patient.1,2 The plaintiff alleged that after the tube was removed, she "aspirated and significantly deteriorated," and that her post-op complications resulted from the nurses' failure to comply with the NG tube order. The plaintiff also alleged that the nurses failed in their duty to care for the plaintiff, including a failure to follow policies and procedures.1 Whether the plaintiff was partly liable because she removed the tube herself was not addressed in this lawsuit.
The defendants asked the trial court to dismiss the lawsuit because the plaintiffs failed to provide an Affidavit of Merit. In New Jersey, the hospital's location, the Affidavit of Merit statute requires that any malpractice or negligence action against a licensed person in his or her professional capacity must be supported with an affidavit by another appropriate licensed person. The affidavit should state that it is reasonably probable that the actions leading to the lawsuit did not comply with acceptable professional standards or treatment practices.3 In other words, the plaintiff would need to have an expert's affidavit to support the claim of professional misconduct.
As requested by the defendants, the court dismissed the case on the grounds that the plaintiff had not submitted an expert's affidavit. The plaintiff appealed this ruling.
At the appellate level, the plaintiff's lawyers argued that the trial court was wrong in dismissing their case for lack of an affidavit. They based this argument on the "common knowledge" exception to New Jersey's Affidavit of Merit statute. Under this exception, an expert is not needed if jurors and other laypersons could reasonably use their common knowledge, understanding, and experience to determine whether the defendants were negligent in their duties. The plaintiff argued that the nurses' failure to reinsert the NG tube fell under the common knowledge exception.
The appellate court agreed, ruling that in this case, a layperson could use "ordinary understanding and experience to determine a defendant's negligence, without the benefit of the specialized knowledge of an expert."1 The Court reasoned that even though the general requirement is to have an expert establish the standard of care and the breach of care in a professional negligence claim, that requirement is not absolute. In cases where individuals of average intelligence can assess the carelessness of a defendant, an expert is not required.
The court drew another distinction between this case and other cases where experts are required. Most cases requiring an Affidavit of Merit concern situations in which a professional defendant had taken some action requiring an expert's professional opinion. In contrast, Ms. Long's case involved an "act of omission," or a failure to act.
The appellate court determined that the nurses' alleged failure to take action by not alerting the physician that the NG tube was no longer in place was obvious enough that a layperson would not need an expert's assistance to determine the significance of the nurses' inaction, especially given that a physician had ordered its insertion. The court concluded that "common sense dictates that some action should have been taken when the nurses were confronted with the sudden termination of [the patient's] medical treatment that was required by the physician charged with her care."1 The case was returned to the lower court for future trial or settlement.
The appellate court's decision expresses no opinion about whether the nurses were negligent or whether they should be found negligent when the case goes to trial in the lower court. It means only that the plaintiff's case against the defendants should not have been dismissed because of the absence of expert testimony. The plaintiff will still have to prove the merits of the case when she goes before the trial court.
Once an NG tube is inserted, the RN's major responsibilities involve monitoring the patient and managing the NG tube. The results of this monitoring will likely indicate when the tube should be removed.4
It is not uncommon for a patient to experience some discomfort during and after NG tube insertion. It is also not unusual for patients to pull out the NG tube before completion of the therapy, usually due to discomfort.5
The details and merits of the Long case will not be discussed here because they were not litigated in the trial court. Instead, because the hospital's records indicate that the patient removed the NG tube and refused to permit reinsertion, this discussion will revolve around the question of what constitutes a nurse's duty of care when a patient refuses treatment.
For nurses, the obligation to care begins once they accept the assignment to care for a patient. Many of these obligations are regulated by the various state Nurse Practice Acts and the laws of medical malpractice encompassing the duty of care. That duty of care includes carrying out the healthcare provider's prescriptions for the patient's therapy and communicating the patient's condition to the multidisciplinary team, especially the prescribing healthcare provider.6 Until a healthcare provider's prescription for a patient is terminated, it remains in effect. If the plaintiff can establish that a breach of duty led to patient injury, the professional will be found to be negligent.7
To be successful at trial, the plaintiff needs to prove all the elements of negligence: that there was a duty of care by the defendants, that the defendants breached that duty, that there was injury, and that the breach was what caused the injury. In this case, the plaintiff needs to prove that the nurses' failure to notify the physician led to the plaintiff's injury and that the outcome would have been different if the nurses had informed the physician.8
In view of a competent adult's right to refuse treatment and the nurse's duty to provide care, what should a nurse do when a patient has refused treatment?
Many facts of this case were not discussed in court, so it is unclear whether the nurses recognized the dangers of their alleged inaction or why they took no action over several shifts and days. One must then view the case from the perspective of what is common knowledge to nurses and how that could have helped them resolve the issue. That common knowledge is the nursing process.
Used consistently, the nursing process is a tool that helps nurses provide appropriate patient care. The five steps of the nursing process: assessment, nursing diagnosis, planning, intervention, and evaluation (ADPIE) provide an organized method of patient care that, if followed, would guide a nurse along a path that gets the patient the right care even when the nurse is not completely certain about what to do.
If the nurses in this case had utilized the nursing process, they could have found a solution with minimal delay. An assessment would have shown that the tube had been removed. Further assessment, through questioning the patient, would have revealed the reasons why the patient removed the NG tube and why she did not want it back in. Those reasons would have led them to a nursingdiagnosis, such as pain. Planning would have given them a chance to determine how to address the diagnosis so that the patient could accept the reinsertion as an intervention. Evaluation would include assessing the patient's comfort level following tube reinsertion.
If the patient continued to refuse an NG tube, or if the reinsertion was not successful or acceptable to the patient, then the next intervention would have been to communicate the issue to other members of the team and escalate it up the chain of command, documenting along the way who was notified, when they were notified, and what actions were taken by those up the command chain. This process should continue until the issue is resolved.9
Communication problems account for approximately one-third of malpractice cases against nurses, with more than 75% resulting in serious injury or death.10 As in this case, any failure to communicate a patient's condition is potentially harmful.
Regardless of whether the nurses are found to be negligent at trial, the big takeaway from the appellate court's ruling is that the nurses' obligation to communicate a patient's condition to a healthcare provider, such as a physician, is so fundamental and simple to understand that no expert affidavit is necessary. In other words, it is common sense. As members of a multidisciplinary team, nurses must share information. There is no "do nothing" option.
In this case, the nurses may or may not win in court. But doing nothing is what took them to court in the first place.
1. Cowley v. Virtua Health System, 193 A.3d 330 (2018). [Context Link]
2. Law.com. Justices to take up "common knowledge" exception, duty to warn for outsourced parts. ALM Media. January 24, 2019. [Context Link]
3. N.J.S.A. 2A:53A-27. [Context Link]
4. Price G, Shuss S. The ins and outs of NG tubes. Nurs Made Incredibly Easy. 2016;14(5):52-54. [Context Link]
5. Feil M. Dislodged gastrostomy tubes: preventing a potentially fatal complication. Penn Pat Saf Advisory. 2017;14(1):9-16. [Context Link]
6. Shannon SE. The nurse as the patient's advocate: a contrarian view. Hastings Cent Rep. 2016;46(suppl 1):S43-S47. [Context Link]
7. Negligence. In: Batten D, ed. Gale Encyclopedia of Everyday Law. 3rd ed. Detroit, MI: Gale; 2013: 1425-1429. [Context Link]
8. Kidney v. Eastside Med. Ctr., LLC, 806 S.E. 2d 849 (2017). [Context Link]
9. Using the chain of command effectively. AORN J. 2019;109(3):367-369. [Context Link]
10. CRICO Strategies. Malpractice risks in communication failures. 2015 CRICO Strategies national CBS report. 2015. http://www.rmf.harvard.edu/Malpractice-Data/Annual-Benchmark-Reports/Risks-in-Co. [Context Link]
* The patient's name has been changed to protect her privacy. [Context Link]
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TECHNOLOGY IS IMPORTANT
hospital -when u go to the hospital ( tylenol one pill will cost 10 dollar )
where health care
pharmaceutical is expensive
what other country
surgery
everybody need to get access of health care
what is the challenge
healthcare with technology costing more and more money
you have a patient
patient that you have said i have been feeling
task and physician work flow
to get the same out come for the patient
in the rural area there may not be a
if you enter a rehab center
you can learn how
what level of chare tertiary
four profit agency
urgent clinic
valley medical center VA reginal hospital elcamino ( federal agency )
state agency ( Valley med medical center )
Nurse role on the healthcare team
they started asked me
medication
RN
people think that you know everything
law is something that we need to follow
nursing law ( protecting the patient )
what we can do what we cannot do
criminal law
prohibit conduct harmful to society
nurses can get trouble into civil law
practice medicine without license =criminal law
reasonable doubt
its mean that
tells that you are guilty
unreasonable
confusing
what happen if you break a law ( could be fine , jail , can be both )
sue you at the court
civil law ( your dog broke my fence )
liability ( 51 percent you did do it or you did not do it penality is monitoring )
intentional tortorts
assult and battery
false imprisonment
any unlawful confinment within fixed boundaries
false imprisonment
AMA ( they can sign the form ) Against medical advicement ( let them sign the form and let them go )
autonomy
Do i have a good doctor ( do you want information on other things ? )
invasion of privacy
you need to insert the urinary cathether ( you need to create a privacy )
you should ask for the permission ( if you need to teach your student nurse for doing catheterization)
better than not asking the question
i will allow enough student to get in
not the whole team
battery
assult
threat
you don't have to touch them
somefearful of you
contact this requirement
might happen
little lady dress
people are not happy
ICU ( their love one is not doing they are out of control )
charge with battery
she was charge with it
they was accusing her
here what she did
the patient was not doing well
my formal student
gentally guided
guiding them her body language,
can get into trouble
reasonable
better clam without touching
produre on someone ( inform consent ) can prevent some disturb
sometime the situation cannot prevent
matter of my routine ( they misinterpret)
when draw blood ( they saw can misinterpret too )
do not recuscitate ( the family tend to be not happy )
paramedic
implied concent ( i am going to take blood pressure)
explicit ( formal process for taking consent for surgery)
dementia patient
battery ( don't do it )
ER psy ward ( there are people patient tried to kill you )
its under standable ( ER taking care the psy background patient , patient decided stocking that he would call the unit ) she had to get restraining order )
almost victim of assult
group therapy session
witness the signature ( if the patient is not fully understand )
in emergency ( consent is presumed )
you have to get consent ( the patient is prenarcotic ) can you take consent ?
go something
the procedure is ready to do
the consent is missing
what you going to do first
you cannot give medication until consent have been giving
they have the ability to give consent
communication might not be always verbal ( speak english ) not in medical term
make the patient fully understanding ( basic understanding )
we need to keep information confidential
can you get access
tried to
grant access ( to student nurse )
you practice on your own license
you will not practice under anyother license
you are in elevator
not to gossip
confidential is regulated by fedral
we are mandatory report
what is you wrong
you have to report withing 24 hours
you are okay as long as you are in good faith
reported to authority
don't social media
getting caught up in the internet
deanza
found it entry pop up
she said finish my first sesmenster
not respecting the dignity of patient
a lot of company
really want the profile picture
she is in colorado
nursing school
football game
be mindful that
someplaces could disapline
no photograph in the unit ward
mal practice
under civil right ( not criminal )
legally responsible by the law
the patient sue you also doctor and hospital
joint liability (e.g , doctor accuse , you can challange and dr accuse you ,
you are not doing the right job )
bonus point
hospital fellout the window and die
safety mechanism ( hospital )
nurse ( responsible )
CNA ( RN is delegate , and responsible )
on the other hand
when you delegating your CNA
you still have to ---
negligence
professional part
mal practice
resonable and prudent
similar situation
resonable
prudent is careful
six component
(1) Duty to act
(2) breach ( you did not do it )
(3 ) harm ( something that happen )
(4) causation ( you breach )
wrong side of mal practice
to defense your self
look at those four words
standard of care
actually its causation
suppose somebody
suppose you are on break
suppose you went on your break you went break too long
yes it was damage
tipical lawyer defence
she was gone too long
preventing negligence and malpractice
the best way stay out of malpractice ( you know what you doing)
include the setting
it just seems like
crazy
so unsafe
if you feel like your license is risking you need to quit
you need to follow on unsafe situation ( quit from that job )
goal ( long term care )
identified the situation and work
rule of law
what is the best story
communication
patient family and other
it is been shown
there is alot of people could sue and some are don't
they concerned on nurses and sue
bad thing that happen
alot of people sue out of frastration becuse of being not listened
its very important
70 dollar a year ( insurance ) for patient sue in case
if you break policy
in adequate charting
case study
you need to document
two year later it went to the court
failure to communicate
read the legal case
this patient confuse
thats fine you do your job
doctor has to review patient medication
inaccurate counting of instument in surgery
you have to always
never ask yes no question
always identified
however , you have known this patient very well
time to get new one
that will be the case
acute care hospital
this is the part
this is something
medical
not guilty
that is clear
there is criminal behind this
make a mistake ( all the evidence )
cms report
here is a story
patient ( was order this drug for sedation ) versed but she was given vercuronium
float nurse
pyxis mechine ( ATM for drug )
for sedation
versed =midazolam
look at vial
take 10cc
small drug 2 ml
she gave the worng medication
she did not read the name
she did the wrong drug
it is criminal
that is mal practice
in history ( they did not do any thing bad , mal practice )
it was water soluble medication
including your breating
not for CT scan
they have to be on vantilator ( must be O2 ) quiet whole body down before intubation they give that medication
but she give the wrong medication
the medcation effect is they cannot open the eye
she could not even call for help
this is the case you are practice
your license
make a mistake and go to jail
you have to careful
reasonable and prudent
she was ICU nurse she was float nurse
even if the right drug she should have to monitor the patient respiratory
the original cause of death
malpractice -
criminally
group of nurse
the primary purpose is to protect public health and safety
a law that defines and controls nursing
state boards of nursing
California BRN
we are allow to do
it defines
sometimes they approched many programmed
thats why
get in trouble for that
AND ( allow natural death)
DNR ( do not resuscitate)
what they want
how aggressively they want to be treated
durable power ( daughter , spouse , family member )
you need to careful assessment ( need to evaluate the patient)
LTC ( they need to ensure compliance of law ,educate the staff )
information of patient ( you need to make sure the patient is allow his sister to know about his condition )
decline
non compliance
combactive
make the reader
don't use label
how can you lose your license
AKA
obtaining license by fraud
felony
somebody had DUI
seems to the board
they can
you might not get your license
VA
they don't let you in
background check
what are you doing
scare they don't get that license
not reporting ( you can be the one for lunch break )
falsely portraying self to public or any HCP as a nurse
they can give u license immediately ( after evaluate )
whistle blower act
good samaritan act
you saw a you tube video
if you do reasonable and prudent you won't get mal practice charge
you are in the air
what law would apply ( Aviation )
joint comission keep in safe
here is national safety
always wonder
what happen
obviously
improve
reduce healthcare reduce risk of fall
joint comission
pretty similar
what hte joint commision does
you have to ask if you don't want this
know your power point for sure
you you get there though
flight nurse
star student
ER master
https://kristenfmartins.wordpress.com/2020/04/21/running-out-of-outlets/?fbclid=IwAR0Wx3VmOHsnM2tC29Zuwszy-Pa3FMTNH-RzpNtSwwI9U0qm6OimOUeNBSs
https://kristenfmartins.wordpress.com/2020/04/21/running-out-of-outlets/?fbclid=IwAR0Wx3VmOHsnM2tC29Zuwszy-Pa3FMTNH-RzpNtSwwI9U0qm6OimOUeNBSs
ans (1) People use their abilities to the fullest extent possible and are true to their nature.
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1. My country is Myanmar which is situated in South East Asia , the majority of people are influenced by their culture, neighbors and the different group of people. Different states has influenced aspects of different culture such as language , education and knowledge .
2 . In my family ,we speak Burmese language as primary language at home but we speak other dialects language too.
3. In my country a family member parents is the one make the decisions especially who are breadwinner in the family is the one who made the healthcare decision.
4.The good things is that when someone sick the neighbors help you take
care , provide food , buy food and drinks and comfort words for the
sick person. It is sad to see sometimes people who has lack of healthcare knowledge they did not research and blindly listened to the others people such as neighbors . In some culture if they are ill or having fever they did not seek medical attention they just taking some natural remedy , and using some medicated leaves to apply in their long line of family. Some believe when they are ill they sleep in the bed and cover with full of blanket and sleeping whole day.
Have you been taught to value more independent or individualistic ideals and goals or to focus more on group goals?
What about social norms?
How has your culture shaped your social norms?
And finally, we discuss social comparisons.
As we have an understanding of our own identity, we often tend to compare ourselves with others around us.
Shakespeare tapped into a deep truth about human nature when he famously wrote, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” He was wrong about the “merely,” however, for there is nothing more important for human adaptation than the manner in which we perform our roles as actors in the everyday theatre of social life. What Shakespeare may have sensed but could not have fully understood is that human beings evolved to live in social groups. Beginning with Darwin (1872/1965) and running through contemporary conceptions of human evolution, scientists have portrayed human nature as profoundly social (Wilson, 2012). For a few million years, Homo sapiens and their evolutionary forerunners have survived and flourished by virtue of their ability to live and work together in complex social groups, cooperating with each other to solve problems and overcome threats and competing with each other in the face of limited resources. As social animals, human beings strive to get along and get ahead in the presence of each other (Hogan, 1982). Evolution has prepared us to care deeply about social acceptance and social status, for those unfortunate individuals who do not get along well in social groups or who fail to attain a requisite status among their peers have typically been severely compromised when it comes to survival and reproduction. It makes consummate evolutionary sense, therefore, that the human “I” should apprehend the “Me” first and foremost as a social actor.
For human beings, the sense of the self as a social actor begins to emerge around the age of 18 months. Numerous studies have shown that by the time they reach their second birthday most toddlers recognize themselves in mirrors and other reflecting devices (Lewis & Brooks-Gunn, 1979; Rochat, 2003). What they see is an embodied actor who moves through space and time. Many children begin to use words such as “me” and “mine” in the second year of life, suggesting that the I now has linguistic labels that can be applied reflexively to itself: I call myself “me.” Around the same time, children also begin to express social emotions such as embarrassment, shame, guilt, and pride (Tangney, Stuewig, & Mashek, 2007). These emotions tell the social actor how well he or she is performing in the group. When I do things that win the approval of others, I feel proud of myself. When I fail in the presence of others, I may feel embarrassment or shame. When I violate a social rule, I may experience guilt, which may motivate me to make amends.
Many of the classic psychological theories of human selfhood point to the second year of life as a key developmental period. For example, Freud (1923/1961) and his followers in the psychoanalytic tradition traced the emergence of an autonomous
back to the second year. Freud used the term “ego” (in German das Ich, which also translates into “the I”) to refer to an executive self in the personality. Erikson (1963) argued that experiences of trust and interpersonal attachment in the first year of life help to consolidate the autonomy of the ego in the second. Coming from a more sociological perspective, Mead (1934) suggested that the I comes to know the Me through reflection, which may begin quite literally with mirrors but later involves the reflected appraisals of others. I come to know who I am as a social actor, Mead argued, by noting how other people in my social world react to my performances. In the development of the self as a social actor, other people function like mirrors—they reflect who I am back to me.
Research has shown that when young children begin to make attributions about themselves, they start simple (Harter, 2006). At age 4, Jessica knows that she has dark hair, knows that she lives in a white house, and describes herself to others in terms of simple behavioral traits. She may say that she is “nice,” or “helpful,” or that she is “a good girl most of the time.” By the time, she hits fifth grade (age 10), Jessica sees herself in more complex ways, attributing traits to the self such as “honest,” “moody,” “outgoing,” “shy,” “hard-working,” “smart,” “good at math but not gym class,” or “nice except when I am around my annoying brother.” By late childhood and early adolescence, the personality traits that people attribute to themselves, as well as those attributed to them by others, tend to correlate with each other in ways that conform to a well-established taxonomy of five broad trait domains, repeatedly derived in studies of adult personality and often called the
: (1) extraversion, (2) neuroticism, (3) agreeableness, (4) conscientiousness, and (5) openness to experience (Roberts, Wood, & Caspi, 2008). By late childhood, moreover, self-conceptions will likely also include important social roles: “I am a good student,” “I am the oldest daughter,” or “I am a good friend to Sarah.”
Traits and roles, and variations on these notions, are the main currency of the
(McAdams & Cox, 2010). Trait terms capture perceived consistencies in social performance. They convey what I reflexively perceive to be my overall acting style, based in part on how I think others see me as an actor in many different social situations. Roles capture the quality, as I perceive it, of important structured relationships in my life. Taken together, traits and roles make up the main features of my, as I apprehend it in my own mind (Hogan, 1982).
If you have ever tried hard to change yourself, you may have taken aim at your social reputation, targeting your central traits or your social roles. Maybe you woke up one day and decided that you must become a more optimistic and emotionally upbeat person. Taking into consideration the reflected appraisals of others, you realized that even your friends seem to avoid you because you bring them down. In addition, it feels bad to feel so bad all the time: Wouldn’t it be better to feel good, to have more energy and hope? In the language of traits, you have decided to “work on” your “neuroticism.” Or maybe instead, your problem is the trait of “conscientiousness”: You are undisciplined and don’t work hard enough, so you resolve to make changes in that area. Self-improvement efforts such as these—aimed at changing one’s traits to become a more effective social actor—are sometimes successful, but they are very hard—kind of like dieting. Research suggests that broad traits tend to be stubborn, resistant to change, even with the aid of psychotherapy. However, people often have more success working directly on their social roles. To become a more effective social actor, you may want to take aim at the important roles you play in life. What can I do to become a better son or daughter? How can I find new and meaningful roles to perform at work, or in my family, or among my friends, or in my church and community? By doing concrete things that enrich your performances in important social roles, you may begin to see yourself in a new light, and others will notice the change, too. Social actors hold the potential to transform their performances across the human life course. Each time you walk out on stage, you have a chance to start anew.
Whether we are talking literally about the theatrical stage or more figuratively, as I do in this module, about the everyday social environment for human behavior, observers can never fully know what is in the actor’s head, no matter how closely they watch. We can see actors act, but we cannot know for sure what they want or what they value, unless they tell us straightaway. As a social actor, a person may come across as friendly and compassionate, or cynical and mean-spirited, but in neither case can we infer their motivations from their traits or their roles. What does the friendly person want? What is the cynical father trying to achieve? Many broad psychological theories of the self prioritize the motivational qualities of human behavior—the inner needs, wants, desires, goals, values, plans, programs, fears, and aversions that seem to give behavior its direction and purpose (Bandura, 1989; Deci & Ryan, 1991; Markus & Nurius, 1986). These kinds of theories explicitly conceive of the self as a motivated agent.
To be an agent is to act with direction and purpose, to move forward into the future in pursuit of self-chosen and valued goals. In a sense, human beings are agents even as infants, for babies can surely act in goal-directed ways. By age 1 year, moreover, infants show a strong preference for observing and imitating the goal-directed, intentional behavior of others, rather than random behaviors (Woodward, 2009). Still, it is one thing to act in goal-directed ways; it is quite another for the I to know itself (the Me) as an intentional and purposeful force who moves forward in life in pursuit of self-chosen goals, values, and other desired end states. In order to do so, the person must first realize that people indeed have desires and goals in their minds and that these inner desires and goals motivate (initiate, energize, put into motion) their behavior. According to a strong line of research in developmental psychology, attaining this kind of understanding means acquiring a
(Wellman, 1993), which occurs for most children by the age of 4. Once a child understands that other people’s behavior is often motivated by inner desires and goals, it is a small step to apprehend the self in similar terms.
Building on theory of mind and other cognitive and social developments, children begin to construct the self as a motivated agent in the elementary school years, layered over their still-developing sense of themselves as social actors. Theory and research on what developmental psychologists call
converge to suggest that children become more planful, intentional, and systematic in their pursuit of valued goals during this time (Sameroff & Haith, 1996). Schooling reinforces the shift in that teachers and curricula place increasing demands on students to work hard, adhere to schedules, focus on goals, and achieve success in particular, well-defined task domains. Their relative success in achieving their most cherished goals, furthermore, goes a long way in determining children’s(Robins, Tracy, & Trzesniewski, 2008). Motivated agents feel good about themselves to the extent they believe that they are making good progress in achieving their goals and advancing their most important values.
Goals and values become even more important for the self in adolescence, as teenagers begin to confront what Erikson (1963) famously termed the developmental challenge of
. For adolescents and young adults, establishing a psychologically efficacious identity involves exploring different options with respect to life goals, values, vocations, and intimate relationships and eventually committing to a motivational and ideological agenda for adult life—an integrated and realistic sense of what I want and value in life and how I plan to achieve it (Kroger & Marcia, 2011). Committing oneself to an integrated suite of life goals and values is perhaps the greatest achievement for the. Establishing an adult identity has implications, as well, for how a person moves through life as a social actor, entailing new role commitments and, perhaps, a changing understanding of one’s basic dispositional traits. According to Erikson, however, identity achievement is always provisional, for adults continue to work on their identities as they move into midlife and beyond, often relinquishing old goals in favor of new ones, investing themselves in new projects and making new plans, exploring new relationships, and shifting their priorities in response to changing life circumstances (Freund & Riediger, 2006; Josselson, 1996).
There is a sense whereby any time you try to change yourself, you are assuming the role of a motivated agent. After all, to strive to change something is inherently what an agent does. However, what particular feature of selfhood you try to change may correspond to your self as actor, agent, or author, or some combination. When you try to change your traits or roles, you take aim at the social actor. By contrast, when you try to change your values or life goals, you are focusing on yourself as a motivated agent. Adolescence and young adulthood are periods in the human life course when many of us focus attention on our values and life goals. Perhaps you grew up as a traditional Catholic, but now in college you believe that the values inculcated in your childhood no longer function so well for you. You no longer believe in the central tenets of the Catholic Church, say, and are now working to replace your old values with new ones. Or maybe you still want to be Catholic, but you feel that your new take on faith requires a different kind of personal ideology. In the realm of the motivated agent, moreover, changing values can influence life goals. If your new value system prioritizes alleviating the suffering of others, you may decide to pursue a degree in social work, or to become a public interest lawyer, or to live a simpler life that prioritizes people over material wealth. A great deal of the identity work we do in adolescence and young adulthood is about values and goals, as we strive to articulate a personal vision or dream for what we hope to accomplish in the future.
Even as
continues to develop a sense ofas both a social actor and a motivated agent, a third standpoint for selfhood gradually emerges in the adolescent and early-adult years. The third perspective is a response to Erikson’s (1963) challenge of identity. According to Erikson, developing an identity involves more than the exploration of and commitment to life goals and values (the self as motivated agent), and more than committing to new roles and re-evaluating old traits (the self as social actor). It also involves achieving a sense of temporal continuity in life—a reflexive understanding of how I have come to be the person I am becoming, or put differently, how my past self has developed into my present self, and how my present self will, in turn, develop into an envisioned future self. In his analysis of identity formation in the life of the 15th-century Protestant reformer Martin Luther, Erikson (1958) describes the culmination of a young adult’s search for identity in this way:
“To be adult means among other things to see one’s own life in continuous perspective, both in retrospect and prospect. By accepting some definition of who he is, usually on the basis of a function in an economy, a place in the sequence of generations, and a status in the structure of society, the adult is able to selectively reconstruct his past in such a way that, step for step, it seems to have planned him, or better, he seems to have planned it. In this sense, psychologically we do choose our parents, our family history, and the history of our kings, heroes, and gods. By making them our own, we maneuver ourselves into the inner position of proprietors, of creators.”
— (Erikson, 1958, pp. 111–112; emphasis added).
In this rich passage, Erikson intimates that the development of a mature identity in young adulthood involves the I’s ability to construct a retrospective and prospective story about the Me (McAdams, 1985). In their efforts to find a meaningful identity for life, young men and women begin “to selectively reconstruct” their past, as Erikson wrote, and imagine their future to create an integrative life story, or what psychologists today often call a
. A narrative identity is an internalized and evolving story of the self that reconstructs the past and anticipates the future in such a way as to provide a person’s life with some degree of unity, meaning, and purpose over time (McAdams, 2008; McLean, Pasupathi, & Pals, 2007). The self typically becomes an autobiographical author in the early-adult years, a way of being that is layered over the motivated agent, which is layered over the social actor. In order to provide life with the sense of temporal continuity and deep meaning that Erikson believed identity should confer, we must author a personalized life story that integrates our understanding of who we once were, who we are today, and who we may become in the future. The story helps to explain, for the author and for the author’s world, why the social actor does what it does and why the motivated agent wants what it wants, and how the person as a whole has developed over time, from the past’s reconstructed beginning to the future’s imagined ending.
By the time they are 5 or 6 years of age, children can tell well-formed stories about personal events in their lives (Fivush, 2011). By the end of childhood, they usually have a good sense of what a typical biography contains and how it is sequenced, from birth to death (Thomsen & Bernsten, 2008). But it is not until adolescence, research shows, that human beings express advanced storytelling skills and what psychologists call
(Habermas & Bluck, 2000; McLean & Fournier, 2008). In autobiographical reasoning, a narrator is able to derive substantive conclusions about the self from analyzing his or her own personal experiences. Adolescents may develop the ability to string together events into causal chains and inductively derive general themes about life from a sequence of chapters and scenes (Habermas & de Silveira, 2008). For example, a 16-year-old may be able to explain to herself and to others how childhood experiences in her family have shaped her vocation in life. Her parents were divorced when she was 5 years old, the teenager recalls, and this caused a great deal of stress in her family. Her mother often seemed anxious and depressed, but she (the now-teenager when she was a little girl—the story’s protagonist) often tried to cheer her mother up, and her efforts seemed to work. In more recent years, the teenager notes that her friends often come to her with their boyfriend problems. She seems to be very adept at giving advice about love and relationships, which stems, the teenager now believes, from her early experiences with her mother. Carrying this causal narrative forward, the teenager now thinks that she would like to be a marriage counselor when she grows up.
Unlike children, then, adolescents can tell a full and convincing story about an entire human life, or at least a prominent line of causation within a full life, explaining continuity and change in the story’s protagonist over time. Once the cognitive skills are in place, young people seek interpersonal opportunities to share and refine their developing sense of themselves as storytellers (the I) who tell stories about themselves (the Me). Adolescents and young adults author a narrative sense of the self by telling stories about their experiences to other people, monitoring the feedback they receive from the tellings, editing their stories in light of the feedback, gaining new experiences and telling stories about those, and on and on, as selves create stories that, in turn, create new selves (McLean et al., 2007). Gradually, in fits and starts, through conversation and introspection, the I develops a convincing and coherent narrative about the Me.
Contemporary research on the
emphasizes the strong effect of culture on narrative identity (Hammack, 2008). Culture provides a menu of favored plot lines, themes, and character types for the construction of self-defining life stories. Autobiographical authors sample selectively from the cultural menu, appropriating ideas that seem to resonate well with their own life experiences. As such, life stories reflect the culture, wherein they are situated as much as they reflect the authorial efforts of the autobiographical I.
As one example of the tight link between culture and narrative identity, McAdams (2013) and others (e.g., Kleinfeld, 2012) have highlighted the prominence of
in American culture. Epitomized in such iconic cultural ideals as the American dream, Horatio Alger stories, and narratives of Christian atonement, redemptive stories track the move from suffering to an enhanced status or state, while scripting the development of a chosen protagonist who journeys forth into a dangerous and unredeemed world (McAdams, 2013). Hollywood movies often celebrate redemptive quests. Americans are exposed to similar narrative messages in self-help books, 12-step programs, Sunday sermons, and in the rhetoric of political campaigns. Over the past two decades, the world’s most influential spokesperson for the power of redemption in human lives may be Oprah Winfrey, who tells her own story of overcoming childhood adversity while encouraging others, through her media outlets and philanthropy, to tell similar kinds of stories for their own lives (McAdams, 2013). Research has demonstrated that American adults who enjoy high levels of mental health and civic engagement tend to construct their lives as narratives of redemption, tracking the move from sin to salvation, rags to riches, oppression to liberation, or sickness/abuse to health/recovery (McAdams, Diamond, de St. Aubin, & Mansfield, 1997; McAdams, Reynolds, Lewis, Patten, & Bowman, 2001; Walker & Frimer, 2007). In American society, these kinds of stories are often seen to be inspirational.
At the same time, McAdams (2011, 2013) has pointed to shortcomings and limitations in the redemptive stories that many Americans tell, which mirror cultural biases and stereotypes in American culture and heritage. McAdams has argued that redemptive stories support happiness and societal engagement for some Americans, but the same stories can encourage moral righteousness and a naïve expectation that suffering will always be redeemed. For better and sometimes for worse, Americans seem to love stories of personal redemption and often aim to assimilate their autobiographical memories and aspirations to a redemptive form. Nonetheless, these same stories may not work so well in cultures that espouse different values and narrative ideals (Hammack, 2008). It is important to remember that every culture offers its own storehouse of favored narrative forms. It is also essential to know that no single narrative form captures all that is good (or bad) about a culture. In American society, the redemptive narrative is but one of many different kinds of stories that people commonly employ to make sense of their lives.
What is your story? What kind of a narrative are you working on? As you look to the past and imagine the future, what threads of continuity, change, and meaning do you discern? For many people, the most dramatic and fulfilling efforts to change the self happen when the I works hard, as an autobiographical author, to construct and, ultimately, to tell a new story about the Me. Storytelling may be the most powerful form of self-transformation that human beings have ever invented. Changing one’s life story is at the heart of many forms of psychotherapy and counseling, as well as religious conversions, vocational epiphanies, and other dramatic transformations of the self that people often celebrate as turning points in their lives (Adler, 2012). Storytelling is often at the heart of the little changes, too, minor edits in the self that we make as we move through daily life, as we live and experience life, and as we later tell it to ourselves and to others.
For human beings, selves begin as social actors, but they eventually become motivated agents and autobiographical authors, too. The I first sees itself as an embodied actor in social space; with development, however, it comes to appreciate itself also as a forward-looking source of self-determined goals and values, and later yet, as a storyteller of personal experience, oriented to the reconstructed past and the imagined future. To “know thyself” in mature adulthood, then, is to do three things: (a) to apprehend and to perform with social approval my self-ascribed traits and roles, (b) to pursue with vigor and (ideally) success my most valued goals and plans, and (c) to construct a story about life that conveys, with vividness and cultural resonance, how I became the person I am becoming, integrating my past as I remember it, my present as I am experiencing it, and my future as I hope it to be.
When you think about different cultures, you likely picture their most visible features, such as differences in the way people dress, or in the architectural styles of their buildings. You might consider different types of food, or how people in some cultures eat with chopsticks while people in others use forks. There are differences in body language, religious practices, and wedding rituals. While these are all obvious examples of cultural differences, many distinctions are harder to see because they are psychological in nature.
Just as culture can be seen in dress and food, it can also be seen in morality, identity, and gender roles. People from around the world differ in their views of premarital sex, religious tolerance, respect for elders, and even the importance they place on having fun. Similarly, many behaviors that may seem innate are actually products of culture. Approaches to punishment, for example, often depend on cultural norms for their effectiveness. In the United States, people who ride public transportation without buying a ticket face the possibility of being fined. By contrast, in some other societies, people caught dodging the fare are socially shamed by having their photos posted publicly. The reason this campaign of “name and shame” might work in one society but not in another is that members of different cultures differ in how comfortable they are with being singled out for attention. This strategy is less effective for people who are not as sensitive to the threat of public shaming.
The psychological aspects of culture are often overlooked because they are often invisible. The way that gender roles are learned is a cultural process as is the way that people think about their own sense of duty toward their family members. In this module, you will be introduced to one of the most fascinating aspects of social psychology: the study of cultural processes. You will learn about research methods for studying culture, basic definitions related to this topic, and about the ways that culture affects a person’s sense of self.
Social psychologists are interested in the ways that cultural forces influence psychological processes. They study culture as a means of better understanding the ways it affects our emotions, identity, relationships, and decisions. Social psychologists generally ask different types of questions and use different methods than do anthropologists. Anthropologists are more likely to conduct
. They are likely to use interviews as a primary research methodology.
For example, in a 2004 study Hazel Markus and her colleagues wanted to explore class culture as it relates to well-being. The researchers adopted a cultural psychology approach and interviewed participants to discover—in the participants own words—what “the good life” is for Americans of different social classes. Dozens of participants answered 30
about well-being during recorded, face-to-face interviews. After the interview data were collected the researchers then read the transcripts. From these, they agreed on common themes that appeared important to the participants. These included, among others, “health,” “family,” “enjoyment,” and “financial security.”
The Markus team discovered that people with a Bachelor’s Degree were more likely than high school educated participants to mention “enjoyment” as a central part of the good life. By contrast, those with a high school education were more likely to mention “financial security” and “having basic needs met.” There were similarities as well: participants from both groups placed a heavy emphasis on relationships with others. Their understanding of how these relationships are tied to well-being differed, however. The college educated—especially men—were more likely to list “advising and respecting” as crucial aspects of relationships while their high school educated counterparts were more likely to list “loving and caring” as important. As you can see, cultural psychological approaches place an emphasis on the participants’ own definitions, language, and understanding of their own lives. In addition, the researchers were able to make comparisons between the groups, but these comparisons were based on loose themes created by the researchers.
Cultural psychology is distinct from
, and this can be confusing.are those that use standard forms of measurement, such as Likert scales, to compare people from different cultures and identify their differences. Both cultural and cross-cultural studies have their own advantages and disadvantages (see Table 1).
Interestingly, researchers—and the rest of us!—have as much to learn from
as , and both require comparisons across cultures. For example, Diener and Oishi (2000) were interested in exploring the relationship between money and happiness. They were specifically interested in cross-cultural differences in levels of life satisfaction between people from different cultures. To examine this question they used international surveys that asked all participants the exact same question, such as “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?” and used afor answers; in this case one that asked people to use a 1-10 scale to respond. They also collected data on average income levels in each nation, and adjusted these for local differences in how many goods and services that money can buy.
The Diener research team discovered that, across more than 40 nations there was a tendency for money to be associated with higher life satisfaction. People from richer countries such as Denmark, Switzerland and Canada had relatively high satisfaction while their counterparts from poorer countries such as India and Belarus had lower levels. There were some interesting exceptions, however. People from Japan—a wealthy nation—reported lower satisfaction than did their peers in nations with similar wealth. In addition, people from Brazil—a poorer nation—had unusually high scores compared to their income counterparts.
One problem with cross-cultural studies is that they are vulnerable to
This means that the researcher who designs the study might be influenced by personal biases that could affect research outcomes—without even being aware of it. For example, a study on happiness across cultures might investigate the ways that personal freedom is associated with feeling a sense of purpose in life. The researcher might assume that when people are free to choose their own work and leisure, they are more likely to pick options they care deeply about. Unfortunately, this researcher might overlook the fact that in much of the world it is considered important to sacrifice some personal freedom in order to fulfill one’s duty to the group (Triandis, 1995). Because of the danger of this type of bias, social psychologists must continue to improve their methodology.
Like the words “happiness” and “intelligence,” the word “culture” can be tricky to define.
is a word that suggests social patterns of shared meaning. In essence, it is a collective understanding of the way the world works, shared by members of a group and passed down from one generation to the next. For example, members of the Yanomamö tribe, in South America, share a cultural understanding of the world that includes the idea that there are four parallel levels to reality that include an abandoned level, and earthly level and heavenly and hell-like levels. Similarly, members of surfing culture understand their athletic pastime as being worthwhile and governed by formal rules of etiquette known only to insiders. There are several features of culture that are central to understanding the uniqueness and diversity of the human mind:
Understanding the changing nature of culture is the first step toward appreciating how it helps people. The concept of
is the ability to understand why members of other cultures act in the ways they do. Rather than dismissing foreign behaviors as weird, inferior, or immoral, people high in cultural intelligence can appreciate differences even if they do not necessarily share another culture’s views or adopt its ways of doing things.
One of the biggest problems with understanding culture is that the word itself is used in different ways by different people. When someone says, “My company has a competitive culture,” does it mean the same thing as when another person says, “I’m taking my children to the museum so they can get some culture”? The truth is, there are many ways to think about culture. Here are three ways to parse this concept:
The understanding of culture as a learned pattern of views and behaviors is interesting for several reasons. First, it highlights the ways groups can come into conflict with one another. Members of different cultures simply learn different ways of behaving. Modern youth culture, for instance, interacts with technologies such as smart phones using a different set of rules than people who are in their 40s, 50s, or 60s. Older adults might find texting in the middle of a face-to-face conversation rude while younger people often do not. These differences can sometimes become politicized and a source of tension between groups. One example of this is Muslim women who wear a hijab, or head scarf. Non-Muslims do not follow this practice, so occasional misunderstandings arise about the appropriateness of the tradition. Second, understanding that culture is learned is important because it means that people can adopt an appreciation of patterns of behavior that are different than their own. For example, non-Muslims might find it helpful to learn about the hijab. Where did this tradition come from? What does it mean and what are various Muslim opinions about wearing one? Finally, understanding that culture is learned can be helpful in developing self-awareness. For instance, people from the United States might not even be aware of the fact that their attitudes about public nudity are influenced by their cultural learning. While women often go topless on beaches in Europe and women living a traditional tribal existence in places like the South Pacific also go topless, it is illegal for women in some of the United States to do so. These cultural norms for modesty—reflected in government laws and policies– also enter the discourse on social issues such as the appropriateness of breast-feeding in public. Understanding that your preferences are—in many cases—the products of cultural learning might empower you to revise them if doing so will lead to a better life for you or others.
So, what exactly were these two patterns of culture Triandis focused on:
and? Individualists, such as most people born and raised in Australia or the United States, define themselves as individuals. They seek personal freedom and prefer to voice their own opinions and make their own decisions. By contrast, collectivists—such as most people born and raised in Korea or in Taiwan— are more likely to emphasize their connectedness to others. They are more likely to sacrifice their personal preferences if those preferences come in conflict with the preferences of the larger group (Triandis, 1995).
Both individualism and collectivism can further be divided into vertical and horizontal dimensions (Triandis, 1995). Essentially, these dimensions describe social status among members of a society. People in vertical societies differ in status, with some people being more highly respected or having more privileges, while in horizontal societies people are relatively equal in status and privileges. These dimensions are, of course, simplifications.
Neither individualism nor collectivism is the “correct way to live.” Rather, they are two separate patterns with slightly different emphases. People from individualistic societies often have more social freedoms, while collectivistic societies often have better social safety nets.
There are yet other ways of thinking about culture, as well. The cultural patterns of individualism and collectivism are linked to an important psychological phenomenon: the way that people understand themselves. Known as
, this is the way people define the way they “fit” in relation to others. Individualists are more likely to define themselves in terms of an . This means that people see themselves as A) being a unique individual with a stable collection of personal traits, and B) that these traits drive behavior. By contrast, people from collectivist cultures are more likely to identify with the. This means that people see themselves as A) defined differently in each new social context and B) social context, rather than internal traits, are the primary drivers of behavior (Markus & Kitiyama, 1991).
What do the independent and interdependent self look like in daily life? One simple example can be seen in the way that people describe themselves. Imagine you had to complete the sentence starting with “I am…..”. And imagine that you had to do this 10 times. People with an independent sense of self are more likely to describe themselves in terms of traits such as “I am honest,” “I am intelligent,” or “I am talkative.” On the other hand, people with a more interdependent sense of self are more likely to describe themselves in terms of their relation to others such as “I am a sister,” “I am a good friend,” or “I am a leader on my team” (Markus, 1977).
The psychological consequences of having an independent or interdependent self can also appear in more surprising ways. Take, for example, the emotion of anger. In Western cultures, where people are more likely to have an independent self, anger arises when people’s personal wants, needs, or values are attacked or frustrated (Markus & Kitiyama, 1994). Angry Westerners sometimes complain that they have been “treated unfairly.” Simply put, anger—in the Western sense—is the result of violations of the self. By contrast, people from interdependent self cultures, such as Japan, are likely to experience anger somewhat differently. They are more likely to feel that anger is unpleasant not because of some personal insult but because anger represents a lack of harmony between people. In this instance, anger is particularly unpleasant when it interferes with close relationships.
It’s important to understand that culture is learned. People aren’t born using chopsticks or being good at soccer simply because they have a genetic predisposition for it. They learn to excel at these activities because they are born in countries like Argentina, where playing soccer is an important part of daily life, or in countries like Taiwan, where chopsticks are the primary eating utensils. So, how are such cultural behaviors learned? It turns out that cultural skills and knowledge are learned in much the same way a person might learn to do algebra or knit. They are acquired through a combination of explicit teaching and implicit learning—by observing and copying.
Cultural teaching can take many forms. It begins with parents and caregivers, because they are the primary influence on young children. Caregivers teach kids, both directly and by example, about how to behave and how the world works. They encourage children to be polite, reminding them, for instance, to say “Thankyou.” They teach kids how to dress in a way that is appropriate for the culture. They introduce children to religious beliefs and the rituals that go with them. They even teach children how to think and feel! Adult men, for example, often exhibit a certain set of emotional expressions—such as being tough and not crying—that provides a model of masculinity for their children. This is why we see different ways of expressing the same emotions in different parts of the world.
In some societies, it is considered appropriate to conceal anger. Instead of expressing their feelings outright, people purse their lips, furrow their brows, and say little. In other cultures, however, it is appropriate to express anger. In these places, people are more likely to bare their teeth, furrow their brows, point or gesture, and yell (Matsumoto, Yoo, & Chung, 2010). Such patterns of behavior are learned. Often, adults are not even aware that they are, in essence, teaching psychology—because the lessons are happening through
.
Let’s consider a single example of a way you behave that is learned, which might surprise you. All people gesture when they speak. We use our hands in fluid or choppy motions—to point things out, or to pantomime actions in stories. Consider how you might throw your hands up and exclaim, “I have no idea!” or how you might motion to a friend that it’s time to go. Even people who are born blind use hand gestures when they speak, so to some degree this is a universal behavior, meaning all people naturally do it. However, social researchers have discovered that culture influences how a person gestures. Italians, for example, live in a society full of gestures. In fact, they use about 250 of them (Poggi, 2002)! Some are easy to understand, such as a hand against the belly, indicating hunger. Others, however, are more difficult. For example, pinching the thumb and index finger together and drawing a line backwards at face level means “perfect,” while knocking a fist on the side of one’s head means “stubborn.”
Beyond observational learning, cultures also use
to teach people what is important. For example, young people who are interested in becoming Buddhist monks often have to endure rituals that help them shed feelings of specialness or superiority—feelings that run counter to Buddhist doctrine. To do this, they might be required to wash their teacher’s feet, scrub toilets, or perform other menial tasks. Similarly, many Jewish adolescents go through the process of bar and bat mitzvah. This is a ceremonial reading from scripture that requires the study of Hebrew and, when completed, signals that the youth is ready for full participation in public worship.
When social psychologists research culture, they try to avoid making value judgments. This is known as
and is considered an important approach to scientific objectivity. But, while such objectivity is the goal, it is a difficult one to achieve. With this in mind, anthropologists have tried to adopt a sense of empathy for the cultures they study. This has led to, the principle of regarding and valuing the practices of a culture from the point of view of that culture. It is a considerate and practical way to avoid hasty judgments. Take for example, the common practice of same-sex friends in India walking in public while holding hands: this is a common behavior and a sign of connectedness between two people. In England, by contrast, holding hands is largely limited to romantically involved couples, and often suggests a sexual relationship. These are simply two different ways of understanding the meaning of holding hands. Someone who does not take a relativistic view might be tempted to see their own understanding of this behavior as superior and, perhaps, the foreign practice as being immoral.
Despite the fact that cultural relativism promotes the appreciation for cultural differences, it can also be problematic. At its most extreme it leaves no room for criticism of other cultures, even if certain cultural practices are horrific or harmful. Many practices have drawn criticism over the years. In Madagascar, for example, the famahidana funeral tradition includes bringing bodies out from tombs once every seven years, wrapping them in cloth, and dancing with them. Some people view this practice as disrespectful to the body of a deceased person. Another example can be seen in the historical Indian practice of sati—the burning to death of widows on their deceased husband’s funeral pyre. This practice was outlawed by the British when they colonized India. Today, a debate rages about the ritual cutting of genitals of children in several Middle Eastern and African cultures. To a lesser extent, this same debate arises around the circumcision of baby boys in Western hospitals. When considering harmful cultural traditions, it can be patronizing to the point of racism to use cultural relativism as an excuse for avoiding debate. To assume that people from other cultures are neither mature enough nor responsible enough to consider criticism from the outside is demeaning.
Positive cultural relativism is the belief that the world would be a better place if everyone practiced some form of intercultural empathy and respect. This approach offers a potentially important contribution to theories of cultural progress: to better understand human behavior, people should avoid adopting extreme views that block discussions about the basic morality or usefulness of cultural practices.
We live in a unique moment in history. We are experiencing the rise of a global culture in which people are connected and able to exchange ideas and information better than ever before. International travel and business are on the rise. Instantaneous communication and social media are creating networks of contacts who would never otherwise have had a chance to connect. Education is expanding, music and films cross national borders, and state-of-the-art technology affects us all. In this world, an understanding of what culture is and how it happens, can set the foundation for acceptance of differences and respectful disagreements. The science of social psychology—along with the other culture-focused sciences, such as anthropology and sociology—can help produce insights into cultural processes. These insights, in turn, can be used to increase the quality of intercultural dialogue, to preserve cultural traditions, and to promote self-awareness.
Think about the following and be prepared to discuss your responses in class:
Be prepared to support your answer.
In the chapter, we discussed how our culture can influence the development of social norms, or expected ways of behaving in certain situations. For example, the expected norm for a classroom may include raising your hand when you have a question and not talking during a lecture. A norm when waiting in a line is to face the front of the line. But what happens when someone violates a social norm? Have you personally ever violated a social norm? If so, what happened? How did you feel? How did others around you respond? These brief videos below illustrate a few social norm violations. How do you think you would respond if you saw someone violating these social norms?
McAdams, D. P. (2020). Self and identity. In R. Biswas-Diener & E. Diener (Eds), Noba textbook series: Psychology. Champaign, IL: DEF publishers. Retrieved from Self and identity
