Entradas

Culture and Psychology

Imagen
Culture is one of the most powerful forces in the world. It shapes how we make sense of our world, how we express ourselves and how we understand and relate to others. In this textbook we introduce cultural universals and culturally specific constructs in psychology. This textbook was created for an undergraduate course that appeals to psychology majors and non-majors because it meets several general education and transfer credit requirements. As a result, cross-cultural psychologists suggest that many observations about human thought and behavior may only be generalizable to specific subgroups. To develop a broader, richer understanding of people that can be applied to a wider variety of cultural settings, it is essential for researchers to also look at people from diverse cultures. Cross-cultural brain research touches on a wide run of points, so understudies curious about other brain research themes may select to too center on this zone of brain research. For illustration, a chi...
Publicar un comentario
Leer más

Differences in Manners

Imagen
  This is an interesting topic, when I was reading I was thinking about some things we do here in El Salvador, and one thing that came into my mind was that when we are walking and we pass in front of some people that are eating we say Provecho that could be translated to have a nice meal, I do not think that Americans have a word that you say when someone is eating, anyway, here in El Salvador is common to say that when a stranger is eating and you pass near them. Another thing that I could think of is that here in El Salvador when we know someone, friends, and family we say hello with a kiss on the cheek, and when I tried to do this in the USA they looked at me like I was insane haha. Also with my friend from Spain, it was weird that they kiss 2 times on the cheek. I read that in Asia, letting tips in a restaurant is an insult, but here in El Salvador is disrespectful to not let tips when the waiter or waitress gave you a good service. In Asia you need to take off your shoes ...
2 comentarios
Leer más

Cross-Cultural Students in the Classroom

Imagen
  I haven’t had the opportunity to be in a multicultural ESL classroom or to have foreign students when I was at high school, but in experience, at my mission, I could have the opportunity to know different cultures, American, Mexican, Argentina, Chilean, Bolivian, Paraguayan, among others. All are from America. I think everyone from El Salvador to Argentina we are really open-mind, friendly and likes jokes. I will like to share my experience in a Salvadorian classroom, we are like in the video says that when the class is almost finishing, maybe 5 minutes before the finish, students are saving their notebooks and everything even if the teacher hasn’t finished, and sometimes the teacher says “Why are you saving your notebooks, I haven’t finish yet, I will let you homework” and all the students need to get our their notebooks again. For us is disrespectful to talk between students when the teacher is talking, but sometimes we do. One thing I have seen in movies about Asian students...
Publicar un comentario
Leer más

Attributional Tendencies

Imagen
  At the first time I did not understand what attributes means or what was internal and external attributes, but what I understand is that internal attributes are when we think we have the fault of something, I’m responsible for something, and when we are external attribute is when we think is other’s fault. Our students will have different types of attributes, we need to recognize what they have to help them in their learning because if he always is thinking that is her/his fault their affective filter will be high, and sometimes when they think is other’s fault they won’t be responsible of their mistakes, they will think is everybody’s fault when sometimes will be theirs. It is interesting to know who different are in every culture, even with these attributes we can misunderstand many points of view. That is why like I always say, we need to know our students, be emphatic and tolerant with their views, and respect what they think, but let them know that we do not think the sa...
1 comentario
Leer más

Personal Space Differences

Imagen
  Reading the article Personal Space Ownership I realized that no matter what is your culture we all have this monitor in our brains that keep us aware of the space around our bodies. Why do our minds focus on how close or far people are from us? People can have positive or negative emotions depending on how close you approach to them. Different cultures have distinct: intimate, friend, social and audience zones. Our zone distances may changes depending on where we are and the circumstances we are into. Something that I learned in this article is that when our “air bubble” is invaded we get more anxious and want to protect our personal space. People may react in different ways depending on the situation.   If you want to approach to a person’s space or “air bubble” just be aware of the clues they reflect when you are talking, walking backward or toward them and some facial expression or gestures they do. This can be one the things we as future teacher must taught to our stud...
Publicar un comentario
Leer más

Individualism vs. Collectivism

Imagen
  People with collectivistic tendencies value group decision making, fulfill roles within a group  and are interdependent. Countries that are considered collectivistic include Japan, China, Indonesia, Brazil and India. People that are more individualistic are independent, self-sufficient, and pursue individual goals and achievements. Americans, Canadians, and Australians generally fall into this category. In an individualistic view, individuals are considered free people, dependable for their claim choices and their results. A person’s personality i.e., the sense of self in an individualistic society tends to be based primarily on one’s individual experiences accomplishments, challenges, career, connections with other individuals, etc. EE.UU, Australia, Canada, and Britain are extraordinary individualistic countries. On the opposite, in a collectivist culture, individuals are forbid, which implies that they are not isolated units. Individuals are portion of a bigger gather a...
3 comentarios
Leer más

Differences in Emotional Expressivity

Imagen
  We might think that nonverbal expressions are universal and, for this reason, understandable for all people around the world, but this does not work out that way. Emotional expressivity is one of the things that is more easily misunderstood than many other things in cross-cultural differences. It’s very, very easy to interpret different ranges—to misinterpret different ranges of emotional expressivity. An emotional expressivity scale. Into this scale, we can find groups with a low tolerant expressivity, a high tolerant expressivity, and those in the middle. For example, the Japanese do not show their emotions in public, but Hispanics are quite the opposite, and Americans are in the middle Then, as ESL teachers, it is important to know the differences in emotional expressiveness to avoid misunderstandings and offenses and to create a comfortable environment to learn together. I have just shown understudies of my own way of life, and I feel good being an individual of high ex...
3 comentarios
Leer más