Propinquity Effect

            While reading chapter 9 on attraction and relationships I was very intrigued by a study Heine (2012) summarized. The study was done by Segal in 1974; he looked at friendships that had been created at the Maryland Police Academy. At the Academy, everything regarding the new recruits was categorized based on alphabetical order. How they were lined up, where there bunks were located and where they were seated in class. This appeared to have a huge effect on how friendships were formed. The recruits were later asked to nominate their best friend at the academy. It seemed as though 45% of the recruits nominated their friend that was adjacent to them in alphabetical order. At first glance this appears to be a very superficial way to make friends, but according to the propinquity effect, people are much more likely to be friends with people they see and interact with on a regular basis.

            I have had and have been able to witness several friendships develop very similar to that of the recruits at the Maryland Police Academy.  One experience that I have encountered seems most applicable in this situation.  The summer between grade 11 and grade 12 I participated in a French immersion summer camp in Quebec City. When I signed up to participate in this camp I did not know any other people who were going and thus was going to have to make friends some way. Upon arrival we were given some time to unpack our things and assigned a time to participate in icebreakers.  When I went to the icebreakers meeting, I still had not meet anyone. There were roughly ten people in the group and they came to be my core group of friends for the summer. Although we eventually did come to discover mutual characteristics, we initially based our friendship on proximity. 

Culture and Mental Illness

             Mental illness is a universal phenomenon, affecting people of all populations and cultures. The way in which it is manifested is where culture appears to play a significant role. There is no doubt that mental illness exists worldwide today, but the key difference is how it exists. There are many disorders that are culturally-bound such as hikiomori and koro. There are also disorders that appear to be universal such as depression and social anxiety disorder. The link that culture has is the way in which they are manifested. There appears to be varying rates of prevalence worldwide, for example depression is one of the most common disorders in Canada but is very rarely diagnosed in China. The opposite effect is seen when looking at prevalence rates about Social Anxiety Disorder; rates are much higher in countries such as China than they are in the West.

            There is a stigma attached to mental illness in many places around the world, for example in China there is a strong stigma regarding depression, causing people who suffer from depression in China to be less likely to approach a professional to talk about their problems.  In relation to my own life I notice a strong stigma that related to many cases of mental illnesses. For example a good family friend suffers from depression, so much so that she is unable to work. There appears to be criticism regarding whether this is a legitimate form of sick leave. In our Western culture we separate physical and mental illness and therefore people may suggest that it should not imply the same form of sick leave benefits. There has been lots of work done locally to try and eliminate the stigma associated with mental illness, which is great to see these initiatives taking place. Mental illness is still a sensitive issue in many places around the world and can lead to people experiencing and explaining mental illness in different ways.

            A form mental illness that appears to be culturally bound is eating disorders. Eating disorders are unfortunately a very common diagnosis here in the Western world. There is so much media coverage on what the normative body is and the idea body type being slim. This messages we see in the media are negatively impacting many women who feel pressure to try to attain these bodies by going to no ends. I have a friend who is very skinny; she never appears to eat much when I am around and over exercises daily. It is so sad to see people, especially people close to me fall victim to these messages and compromise their health in the process of trying to attain the “perfect body.” These eating disorders, anorexia and bulimia tend to be culturally bound due to the influence of media in our culture. In many cultures around the world it is seem as a form of wealth and status to be overweight. This being said there appears to be a long way to go before any universal standards are created regarding mental heath, as there are so many contributing factors to mental illness. 

Culture and Body Type

             It is suggested by Heine (2012) that culture is not only influencing the way we act and think but it is also influencing the way in which our bodies develop. There is a link between culture and height, weight, and even health. It seems to me that the main link here is socio-economic status and what we are able to buy. For example culture is influenced with height but it appears to be based on the fact that when we belong to a culture that has a high average socio-economic status one would be able to purchase more healthy foods and thus would in turn promote growth. If people had access to vitamins and nutrients during all the critical growth periods there is a strong potential that they would be able to grow to their maximum potential height.

            This seemed to be particularly pertinent in my home. It seems as though there is only so much one can do to increase their height. My brother is a hockey player and he was really feeling the pressure of his size in that he felt that he really needed to grow taller as well as bigger. He spent the summer eating well and exercising in an attempt to grow. He would measure his height quite frequently. This seems relevant to the idea that we do have some control over our bodies based solely on the culture we belong to and our socioeconomic status.

            Another point I found very interesting was that socioeconomic status is linked to heath. To elaborate, there appears to be a clear relationship between mortality and socioeconomic status, meaning those who have the highest socioeconomic status will live longer than those who don’t. This seemed to surprise me; those who make the most money will live the longest? It seemed from previous reading from this course based on happiness that happiness and subjective well-being were linked to longevity. These two ideas seem contradicting in a sense to me. The majority of the time it seems that those who make more money are more likely to have more stress associated with their work and this an opposite feeling to happiness which as been shown to increase longevity.

            To relate this idea to my own life I consider the employment of my parents. My father is a middle school vice principal while my mother works for the school board. My mother’s job pays more than my fathers and is also much more demanding, as she doesn’t have the summer vacation and tends to work longer days. My mother also seems to be much more stressed about her job than my father causing her to loose sleep often. With these differences it seems hard to say who will live longer and if there is a difference in their overall happiness and what the long-term effects of stress are. 

Universality of Emotions

            Facial expressions are often seen as a reflexive result of an emotional experience. As the textbook author, Heine (2012) points out this is evident when we look at how can produce such expressions as smiling when feeling happy. It is brought to attention that people such as children, adults and even children born blind will all smile when they experience happiness. By seeing that blind children are able to smile it is clear that smiling is reflexive as these children would not be able to imitate this expression or culturally learn it. From this we can support the idea that facial expressions are a part of our biological makeup, making them a universal experience. Although people are better at identifying facial expressions of people from their culture, they are generally able to identify from other cultures as well. It has been proposed by Ekman as cited in Heine (2012) that there is a set of basic emotions that are universal, they include: anger, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, and disgust.

            To a certain degree we can control how we express our emotions, certain cultures promote freely expressing how one feels, while other cultures stress more of a reserved facial expression to mask how one is really feeling. Here in Western cultures we are very liberal in how we display our emotions, while East Asian, in particular Japanese people are brought up to conceal their emotions in many circumstances. How we show our emotions is referred to as display rules.

            As I mentioned in a previous post, I have never travelled abroad and therefore haven’t had the chance of experiencing a culture very different from own culture here. The closest change to our culture would be when I travelled to Ottawa to live in a L’Arche home.  As I also mentioned in that early post the residents of the home were nonverbal and French. Much of communication was done through facial expressions. When you can’t receive an answer verbally you have to seek out other ways to understand the information and often I would use visual cues of emotions. So if one of the core members were to smile it was easy to infer that they were feeling happen. By having emotional reflexes as universal it is pretty easy to be able to interpret emotions. Living with 5 people who don’t talk and only understand French seemed as though it would be nearly impossible until you understand all the alternatives to spoken language.

            In instances such as my trip to L’Arche Ottawa, I am extremely grateful for the universality of emotions. Even just walking down the street some people seem much more approachable simply by the way they express their emotions, and the display rules that go along with their culture. I can only imagine that people may not seem as approachable in Japanese cultures were the display rules prompt their population to keep their emotions guarded, would they be more apt to have a flat expression, or to always smile?

Fairness

            There are three main principles on how one decides what is fair. They are the principle of equality, the principle of equity and the principle of need. We can see all of the principles in our culture. There are many differences cross culturally that determine how one believes that resources should be allocated with regard to the equity and equality principle. The principle of need tends to be implemented in many regions, such as through social institutions like hospitals that provide healthcare and welfare systems. The principle of equality can be subdivided into a system of seniority. The equality principle states that all members receive the same amount of resources. When this is broken down into the seniority system, time or age also plays a role in how the resources are allocated. So for example, everyone who is working their first year with the company will make the same while everyone working with the company for their 30^th year will make the same, which is more than those working their first year. The principle of equity can also be broken down into a system, the meritocracy system. The principle of equity states that resources be distributed based on the contribution that an individual put forth. The meritocracy system rewards people based on the amount of work they contributed.  A good example of the meritocracy system is working on commission. 

            Many times in my life I have felt that all 3 of these principles are important in deciding fairness. The principle of need has some nicely implemented programs such as healthcare. We are extremely lucky living in Canada to have access to healthcare. As well as welfare for those who need assistance while trying to get their life sorted out. The principle of equality seems to be the dominant influence in my life, as is typical of western cultures. This principle seems to be the most influential to me because the majority of my life and decisions revolves around education at this point. The equity principle also seemed to be influential in my work life. I was being paid on the seniority system. While I worked at the same place for 2 years, I was making the same as my coworkers, with the exception of one employee who was working for her 3^rd summer but this summer as a supervisor. By having this position and title she was making more than us, this reflects the seniority system.

            It is clear that all of these principles of fairness can be seen in our lives daily regardless of what culture we come from. It is more the importance each view holds in different cultures that we can examine cross culturally.

Incremental versus Entity Theories of the Self

           There appears to be two major underlying views of the self, the incremental theory of the self and the entity theory of the self. These two theories of the self represent the underlying views we have of ourselves. An incremental theory of self reflects the belief that an individual’s traits and attributes can be changed or improved upon with some sort of external input, such as working harder. An entity theory of the self, views an individual’s abilities and traits as mostly fixed leaving little room for improvement or change. It has been suggested that individuals that are more hard working in school would have more of an incremental view of the self, in that they believe that intelligence is malleable, if they work hard, their marks will reflect their hard work. Someone with an entity view of the self would feel little need to prepare, or study as they think regardless of the input the output will always be the same. These are two very opposing views of the self that seem to dominate the ways of thinking. Many members of Western cultures view themselves in more of an entity view, while members of Eastern cultures view themselves with an incremental theory of self.  Although these are in general terms, every culture is heterogeneous in that both ways of thinking would be expressed.

            I have been taught from a very young age, that I don’t just get anything or deserve anything without working for it. This incremental way of thinking has been instilled into my brain from day one. I always do my homework and school work to prepare for examinations. When I go to write an exam I always have an incremental theory of self, believing that the work I did to prepare for this exam will pay off with a good mark. I am not able to go into an exam and think that regardless of what I did my mark will be the same. This would save me plenty of time studying but I don’t think my marks would be what I want. I have a very strong sense of an incremental theory of self when it comes to my education.

            I have also had experiences where I exemplify an entity theory of the self. Many times when applying for a job of having an interview, we catch ourselves repeating the phrase, “it’s not what you know but rather, who you know.” If we analyze this expression we find ourselves saying that being the best for the job is not as important as knowing the management, or who will be doing the hiring. This is a strong reflection of an entity theory of self. Based on these two examples I can say that I hold both views of the self to a certain degree. 

Face Enhancement in East Asian Cultures

            As I have mentioned in previous entries, face is the amount of social value that others attribute to you if you live up to the standards of your position.  What I want to address in this posting is how members of an East Asian culture maintain their face. In particular I want to focus on how East Asian’s maintain their face by means of consuming brand name clothing.

            The way in which we present ourselves based on our clothing can say a lot about us. For example many members of the Western world dress in a way that seems to exemplify their uniqueness while not dressing too far away from the norm. While reading the text I noticed a stat that seemed very surprising to me, over 50% of the sales from brand name companies such as Louis Vuitton occur in East Asia. When it comes to face, people are more concerned with how others view them than with how they view themselves.

            When I read this stat I began to reflect upon instances I remember when family and friends went to China to work as teachers and the amount if material, name brand goods they would return with. Many of our family friends would end up purchasing more than double the items they would leave with, and end up shipping the majority of the goods home.  One instance in particular that I can remember, was a friend was buying tons of The North Face winter jackets, since they were costing her relatively little. Although many of the goods were most likely knockoffs, it fits with this phenomenon that many people from East Asian want to “dress to impress” as a way to keep their face high. If everyone wanted to wear brand name goods to maintain their face, there would surely be those who weren’t able to afford it, and thus a whole new business comes into place to make the knockoffs.

           

            There seems to be quite the market in East Asia for brand name clothing, and so much so that there are now just as many if not more knockoffs being made in order to meet the needs of all members of the society. This can be quite evident when we visit large cities for example, New York City. We can visit Chinatown, where there are many street vendors trying to sell you items that they insist are real designer brands, but most likely are knockoffs. I was able to experience this twice while visiting NYC. After the late shows are over, many street vendors come out with bags and bags of “designer” handbags. Although 50% of many brand name sales occur in East Asia, many Americans still wear brand name clothing, but for more of a different reason. When I wear name brand clothing it is usually to feel better about my self. We often hear the expression “dress well, play well” meaning that dressing well will increase our self-esteem, which in turn usually makes others see us in a positive way as well. East Asians tend to wear brand name clothing for the sole reason of increasing or maintaining face. 

Motivation for Self-Enhancement and Self-Esteem

           When beginning the course I was very naive to different perspectives from different cultures. I looked at much of the material in a very ethnocentric way, especially when I came across the section on self-esteem. Why wouldn’t we see cross-culturally, self-esteem as a positive quality? The more I read the more my ethnocentric bias was being revealed. I have always been taught that its important to see your self positively and to do whatever it takes to make yourself appear high in self-esteem. I thought, that if this is what we strive for in North American, individualistic cultures, and that it’s not a cultural universal, than what do East Asian, collectivists, strive for?  What they strive for is something that doesn’t even properly translate into our English language. They strive for “face”, where we are so concerned with how we see ourselves; they are more concerned with how others view them.

            I began to realize just how important it is for us to maintain our level of self-esteem. Self-enhancement is very important to our culture, for example we tend to view successes as much more salient, and memorable than our failures. East Asians tend to view the failures as more memorable as they constantly think about them. While reflecting on these themes I saw examples of my own life that reflected these individualistic tendencies regularly, particularly during midterm season. We have many strategies to maintain our self-esteem and I can admit to using each one in the book on a subconscious level. Once midterms were just about done and marks started coming back I noticed I was doing well generally speaking, with the exception of a few classes. I began to apply all sorts of different techniques to reduce the responsibility from myself in order to feel better about my situation, and increase my self-esteem. I used downward comparisons, where I thought, “well even though its not as good as I wanted to do, there were many people who failed and well at least I was above the class average.” Not only did I use that strategy but I also attempted to discount the importance, “ah, well its just a midterm!” I even attempted to pass the blame by making an external attribution. I had the flu for a week before midterms began, so I even caught myself saying that my poor marks were due to being sick and unable to study.

            If I were a member of a collectivist culture, I would see this situation of a poor midterm grade in a much different way. Most likely I would not be likely to think, “ah, well its just a midterm!” I would view this midterm as more important that it actually was, I would not engage in downward social comparisons but rather engage in upward social comparisons. From the research it appears that East Asians like themselves just as much as Americans like themselves, but East Asians don’t feel the need to view them so positively, they are more critical of themselves.

            In being a good student I have always thought of myself as very critical of my failures, and that I take responsibility for my grades. After reading this section I can see that very often I engage in practices that reflect the individualistic cultures that I have the need to maintain high self-esteem. As many studies have made clear there is no black and white with cultural studies, but rather a heterogeneous mixture of traits that represent both individualistic and collectivist cultures.