06/03/21; Week 7: Culture and Psychology

 Culture and Psychology

Have you noticed how culture and psychology are connected? When we stop to think deeply about the effects our cultural paradigms have on our minds, we realize that much of the prestige or shame we experience in life comes from the influence that culture has on our psychology.

 According to the Professor of Languages and International Studies at BYU-Idaho, John J. Ivers (06 Culture and Psychology, 2015) culture has a significant effect on our self-esteem by exalting or diminishing our talents and producing to different aspects for our lives: the ought self and the real self (the cultural expectations and the reality). It seems that to be happy and fit in a given culture, the more people's real self corresponds to the ought self, the higher their self-esteem and joy will be. However, it's not uncommon for the real self not to match the expectations, making people's life miserable.

What does your culturally-created self tell you?

In Brazil, for example, people are expected to have completed academic formation by their thirties, at least. Attending school or university later than that is not customary. I have already got a bachelor's degree in Languages, but I wasn't satisfied with my background. I decided to resume studying, so I enrolled Pathway Connect Program. I was the oldest student in my class. At first, I felt a little uncomfortable because my culturally-created self was telling me that I was too old to be there.  Later, I watched a testimony of an American mother of four children who graduated from BUY at age 50. This video encouraged me to pursue my goals, ignore my cultural irrational voice and work hard to get an international degree.

My home culture also resonates with stereotypes and irrational assumptions such as Latin people are always happy and friendly, Asian students are shy and the most intelligent ones, and that learning a second language is a matter of individual's effort and practice. I must be aware of these assumptions and any other, to avoid misunderstands and embarrassment in a cross-cultural classroom. 

Students will also come to class with their cultural expectations and contrast them with reality. As a teacher, I  have to be ready to demystify irrational expectations or thoughts about the course, the teacher, their classmates' culture, or themselves. My role is to help them to see that reality doesn't have to correspond to cultural expectations. Cultural expectations can blur the obvious and prevent students from achieving their best.

The reality doesn't have to correspond to cultural expectations. 

Reference

06 Culture and Psychology. (2015, March 12). BYU-Idaho - Ivers Video. https://video.byui.edu/media/06+Culture+and+Psychology/0_s4h3d6bc