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“Being Weird: How Culture Shapes The Mind,” By Ethan Watters,

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“Being WEIRD: How Culture Shapes the Mind,” by Ethan Watters, is a compelling article that challenges the reader’s perception on culture and cognition. Instead of cognition affecting culture, our culture affects our cognition. It’s interesting to conceptualize, and it makes one have to introspect their culture, beliefs, attitudes, and actions. Why do we do behave the way that we do? Are our thoughts our own? How much of us is influenced by our environment? This effect of culture can be rooted in our childhoods. We are taught societal norms and how to view, categorize, and perceive the world through the lens of the environment surrounding us. A prime example of this comes from the games we played growing up. A game I played growing up was …show more content…

How could this little girl be so naive and think this was real? “ Oh sweetie it’s just a game, you won’t be a terrible mom in real life don’t worry,” my mom implored. But I was so emotionally invested that I walked away in tears any ways. Growing up, it was beaten into my head the importance of going to college to get a good job. I have to provide for myself and make good money. I won’t be “happy” unless I have this. Even though my parents told me that the game was just a game, I was still impacted by the very thought of not failing at life. Based off the game I had the notion that was how the real world worked, and in a weird way, it is how it works. The goals aspired in that game are ones my parents and authority figures have me strive for continually, to go to college, get a job, have a family, be successful. There’s all kinds of pressure at the dinner table of, “So do you know what you want to be when you grow up? A lawyer, a doctor, or a business woman?” Even in middle school I was given personality assessments to figure out my future career, and how to plan my high school schedule according to my desired profession. But despite the self gratifying goal this game promotes, it teaches kids to plan, prioritize, provide for, and celebrate life achievements. And even though we try to plan out our lives, the game shows us that life may not go the way we plan. There’s this element of chance that life seems to have, whether it’s making it big by

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