Cultural Differences Between Cultures And Cultural Values And Belief Systems

“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.

In Communications Between Cultures individualism and collectivism are described by researchers as “self-orientation versus collective orientation as one of the basic pattern variables that determine human action.” These differences can be found in family life, school, and workplace

Another challenge occurs when emotional influences over the decision-making process, which may over shadow the importance of personal values in the process, pose as another challenge. Emmerling (2003) states that the emotions felt during the decision-making process can have an effect on the number of alternatives, amount of effort people are willing to invest, and people's willingness to take risks.

Culture is a strong determinant of people's views of the very nature and meaning of

As Mahatma Gandhi said, “No culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive” (Mahatma). Our culture identifies who we are and how we behave in social environments and provides us with a foundation in which to live our lives and raise our families. Each individual culture has certain customs and courtesies that are important. Exposure to the cultures of others can be intimidating and can leave a person feeling confused and unsure about how they fit in (Schaefer 60). Culture shock can leave a person feeling out of place in an unfamiliar culture (Schaefer 60). Our diverse societies demand understanding and acceptance of other cultures. Learning and understanding these cultures before being

Individuals in different cultural groups experience the world in different ways based on various perspectives. Basically, they have diverse worldviews. According to Sue, “Worldview constitutes our psychological orientation in life and can determine how we think, behave, make decisions, and define events” (as cited in Mio et al., 2012, p.7). The multiple concepts of worldview are important to understand; however, it is also crucial to that I am able to establish my own worldview through my past childhood experiences. I will able to construct my own unique worldview through the concept of roles, emotional expressions, interdependence/individuation, power, communication, subsystems, family rules, family myths, and family rituals.

Culture and Causal Cognition, a study conducted by Ara Norensayan and Richard E. Nisbett analyzes the differences of perception and cognition of two cultures; American and Eastern Asia. Each of the cross-cultural comparisons had pre-reviewed participants whom had similar demographic values and cognitive abilities in an attempt to control the attempted results with the only casual explanation being the cultural differences.

Recent theoretical and empirical developments in psychology have brought the field to the point where researchers need to be mindful of the generalizability of Western findings to other cultural contexts (Heine & Norenzayan, 2006). Another shortcoming of psychological research is the majority of most influential research giving focus to comparisons of North Americans and East Asians. It is perhaps logical that North Americans specifically and Westerners more generally have usually served as the point of comparison in these studies, due to the majority of psychological theories did in fact arise from such samples. Nevertheless, this ought not to be the case. Heine and Norenzayan (2006) calls for cultural psychological research to go beyond only comparisons of East Asians nations with Western nations. At present, despite the growth of cross-cultural research, very little is known about the psychological processes of the majority of cultures of the world. Another shortcoming of psychological research is that it has largely been limited to explorations of the extent to which concepts and occurrences that have been developed and identified in the West generalize to non-Western cultures.

the things that they see. Every culture has their own individual stereotypes and belief systems. The reason for this is that people place arbitrary meanings on life's occurrences based upon those of the individuals which preceded them. Thought patterns of an individual are all dependent upon the teachings of others.

The idea of cultural universals is rooted in positivist traditions of biology and psychology, as well as structural functionalism. While comparative studies of culture examine differences,

Culture is defined as “The ideas, attitudes, customs, beliefs, values and social behaviour of a particular group of people or society that are passed on from generation to generation” (Brentnall, A., n.d.).

neuroscience, that reflects a growing realisation that the brain is not a wholly individual, biological and chemical product, but also one that incorporates elements of cultural and social formation. This social shaping and enculturation is explored in the next section of this paper.The effect of culture and society on the mind has long been widely accepted and has been studied by anthropologists and social scientists. It is, however, a different prospect entirely to posit that culture and society inform the make-up of the brain as well as the mind. It may be that this notion has elided academic consideration due to the incompatibilities of disciplinary focus points, objectives, philosophical starting-points, language and concepts of formation

Culture is fundamental to understanding human experience. It makes the world inspiring, entertaining, enables effective communication, and influences most factors of modern life, so it’s no surprise that psychologists are interested in the impact it has. Sociocultural psychology and cross- cultural psychology are two different approaches that explore cultural experience. The two disciplines, though different in their definitions of cultural impact, share many of the same goals and ideas, and can arguably offer great insight to the other approach. The potential for collaboration between the two disciplines to garner a rich insight into personal and social cultural influence means that the two approaches are by no means incompatible, and their compatibility can offer a wealth of positive contribution to psychological research.

Take the typical division of the east and the west. Research has shown that people from western cultures think differently from people in the eastern cultures. Westerners tend to see themselves as individuals.

Communication is one of the most important aspects of our lives. It is a process that ties us together and helps us to get most of our work done. Communication plays a big role in transmitting cultural values from one generation to the next. Communication can be categorized as two; verbal and non verbal. In a multiracial country such as Malaysia good communication can be considered as a savior to keep everyone united. Being a multiracial country, it shows the existence of cultural diversity in Malaysia. Cultural diversity often leads to society’s biggest challenge.