Cultural Differences Between Social Systems And Human Relationships

Have you ever wondered why someone act or feels the way they do? Many combined variables develops the way a person acts and feels. These variables come from learning, watching and experiencing different aspects of life. Ultimately, these experiences shape your behaviors and beliefs creating your culture. What happens when you go to another country, state, city or neighborhood? Do you act and behave like the people in these places? In the broad sense everyone acts the same in the regards to surviving; however, the details of how they live can be very different. When you go to a place outside you own culture, you will experience a change in culture. In this anthropology research, I will take an ethnologist approach to how my husband and step mother’s culture has changed within the American society. I will give examples of how these cultures are similar and different in regards to standard of living, education and employment opportunities. I will even discuss realities and problems that exit. All together I will give you a look at what it is like to experience a culture change from Mexico to America and the Philippines to America.

Like in any other scientific discipline, Sociologists focus on observation and experimentation to form hypotheses and reach new conclusions relating to their field of study. However, many of a culture’s most important issues or traits cannot be neatly defined to be measured in a study scenario. This issue proves to be uniquely problematic to Sociology and results in a possible (or even probable) misinterpretation of statistics regarding certain aspects of a society’s outlook. In his article, Concepts, Indicators, and Reality, Earl Babbie discusses this topic and the challenges it poses at length.

In the history of human societies, geographic differences are considered to be a factor that led to different lifestyles, values and beliefs that prevailed and have been the distinct characteristic of specific societies in the world today. From a broader viewpoint, it can be said that Asian cultures differ from North American, European, South American, and African cultures. However, it can also be said that there are similarities between North American, European, and African cultures, in the same way that Asian, South American, and again, African cultures share specific values and beliefs. These similarities and differences demonstrate that we are different from each other in so many ways, but we also have similarities that link each individual with another, and ultimately, that we are interdependent with each other.

Answer: Ethnical issues faced by anthropologists when they conducting an ethnographic research is dealing with situations that conflict with their own morals. For example, Sterk was faced by a lot of drugs in which you can gather she did not encounter on a regular basis in her life. She had knowledge that few women who knew they were HIV positive still continued to have unprotected sex. Not only did her bond allow her to care for these women and become concerned with their well being but she had no choice but to keep her opinions to herself. She was sitting on information that would stir up the pot in the society knowing that HIV was easily being spread through prostitution. Anthropologists will be faced with many things that may go against what they firmly believe in.

Nathan faced ethical questions in approaching this research project using an undercover method of observation: Did she lie to people? Was permission given by the university? How to handle the Research Board? Could she record her findings or conversations since she did not disclose her identity? Can an anthropologist really go “undercover”? These are a few of the concerns and criticisms the author faced during this project.

Anthropology is a worldwide discipline which involve social institution, humanities and natural sciences. Cultural anthropology studies the contemporary human cultures and shows how social behavior are formed and how they shape the world around them. Anthropological researchers always have ethical obligations, especially to the materials they study, and the group of people with whom they work. When exploring the community, anthropologists learn about matters that their informants would prefer to keep their identity secret which leads them to protect informant identity. Social research can impact ethical dilemmas. A simple mistake of the anthropologist may lead to social isolation of an informant. Anthropologists should always know whether the group they are being researched wishes to stay anonymous or receive recognition.

Anthropologists then, write ethnographies which are first hand detailed description of a living culture. Often anthropologists will find individuals within the society who are willing to become informants. Even though informants can be very helpfully, they often hold bias views about their culture. Some anthropologist must learn new and sometimes unwritten languages and this may require extra training. An anthropologist's class, race, gender, language, dress, religion, and age, all effect how he/she will be interpreted by the local people.(Cultural Anthropology pg31). Each step in anthropological research brings about dilemmas common to any human interaction, engagement versus detachment, subjectivity versus objectivity, particularization versus generalization, induction versus deduction(Fieldwork, Ethnography and Ethics in Anthropology). On many occasion's, the anthropologist will leave their projects, with a new found respect and begin to question their own cultures.

Culture itself is a complex topic with multiple definitions ranging from the organic to the mechanical, the natural to the manufactured. In a world composed of different groups, we see many variations of culture. Cultural universals are traits, patterns, and elements that transcend specific groups and can be applied to all known cultures (Macionis 2014). This idea implies that mankind and its multiple cultures are interconnected by patterns of fulfilling human needs that occur on a global scale. Specific examples of cultural universals extend from medicine to the family unit. Though anthropologists and sociologists have found support for the existence of cultural universals, the idea of these universal aspects of culture still draw criticism from critical and postmodern scholars and by individuals who ascertain cultural universals are in a natural state of opposition with cultural relativism.

People are complex. Our various characteristics, including but not limited to, behaviors, ideals, perspectives, attitudes, and physical attributes make us who we are as individuals and society as a whole. The macrocosm of society, by default of the people within it, is supremely complex. As we would expect, society is evolutionary and as such, there are numerous theoretical approaches to its study. The three major theoretical approaches are examined here.

Why A Public Anthropology? addresses the issue about why cultural anthropology is not affective by its current stance of “not doing any ethical harm” and into more detail explains why IRB’s should make notions to move towards a more positive stance of "doing good." Throughout the explanation of ethical violations from five given cases, the details will prove why these violations emphasize that the review board’s current stance of "do no harm is an ethically ambiguous position”. Even with anthropologists going in with the intentions of not doing harm result in the exact opposite; including national governments who try to avoid ethical issues end up just over-regulating research studies. These actions limit researcher ability to do well and cause additional problems. IRB’s focus on positive results is based on monetary value and time however this does not show respect and sensitivity. In the reading of this research I conclude it is due to the lack of similarity to the participants of the study leads to lack of care and treatment, thus threatening their wellbeing leads to the ethical issues in research cases and regulation. To solve this problem, Institutional Review Boards and Review Ethics Boards should create a set of common rules, these rules could easily differentiate what between what is what is and what is not ethical behavior and additionally it would facilitate all types of data in research projects that

There is much debate in the ethics involved in anthropological research and how much the research boards should get involved, because such involvement limits the amount of freedom a researcher has to conduct their experiment. The International Review Board and the Review Ethics Boards should have a common set of regulations to protect the rights of research subjects as well as ensure the subjects receive the maximum amount of benefits while minimizing harm. However, while it is critical to ensure that these regulations are being enforced and the researcher’s actions are being monitored, the interpretations of these regulations should not be so harsh as to unnecessarily limit and sabotage the entire researcher’s purpose if the experiment would

In anthropology, we push ourselves to channel examinations in a way that does not hurt the people we are studying. It helps use understand people outside our judging views. From the cases I’ve read, researchers haven’t always organized honest studies.

It is amazing to note that humans are a type of species that can smartly organize and form a community. Several of these communities create their cultural norms and beliefs that make their society a place to live. Willis, K. and Elmer, S. (2007, p3), defines society as the identifying pattern of behaviour, meanings and beliefs in order to uncover the links between individual lives and social forces.

societies use kinship as a basis for forming social groups and for classifying people. However,

Culture is a part of every nation and every society. Although it is found in every society, they all are different in their own respects. Some may have similar aspects, but no two societies are exactly the same due to what could be small variations or very drastic ones. Due to these discrepancies, this is where Anthropology comes into play. Anthropology studies and compares human societies and culture along with their development. Some anthropologist dedicates their whole bodies of work to one society because there is so much information that needs to be covered about the said group. Some topics that they look at are kinship, language, subsistence, political systems, and much more. James F. Weiner (1988) and Sir John Eric Sydney Thompson (1930) both look at all of these themes when conducting their ethnographic studies in Asia and Central America. James F. Weiner looked at the Foi people while Sir John Eric Sydney Thompson. When viewing these two cultures gender roles and subsistence seem to be the most interesting to compare.