Context Of Brazil

We all see the events and objects surrounding us in a cultural lens in which tints, alters, and shapes our perceptions. In a broader aspect, culture shapes how people experience their world. Though a culture is generally understood and thought of as the foods, clothing, holidays, and music a group of people engage in, culture dives deeper than just a group’s visible traditions.

1. Ben Franklin, pointing to the sun carved on the back of the presiding officer's chair, remarked; "Throughout the days we have been laboring here, I have observed that sun, and wondered whether it was a rising sun or a setting sun. Now I know it was a rising sun."1 Throughout our lives we have been told of how our country was formed. I am here to tell you about the things the history books and teachers don’t tell you about the freemasons and there shaping of the United States of America. We will start with freemasons an agency that has been shaping history since the building of King Solomon’s temple.

The past half century has drawn boundaries that separate the poor and the comfortable; this separation is a factor is poverty’s invisibility.

The extreme economic differences between people belonging to the upper and lower classes are ridiculously extravagant. One can see the living conditions between the rich and the poor are extremely unbalanced. This trend is evident in comparing two representative districts in Lima. On one hand is Villa El Salvador, a shantytown located in the southside of Lima where dirty, misery, and hunger are part of the natural landscape on the streets. On the other hand Miraflores, a high-end residential district in Lima where people of white descent live comfortably and the settings are dramatically more favorable than in Villa El Salvador. One can see luxury cars, big houses, and domestic servants of indigenous features in Miraflores and contrast

The first dimension in Hofstede’s cultural dimensions is the power distance. This is “the degree in which people in a particular culture view the unequal distribution of power as acceptable” (McCornack, 2015). Brazil has a much higher belief in power distance than the United States. “In Brazil there is a large power distance, which means that they believe that each person has a place in the social hierarchy, that authorities should not be challenged, that hierarchy and inequality are appropriate and actually benefit the society (Comparing Brazilian Culture to American Culture, n.d.). This is very different to American culture because America was founded on challenging the government. Our constitution was made so that we can challenge our government and keep its power in check, so the government does not abuse its power. Most Americans also believe that inequality is bad for our country. We have gone through many periods of inequality in this country and we look back on them to see what we did wrong and how we can do better now as to not repeat our mistakes. Another dimension is the uncertainty avoidance, “Cultures vary in how much they tolerate and accept unpredictability” (McCornack, 2015). Brazil has a high uncertainty avoidance culture. Cultures like Brazil make rigid rules and set regulations to try and cut down on uncertainty. This can be seen in their history of military leaders as leaders of the country. Brazil is a high-context society, which means they put a strong emphasis on how the message is said rather than focusing on the words used alone. Examples of this include Brazilians will sometimes exaggerate a point but it will be done in a way that the others know it to be an exaggeration. Brazil is also a collectivistic culture. This means that Brazilians emphasize group identity, interpersonal harmony, and the well-being

Looking at the chart the first dimension of culture plotted is individualism-collectivism. This dimension addresses how people define themselves and their relationships with others. Cultures that fall on the individualism side of the continuum share four characteristics. First, such cultures consider the individual to be the most important entity in any social setting. Second, individualistic cultures stress independence rather than dependence. Third, individualistic cultures reward individual achievement. The last characteristic is; individualistic cultures value each individual’s uniqueness.

I wanted to start off this section by giving you an analytical perspective of how Brazilian and American cultures match up. I decided to use Hofstedes Analysis. As you can see by the graph, Brazil and U.S are close in terms of Masculinity, and Indulgence. A high score in Masculinity means people are motivated by power, increased pay and bonuses, and control. A low score would indicate a more caring society which is motivated to care for their employees, work to benefit mankind, and job satisfaction. Brazil and The U.S almost match up. This means both societies are motivated by success in the workplace and care of about their image perceived by others. Indulgence means how would a society spend their time out of the workplace. Introverts would

Culture is the totality of learned, socially transmitted customs, knowledge, material objects, and behavior. It includes ideas, values, and artifacts of groups of people (Schaefer, 2006). Understanding culture can be tricky, ever ask “why do people act the way they do?”, “what made me do that”, “what was I thinking?” Physical abilities, educational background, and social background of how I was raised are important aspects of my life. The environment in which I was raised is very important aspect of my life.

Roger Brooke states that the behavior and experiences of human beings is always contextual and these behaviors are rooted in language, time and cultural history. The relationship between a person and the world includes meaning, interpretations, intentions and significance. Events in our lives not only simply constitutes the change of a label or an identity, but the new identity can constitute a new world of meaning. It can change the understanding of our past. For example, when I became a mother for the first time, my world of meaning, experience and identity was as a wife and a person that worked in a large corporate firm. Becoming a mother not only involved a name change for me, but a change in my world view, in my daily activities, in the way I viewed other

Brazil is a fashion conscious and credit ready culture. Made up mainly of “Mom and Pop” shops which are 60% of the market. Brazil

No matter how hard we try, or how much we study, it is pretty much impossible to become an expert on all the world’s cultures. It is possible however, to be enlightened on a few cultures through some effort and understanding. That is just what we did, through interviewing three people who were raised in cultures different from ours. The following are results from what we learned about different cultural dimensions.

The concept of culture is something that defines many aspects of one’s life. From physical objects to different ways of thinking, culture adds significance to human life and makes groups of people distinct from one another. Culture is essentially a group of people who come together with similar interests and points of view. According to the Center for Advanced Language Acquisition of the University of Minnesota, “culture is defined as the shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of socialization.” From a more sociological perspective, culture is a way in which people come together in order to fulfill their needs. These shared patterns and ideas identify the members of a culture group while also distinguishing those of another group.” Culture is one of the things that sets the United States apart from the rest of the world. Not that the rest of the world is not cultural, but the circumstance here is different. Many people of different cultural backroads come to this country in search of a better life. As a consequence, the United States has become a place where many cultures merge together like a colossal pot soup.

This essay will discuss the influence of cultural dimensions on behavior. A cultural dimension is defined as a perspective of a culture based on its values and cultural norms. In particular, Hofstede’s cultural dimension of individualism vs. collectivism will be discussed. Individualism vs collectivism is defined as the preference of a person only being concerned about oneself and looking after oneself, compared to a person who wants to remain in a closely knitted network. These are some terms with definitions which will be used in this essay: the Asch paradigm, which refers to the studies conducted by Solomon Asch, in which he showed his participants different lines and asked them to verbally judge and respond as to what the length of the

Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1962) identify over 150 scientific definitions of the concept of culture. Indeed, many authors have tried to define culture and this is why there are so many definitions and that a unique one is hard to find. First of all, Kroeber and Kluckholn (1952) assume that culture is a suite of patterns, implicit and explicit, “of and for behaviour acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including their embodiments in artefacts” (p.47). Later, Hofstede adds that culture is “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another” (Hofstede, 1991, p.51). This definition is the most widely accepted one amongst practitioners. For Winthrop (1991), culture is the distinctive models of thoughts, actions and values that composed members of a society or a social group. In other words,

Hofstede consider culture as “the collective programming of the mind”, which makes it necessary to look at the attitudes, beliefs, and values. Explain the element of Hofstede typology.