The Effect of Western and Traditional Societies Orientation of Time on People

Life has its way of turning an individual’s attention to better understanding the overall course of life. One may experience different transitions, and turning points as well as particular life events and family experiences that may influence the developmental trajectories of life. The Moore Family- Ed, Jessica, Derrick, Terrance, Debbie and Barbara- all have stories that have unfolded over a period of time. One of the useful ways I will attempt to explain the Moore’s family stories, and the relationship between time and human behavior, is the life course perspective. The life course perspective maintains that chronological age, relationships, common life transitions, and social change shape people’s lives from birth to death (Hutchinson, 2013). Timing is very important.

The folk theory “As the twig is bent, so grows the tree” was invented by Alexander Pope of the 18th century. This theory means that early influences have a perpetual effect on a person’s life. Many things effect development such as environmental factors, social norms, parental and peer influences. A child learns by watching and early on in life when children have no way of communicating that’s all they do. These early year experiences shape who a person will become and how they will act. This applies to lifespan human development in the earliest years of life including infancy, and part of childhood. Children lead by example, so everything that is experienced helps develop their personality. Subcultural differences, nature and nurture, and

Cultural and societal norms are based on aspects such as differences in opinion, beliefs, and backgrounds. New norms are constantly created as generations come and go, with societal changes taking place daily. Norms are shaped based on the way people are raised, the individuals we surround ourselves with, and the transformations that occur in our lives. Although groups identify and set norms, these can change in our personal lives based on the social groups we interact with as we grow through life, such as groups of friends from childhood that may be different from groups of friends we make as we enter adulthood. As we change from one group to another and transition through life, the result of social norms can be seen through new behavior. For example, an individual who did not grow up regularly attending church or practicing a religion, but later in life decided to start attending religious services and practicing, behavior changes would be evident based on guidelines set by that religion That individual may stop

What causes people’s behaviors to change over time? Is it the society shifting as a whole or it is the little things that gradually affects humans? Each generation has its own special traits, and these traits are depending on the surrounding environment-immediate context. The immediate context is words or behaviors that people are using present day have their meanings, which connects to the surrounding environment. There is a time period that everyone believes that he or she is the best, which brings up the idea of self-centered. In An Army of One: Me, the author Jean Twenge, compares situations under the idea of ‘self-esteem” and the society is over-popularized the idea of “me”. This social problem causes the unbalanced understanding of normal tasks and over trended to individualism and self-centered. However, this social phenomenon does not appear suddenly; instead, it depends on people’s living conditions and the surrounding environment, in other words, which it the immediate context. In The Power of Context, the author Malcolm Gladwell, introduces people were living in a negative environment that full of crime and bad behaviors, which results people’s actions are also changing with the surrounding context. However, there are also little things that exist in the surrounding environment that influences human behaviors; as a result, people are gradually changing the environment into a positive way. During this process, people become more selfless and serve to the society.

"Social Time: The Heartbeat of Culture", is an article for Robert Levine and Ellen Wolff, it extend readers with the authors’ viewpoints and research about ‘time-sense’ in different cultures. Robbert and Wolff emphasize that there is difference of ‘time-sense’ in two levels, which are inter cultural and cross cultural. When we move into a new culture, understanding the differences of ‘time sense’ might help us to set ourselves to new people and also new places. The author also describe how ‘time sense’ vary in different cultures is more explained by the author’s experience and research. Having lived in Brazil meaning "tomorrow" referring to that Brazilians usually defer whatever they need to do. To find out if "the ‘manha’ pattern

Thompson starts out describing how people measured time before clocks and the Industrial Revolution. People measured time in units of domestic activities or natural phenomena, which can be described as task-orientation. Thompson considers this type of time-measuring to be “natural” and believes that a task-oriented society results in little distinction between work and life. However, to people used to timed labor, such an attitude to labor appeared to be wasteful.

Three ways that people in monchronic and polychronic cultures differ may be identified in viewpoints of time, concentration, and commitments.

To an extent we are each born into a social system that, while constantly evolving, is a pre-existing influence on our behavior and outlook and on our understanding of difference” (Spencer p.10).

In the essay “Social Time: The Heartbeat of Culture” written by Robert Levine With Ellen Wolf, the article illustrates the differences of time in different countries. Also, the article talks somehow countries and culture differ in many ways. First of all, the writer showed how some people from Brazil and some countries tend to deal with time and how they prefer to spend their time as they want. Furthermore, the writer mentioned something which I really liked he said, “How a country places its social life is a mystery to most outsiders, one that we’re just beginning to unravel” those words made me thinking about what makes those differences on cultures and how people became the way they are today. Another example that the writer mentioned

Karen Maximos essay My Watch Ticks Differently explains how in different cultures around the world time is perceived differently and how in some cultures being on time is rude and in other cultures being late is disrespectful. The main situation is that everyone has a different perception on time and how to manage it. The writer want the readers to raise awareness about how each individual from different cultures perceive time and to respect how they do it. The writer is trying to accomplish that you shouldn’t criticize anyone on their time management because in their eyes they are right and they feel as if they are on schedule.

In addition, they too have been growing and learning in their own environment with different family members’ influences.  Each of our own influences, in turn, influences others.  From there, we again take in and learn what we can so we can make our own decisions on how to define our “selves”.  Later, society influences our thoughts on who we are as people and our relation to the world as a whole.  There is a constant norm that people try to assimilate to or diverge from.  Society presents its own ideas of who we should be as people, and it is then our own job to take that information and do what we will with it to make our own definition for ourselves of who we are.

Religion. This model is comprised of six different main ideas, theses key points are part of all cultural groups. The first point is communication. The features that influence communication are worldwide; these features differ between cultures regarding nonverbal communication, voice quality and articulation. The second factor is space, the views of space varies in each culture. Each culture has divers views on space regarding public, personal and intimate space. The third factor of Giger and Davidhizar’s Model is social orientation. Each culture has their own beliefs on social orientation in regards to work, religion, family role and friends. The fourth factor that plays into this model is time. Time is observed, measured and appreciated differently within different cultures. The fifth factor is environmental control. Environmental control entails procedures and methods that affect and are affected by persons or the culture as a whole. The sixth and last concept of the Giger and Davidhizar’s assessment model is biological variations. Each culture differs in biological variations, for example, metabolism, body weight, color of skin, certain diseases and different body structures.

Modernity revolves around the rational application of scientific method to certain aspects of life. This could be done through the development of governmental regulations, bureaucratic observation, and the erosion of traditional values (Beck, Lash & Giddens, 1997). New thought processes and the increase in the application medicine and technology have played important roles in the concept of rationalism (Bilton et al, 2002). The character of modern society could be defined by rationalism (Macionis & Plummer, 2012: 123); this can be clearly seen in the South African rational social organization context from hunter gatherer days to modern day society. An example of this would be how the essence of time has changed within society. In traditional hunter gatherer societies, like “The San and Zulu clans”, before technological inventions such as the clock was introduced, people used to base their time on the sun and moon’s position as well as seasons to allocate their time in regions and activities in order to conduct their livelihood (South Africa African Religions, 1996). However, in modern day society, owing to the clock invention, scheduled activities/events are precisely on the hour and minute (Macionis & Plummer, 2012: 123). Thus, modern society has allowed individuals to be more efficient, by limiting time constraints through technology and infrastructure and has greatly improved the livelihoods of people, owing to better healthcare and institutions which affectively address

The old-traditional way of life has vanished for ever. Today only villages and some small towns remind us of this kind of life, and as time passes, more people choose to abandon traditional way of life, to move to the “big city”. Modern way of life has nothing in common with the traditional one. Human habits, values, norms have changed. The most important of these social changes can be observed in human relationships, family economy, education, government, health, and religion. To be able to examine these changes, one has to compare traditional and modern way of life.

Day labourers, London prostitutes, and Mexican migrants are communities that live on the margins of society. Their status and occupation labels them as outcasts as they are considered to be communities who are deviant from societal norms (Gill 1999:120; Day 1999:141; Gonzales and Chavez 2012:277) These individuals live their daily lives in the ‘here and now’, in other words, their temporal orientation is towards the present. According to Park et al., (2016:1-5) and Kwapinska (2009:433), temporal orientation towards the present refers to a cognitive structure where individuals live and focus on their day- to-day life, they do not think about the future nor do they make future plans. In addition, these individuals have an ongoing concentration to the present or the ‘here and now’ (Kwapinska 2009:434). According to Kwapinska (2009:434) temporal orientation is the flow of time, which links various events from the past, present and future. In addition, temporal orientation affects an individual’s decision, personality, and motivation (Kwapinska 2009:434). According to Billing et al., (2009:212) a strong indicator of an individual’s temporal orientation is their emphasis on planning and scheduling. Planning behavior refers to setting goals and priorities for the future (Billing et al., 2009:213). The three marginalized communities mentioned above are the focus of this paper as they have a common perception of time which impacts their lives.