1. Culture and Socialization

2.  “we all begin with the natural equipment to live a thousand kinds of lives but end having lived only one.” Clifford Gertz

3. Key Questions  How do people become socialized into particular cultural worlds?  How do we acquire culture?  How do child-rearing experiences differ around the world?

4. Look for these themes  How universal predispositions become shaped in culturally specific ways.  How do people’s experiences as infants and children influence the way they think and act.

5. Sensitive periods  Time in development that allows for ease of acquiring skills  Provides evidence of preprogramming.

6. Language acquisition  Human are capable of recognizing around 150 phonemes; no language uses more than 70.

7. Language  Within a year we begin to loose the ability to understand phonemes not in our native language.  Shibboleths “Lollapalooza”

8. Fig. 4.1

9. Is there a sensitive period for cultural learning?  Methodologically difficult to study  Why?  Minoura (1992) looked at when Japanese born children left Japan  <9 felt relatively distant from Japanese culture  9-15 in between  >15 experienced America through Japanese cultural lense

10. Fig. 4.2

11. Divergent childhood experiences  Imagine your first weeks in the world. What was your life like? Consider your environment, your caretakers, your routines?

12. Weisner (2002)  “Parents and children are engaged in activities, which in turn are loosely organized into a daily routine of life, and in turn, into a ‘cultural career’—a way of life that engages the self, identity, and our sense of personhood and meaning”

13. Contentious claims?  1. Healthy development and well- being do not necessarily require many of the scripts and activities that currently preoccupy Western parents.  Well-being is the engagement in everyday activities and routines deemed desirable by one’s cultural community and the psychological experiences produced by that activity

14. Non-wierdos  Well-being is found outside the self  Outside ‘pedagogical’ verbal stimulative, achievement driven pathways  Outside just parent/child dyad

15. Let’s look at one practice  sleeping

16. Sleeping arrangements  Burton and Whiting (1961) surveyed 100 societies and found the US was the only to provide a separate room in the first months of life.  Shweder et al. (1995) Orissa India and Chicago.

17. Sleeping arrangements  What were your sleeping arrangements. Consider number of rooms, gender and age.  Did it change with time? If so, what meaning to you attribute to that?

18. Fig. 4.3

19. India  Incest avoidance  Protection of the vulnerable  Female chastity anxiety  Respect for hierarchy

20. America  Incest avoidance  Sacred couple  Autonomy ideal

21. Dominican Republic

22.  Socialization is the process by which a person becomes a member of a new culture  Is something that emerges from thousands of exchanges between caregivers and infants and later peers.  Bidirectional

23. Definitions  Traditional: make living directly from the land, have not become disconnected from the land  Industrialized: to organize the production of something as an industry: food, clothing, etc.  Takes these things out of the personal domain

24. Individualism and Collectivism  Individualism: person pursues autonomy, independence and personal achievement at the expense of the group  Collectivism: emphasis is on group success and individual aspirations are at times put aside for attainment of group goals

25.  Write 5 words that describe yourself

26. I  Expresses the notion of personal distinctness and separateness with an emphasis on personal attributes, instead of social responsibility and duty.  I persons describe themselves as independent, assertive, competititive, self assured, efficient, self-sufficient.

27. C  Interdependent Connected with other human beings and experience themselves as part of an encompassing social relationship  Orientation towards social norm is suppose to maintain social harmony Your place is often defined through an assigned role (sometimes rooted in religion) India C person describes self as attentive, respectful, dependent, empathic, self controlled.

28.  Individualistic/Independent Industrialized west Collectivistic/Interdependent Traditional/east

29. Attachment styles  Attacment theory hypothesizes that infants and parents are biologically prepared to establish close attachment (Bowlby, 1969).  Biological affordance; can look at how it varies cross culturally

30. Attachment  Secure (62%)  Avoidant (23%)  Anxious/ambivalent (15%)

32. Attachment is influences by who the child spends time with as well as the most common practices in the culture.

33. Developmental transitions  Terrible 2’s  Riding on the bus in Africa  Adolescence  HRAF study of 175 cultures  All socieities thought of it as distinct period of restructuring and role learning (not cultural invention)  Opportunities and choices

34.  Individualistic/Collectivistic response difference  Autonomy and independence may be the key

35. Dependency conflict in West  American middle class “oh what a good boy, you did that all by yourself, no come here and give me a hug”  “You are so independent, I’m so proud of you. Good job”  Independence is praised but rewards are sought.

36.  Rebellion is found in cross cultural evidence but not universal (44% for boys and 18% for girls).  Individualism and modernity seem to increase difficulties.

40. Cultural Pathways to Universal Development  Household structure  Settlement Patterns  Subsistence level  Workload of mother  Gendered division of labor  Level of intimacy between husband and wife  Cultural norms about sibling caretaking

41. Cutlural Pathways  Close relationship formation  Intelligence, Knowledge and Apprenticeship  Autonomy, Relatedness

42. San Bushman

46. Ache of Paraguay

50. Gusii of Kenya

55. Japan

59. US