3 Jun 2020 Week 7 Response To Culture and Psychology

Two things that Professor Ivers said caught my attention. One is how the ought self and the real self affects self-esteem. The closer your real self is to the self (ought self) your culture expects you to be the higher your self-esteem. Whereas the greater the difference between the ought self and real self the lower a person's self-esteem will be.

The other thing is how most people tend to conform to the stereotypes that exist in their culture. Some are race-based, such that if you are reminded of your race prior to doing something then you psychologically and unconsciously will adjust your performance to conform to the relevant stereotypes.

I do not consider myself to have low self-esteem although there are times when I put myself down and count myself a failure for the way aspects of my life have turned out. Beyond this, there are expectations, some of which I would guess are cultural, for which my life doesn't conform and this leads me to a feeling of failure or that I don't have a place within society and/or my culture.

I have two adult children still living with me when my culture expects them to have already moved out. I am divorced and still single in a church culture that focuses on the family to the extent that to be unmarried means to not be able to reach the full potential God wants me to reach and I have aged out of the singles branches that the church has which generally are broken into two groups of age 18 to 30 and 31 to 45 leaving out singles who are older than that.

In the United States, I feel there is an expectation that a working person's income generally increases until the time they retire. In my case, my income peaked in 2012 (at age 45) and has declined since then. I currently earn about 10 percent of what I earned at my peak. In the United States, there is no financial help for someone like me who changes careers to avoid becoming disabled. I left the computer industry to avoid losing the use of my hands due to carpal tunnel syndrome and the pain it can cause. I am currently a farmer who worked in dining services to earn money during the offseason.

I did not mean to make this post so much about me and I certainly don't want anyone reading it to feel bad for me as I am doing fine in spite of these challenges but in many cultures, including the United States, it is expected that a person works for a living or else suffer becoming homeless. I have a dim view of such a capitalist system.

Anyway, in the classroom, a teacher that understands the cultural expectations of their students and the real self of their students will be in a much better position to help their students. Especially when those cultural expectations are irrational.

2 Jun 2020 Week 7 Response To Differences in Manners

Different cultures have different manners. Actions considered okay in one culture can be considered bad manners or insulting in another culture. Some of these differences can seem strange or weird. Understanding differences in acceptable manners is important and conforming to acceptable manners for where you are shows your respect for the dominant culture where you are and will help you to not stand out or be considered unrefined and rude.

I learned a number of cultural differences while on my mission in the Dominican Republic. In the Dominican Republic, it is rude to point with your finger and instead you point with your lips. It is also rude to reject food or drink when offered it while visiting someone's home. As missionaries from the United States, we were told not to drink tap water or anything made from tap water because there were parasites in the water that would make us sick. In such a case it was acceptable to tell the people that tap water would hurt us. Because of this many people who we visited regularly would have bottled water or previously boiled water and then use that water to make juice for us.

Knowing the cultures of students in a classroom will allow a teacher to not inadvertently offend or insult students or be interpreted as having bad manners. Further such knowledge will make a teacher aware of possible misunderstandings between students of different cultures and/or between the teacher and students of different cultures. Learning and teaching about cultural differences in manners and how those differences came to be can help everyone understand each other better.

31 May 2020 Week 7 Response To Cross-Cultural Students in the Classroom

I don't think I really considered or cared much about how students from other cultures think students from the United States treat teachers. This is one aspect of cross-cultural students that I have not thought about. Now that I am aware of it, it also brings up the prospect of if I ever go to another country and teach in a classroom where I am the one not from the culture I will need to understand how a teacher is supposed to act to avoid misunderstandings with students and colleagues. I will also need to keep this in mind as I proceed with plans to teach English online since I will have students from many different countries and cultures.

I believe it is important to understand cultural norms and differences to help all students in a classroom to understand one another and me as the teacher. Since I intend to have classes with more than one student using a video chat platform I need to be aware of these and I believe it will be beneficial for me to teach some lessons about cultural differences so that my students are more aware as well.

30 May 2020 Week 6 Response To Attributional Tendencies

I learned that attributional tendencies are how people attribute success or failure. Internal attribution means a person attributes their success or failure to herself or himself and attributes the success or failure of others to the person who experienced the success or failure. External attribution means a person attributes their success or failure to other people or things and attributes the success or failure of others to people or things who did not experience the success or failure.

Some of my attributional tendencies are typical, according to Professor Ivers, for someone who grew up in the United States and is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. And some of mine are not typical. I attribute God and myself for my failures. It's my fault because of something I did and it is God's fault because he allowed the failure to happen. I also attribute successes to myself and God. I succeeded through my efforts and the help of God.

For other people, I do the same. A person failed because of their actions and God allowing them to fail. A person succeeded through their actions and God helping them.

For those I teach and will someday teach I need to be cautious how I attribute failures and successes and more importantly how I express these attributional tendencies to students because what I say can impact their actions and if what I say is the direct opposite of the attributional tendencies they have could cause miscommunications, misunderstandings, and internal turmoil.

Now that I am aware of these attributional tendencies I will learn about them for the cultures for my students and do what I can to reduce misunderstandings. I am unlikely to remember the differences between my culture's attributional tendencies and those of other cultures however I can simply ask my students how they attribute success and failure to themselves and to others and then use that to reduce misunderstandings.

I would not begin to think I could somehow come up with a way to help improve my home culture based on something I didn't consciously realize existed until about 45 minutes or more ago when I watched a video and read a little about it. I don't know which attributions are better than others or not and am actually of the opinion that it might be better to not use attributional tendencies at all but don't see how we as people could possibly avoid attributing our success and failure to someone or something. I can't see people thinking I succeeded because I succeeded or my success is not the cause of anything I or anyone else or thing did it simply is a fact that I succeeded.

29 May 2020 Week 6 Response To Personal Space Differences

Before reading about personal space differences and watching the class by Professor Ivers I only considered personal space as something around me. I knew there were other spaces such as distance between cars and how we view our yard and how we view others using our property without permission. But I do not view any of that as defined as personal space.

For some object that is mine, if someone were to use it without permission I would not be pleased but I would not view it as a violation of my personal space only a violation of my personal property.

I grew up in suburban areas of the United States and for most of my life have lived in suburban areas. In the fall of 2017, I moved to a rural area in upstate New York and very much enjoy the fact that there are fewer people around where I live. I never lived in a city that had a subway until I moved to Virginia in 1997. However, my first experience with crowded transportation was in the Dominican Republic after my mission.

Even though I like living in the country and I grew up in suburban areas, I also believe that my personal space is smaller than what the reading and video indicated it would be. I base this belief on an experience I had many years ago. I remember distinctly a psychologist who did a demonstration of personal space with me. She told me to stand still and then, facing me, she approached me and kept getting closer until I leaned back at which point the demonstration was over and I am guessing it was at that point that she had entered my intimate space or possibly my close intimate space and since there was no emotional attachment between either of us I was unwilling to let her get closer. As I recall there were only inches (1 to 4) between us, especially our faces before I leaned my face backward to increase the distance.

It is very important to understand the differences in personal space from culture to culture and what effects it has on people. I found it interesting how the reading described that as a mob grew each individual in the mob had less personal space and that increased the agitation and violence of the mob. I also found it interesting that the reading attributed increased violence in crowded cities to people having less personal space. This makes me wonder about how crowded classrooms affect agitation levels in students who feel their personal space is constantly being invaded.

As a teacher, it is helpful for me to understand how personal space affects everyone in a classroom. Being aware of personal space will help me to find ways to organize a classroom and classroom rules to reduce students feeling their personal space is being violated. This explains why many classrooms are the way they are. I wonder if more improvements can be made.

And I'll leave anyone reading this with one final thought. I laughed when I read about the Luncheon Test. Essentially it indicated that when people eat together they divide the table up (subconsciously) into personal space and the salt and pepper and flowers and such are usually placed in the middle of the table to ensure it is not in anyone's personal space. To test this you should, one by one, push each object into the other person's personal space and that eventually, the person will push all the objects back to get them out of their personal space or lean back to readjust their personal space so the objects are not in their personal space. I laughed at this because I imagined doing this on purpose just to see people's reactions. Don't get me wrong I am generally a conservative, considerate person and try not to do anything to irritate or offend people. However, if you are ever eating with me in a restaurant don't be surprised if everything that was in the middle of the table when the meal began ends up on your side of the table before the meal is done. You have been warned ;)

28 May 2020 Week 6 Response To Individualism vs. Collectivism

I grew up in the United States and therefore in an individualistic culture where emphasis is given to being independent. I know this way of thinking and being very well and in most cases it suits me just fine. However, there are times when being more group oriented has its advantages. Ultimately I think a blending of the two is better than one extreme or the other.

As I began my journey into the world of sailing I learned of a collectivistic culture that has taught me a great deal about being part of a group. I have only sailed on sailboats that are about 32 feet in length or less and mostly on sailboats between the length of 15 to 25 feet. These sailboats often have a crew (including the captain) of 3 to 5 people.

One of the first things I learned from captains of these sailboats was that onboard a sailboat there are no passengers. Everyone is considered part of the crew and has responsibilities at all times (except when asleep or cooking or something) for the safety and wellbeing of the sailboat and everyone on board. This means if I am not assigned a particular task then my task is to keep watch for other boats and things floating in the water and to report them out loud to the person at the tiller regardless of if I think he/she sees what I see or not. I must also be ready to respond to commands from the captain and to take any position when told to do so by the captain or first mate.

The group mentality of sailors is such that before I had a sailboat of my own, all I had to do was walk up and down the docks on race days and ask the captains if they had need of an extra crew that day. Since there were 30 to 40 sailboats participating in each race there were always crew that for one reason or another could not make it. I always got on a sailboat even with captains that knew very little about me and knew, because I told them, that I was a beginner and knew very little about sailing.

I will always remember the generosity of these captains in including me as part of their crew and for mentoring me to become a captain of my own sailboat.

I believe that some kind of group oriented way of thinking is beneficial in a classroom setting. It would need to be something that could be easily understood by the students as beneficial for the group rather than something contrived. On sailboats, it was very easy to notice how things the crew did increased or decreased the speed of the sailboat.

One way would be to have students teach each other what they learned in groups and then follow up with them to ask them what they learned that they did no know before the group discussion. Perhaps a written assessment before and after the group discussion could help them see more clearly the benefit of working with other students. However, I think more than this, if that is even possible, would be even better.

Do you have ideas on how to make classrooms more group oriented?

25 May 2020 Week 6 Response To Differences in Emotional Expressivity

My ancestors on my mother's side of the family are from many parts of Europe including Great Britain and Scandinavian countries. My father is from the Netherlands. I was trying to find out what the public emotional expressivity of the Netherlands is. From what I can tell it may be in the middle of a scale of low to high. Whereas Great Britain and Scandinavian countries are at the low end.

I lived in Missouri from about age 1 until age 4 and from then until age 17 I grew up near Salt Lake City, Utah. After school I joined the military and lived in Southern California and Okinawa, Japan from ages 20 to 24. Even though I lived in Japan twice for six months each time I lived on military bases and was not immersed in their culture.

I believe all of this has led me to be less likely to express emotions in public which is why most people that know me view me as too serious.

Then at age 24 I went on a mission to the Dominican Republic where public display of emotion is high and done often. I still remember leaning far back into a sofa to avoid kisses on the cheek from a young lady whose house we were visiting. I did this because it was against our mission rules. For Dominican ladies this is an acceptable way to greet a man. When I returned after my mission and was greeted by a lady kissing me on the cheek I accepted because I was no longer a missionary.

In the Dominican Republic is where I remember first encountering a nation where almost everyone was happy, friendly, and very kind to everyone. I soon began to compare these people with those of the United States and the best way I found to do this comparison was to refer to the Dominican people as very open whereas the people from the United States are closed.

I wanted to and still would like to live in the Dominican Republic. I would have far more friends there and not just because I would be viewed as a rich foreigner. While on my mission I learned far more than just the Spanish language. I immersed myself in the culture and did my best to learn how to be a Dominican. In many was I succeeded. I am far more outgoing when around Latinos and speaking Spanish than I am when around native English speakers.

As I reflect upon my life and how I express emotions I find it very interesting that I believe I have been more emotionally expressive in public during periods of my life when I lived in the Dominican Republic than when living in any other place. Just thinking about it makes me long to return there.