Cross-Cultural Psychology: Exploring Culture's Influence on Human Behavior - Essay Sample

Introduction

Psychology has several branches that address various issues of concern to humanity and their existence. Cross-cultural psychology is one of the branches that address the influences of culture and norms on the behavior of people in a given environment. Although it is normal for people to have a universal behavior of communicating and even performing different duties in nearly the same way. It is shocking to realize that several differences set people apart, especially when little aspects such as acting and feelings are concerned. Personal autonomy is viewed differently among communities. Some communities view individualism as a component of autonomy, while other cultures have less concern about the people focusing on collectivism, on the members of its groups (Keith, 2019). It is likely to impact their people hence different from the group that believes in the opposite hence different individuals in terms of the perception of the world.Researchers in this field of psychology have finally concluded that it is an important branch of study as, as the understanding of the cause of the differences and similarities of a people culture and behavior can be utilized in identifying and nursing a behavior that is considered good, in a child at an early age. The research on the subject has been in progress since the inception of The Association of Cross-Cultural Psychology (IACCP) in the year 1972(Keith, 2019). Research on Northern America and parts of Europe until they came to an awakening that the results could be biased since they had not developed a system that could help them understand the cognitive differences of the people outside the western parts of the world. Efforts have been put to ensure that all the regions of the world are included in the research. This paper discusses the studies of personality in cross-cultural Psychology.

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Personality

Personality is one of the subjects of interest among researchers in the field of cross-cultural psychology. Personality is defined as the combination of several unique patterns of an individual that affects behavior, they are considered as thoughts, motivations, and emotions and their influence on individuality. The trait patterns drive the individual to total control, making each person unique in the world. When the paper becomes strong over time, the person's expectations and attitudes are felt even by people in the immediate society. The studies of personality are known as the personality psychology and started about 200 years ago, with Hippocrates in the 370 BCE, and have since spanned overtime of the theories like psychodynamic perspectives and the theories explaining traits.

Literature Review

Personality originates from the Latin word persona meaning mask. Hippocrates, a Greek physician, and a philosopher theorized the concept of personality and categorized it in the form of four fluids in the body of an individual, he referred to as humors, which he believed, affected how a person behaved (Del Giudice .etal, 2016). The balance of the humor according to physics resulted in personality. The four types of fluids were yellow bile, blood, black bile, and phlegm. The yellow bile represented a grumpy personality or melancholy, black bile was associated with a somber or a depressed mood, phlegmatic fluid was associated with a cool individual and sanguine, was associated with blood to indicate a cheerful lively person. The theories of Hippocrates are no longer believed to be true in modern advanced psychology although it is believed to have been the first attempt to understand the difference in the personality of people.

Modern psychology attempts to provide an answer to the following questions in the quest to identify the main goals of the research.

1. Determinism against freedom. To what extent can persons control their personalities?
2. Factors of heredity against the environmental ones. What factors greatly determine personality, are they internal or external?
3. The universality of a person against Uniqueness. Do individuals look alike to a greater extent or are different in nature?
4. Active people against Reactive ones. Do people wait for the environment to introduce change or are they active in their roles of changing?
5. Pessimism against Optimism. The question that underlies this is whether people can alter the state of their interaction with other humans.

Approaches to Understanding The Research Questions

The attempt to study personality and establish answers to the questions raised on the topic requires several approaches. The first common approach towards the study of this subject is psychodynamic learning, pioneered by Sigmund Freud, the other approaches are the behaviorist, humanistic, biological, dispositional, and cultural perspective approaches. The psychodynamic theory of Sigmund Freud is based on the idea that the behavior of a person is developed upon birth when a person is born. He argued in the theory that there is a battle in the mind between three segments, the id, ego, and superego, which are developed as the balance is achieved through various growth stages referred to as the psychosexual stages (Schneider & Schroder, 2018). The other theorists that are referred to a Neo-Freudian, such as Jung, Adler, and Horney, focused on factors such as the environments of the individual and the influences of the social activities. The social learning theory of personality, for example, states that the behavior of a person is dependent on the individual's perception of the world events around them. The Christian view of personality is the humanistic theory that presents an argument that every person is created uniquely and has the freedom and the ability to make a decision and determine the outlook of their personality. It was proposed by Carl Rodgers, who explained self-actualization as a divine ability of a man to attain the most optimum state in their lives. The theory contrasts with the biological approach to the study, where the proponents of this belief suggest that the genetic make-up of an individual. The proponents suggest that the personality that a person portrays is guided by the elements of evolution and that the most aggressive genes are designed to adapt to the fast-changing environments and survive the evolution and natural selection. The final approach that has been utilized in the study of personality is the trait theory perspective commonly referred to as the disposition approach. The theory asserts that personality is traits that an individual has, they are unique and are constantly stable among individuals, depending on the place and time.

Reflection

Influences on the Culture

Despite the several approach to the definition of personality. It is evident that culture, that human interact with, has several influences on the personality of an individual. The western culture and the other culture from all around the globe are different and the strength of any personality is dependent on the exposure to their culture and the one considered being foreign. The core ideas in the psychoanalysis perspectives are the propositions that have been clarified as fitting to the 21st century and have an impact on various researches being conducted. The first proposition is that the operation of an individual is powered by the unconscious mind, meaning that the people just behave, unaware of the processes that drive them. The responses of the mind are independent and parallel making it possible for an individual to have conflicting thoughts concerning another individual. The internal contradicting thoughts evoke different feelings simultaneously that might seem contradictory. The psychosexual stages introduce a child to the wider world and that sexual drive determines how social fit a person will be considered as an adult, as the stages prepare them to a life of shared culture and social values. The theory emphasizes the need for individuals to understand the mental make-up of the other people they relate with so that a mutual agreement can be established. The ability of a person to regulate sexual desires that are considered as an aggressive drive is crucial for a person as they strive to create dependent and interdependent functional relationships, as required in the order of the society. The focus of these theories is not only on the unconscious but on the development of a socially functional being, compatible with the cultures that define a society (Ryan.etal,2019). It mentions the importance of object relation, which is a concept, used in psychology to indicate that the previous relationships that a person holds are likely to have effects on the expectations of a future one. The mental picture of the past has influences on the ones to come. Research conducted on the effects of divorce on the children indicates that the children from divorced parents are likely to avoid romantic relationships in the future and even have a negative attitude on their sexuality and the issues on gender equality and sensitivity. A majority of children that experienced conflicts in their families are children who have led to them becoming single mothers, divorcees, and even commitment to unnatural sexual experiences such as lesbianism and homosexuality.

The tendency of the individual to look at the new relationship with the lens of the past relationship is referred to as transference and has been identified as a biased establishment of the fate of the new relationship based on past occurrences. The strengths of this psychodynamic perspective are that it has provided a base for the modern psychology and has led to a better understanding of the impacts of parenting on the future of a child and their mental health. The perspective is also key to understanding the start of the behavior and the actual factors that might alter the drives. It covers both nature and the natural factors that are being debated upon by theorists and the researchers. The perspective, however, displays some weaknesses within the theory. There are several aspects of criticism on its rigid approach, where it has been criticized for not providing details on the free will of the people to change their personality and improve themselves despite the past environment that never favored them. The suggestion that the situation is always pre-determine makes people look like robots with fewer chances to change any aspect of their lives. The fact that there is no definite way in which a test on the subconscious mind can be conducted makes some suggestions untrue or impossible to validate making them unscientific. The psychoanalytic stages are also subject to criticism as they were drawn from conclusions from a therapy test of a single patient. A personal reflection of this subject starts with a personal belief on what culture means. Culture is the overall character of individuals in a group and encompasses behaviors, attitudes, values, and customs that are normally transferred down a generation. There are several similar aspects of culture but the little differences can have a great impact on the development of common bonds that are useful for daily living. The goal of the study of cross-cultural psychology should be the study of the universal cultures and identification of behaviors that not only affect the individuals but also the family lives, education, and other social experiences. The approach towards understanding this field has been through major ways namely the ethic and emic approaches which are the studies using the people within the culture and people outside it respectively. Personality is one of the elements being studied in the field, based on an aspect referred to as ethnocentrism, a tendency of a culture or behavior to be cons...