W2 – Culture and Mind
The ‘Culture and Neuroscience’ chapter is very informative. It illuminates how culture affects the mind and gene & culture relationship profoundly and comprehensively in psychology.
Comparing self-reports of self-esteem in East Asians and Europeans, I agree with the interpretation of intentionally hiding self-esteem in Eastern cultures and their social modesty norm. In Turkey, we may be too humble to take ownership of our success and tend to attribute it to external conditions or chance.
Among many studies on different domains such as self, cognition, emotion, and motivation, it surprised me that environmental conditions, reward contingencies, and cultural experiences are encoded and kept in the brain so strongly that they can ‘teach’ the brain and provide neural effects with repeated engagement cycles.
That German society is tight even though the culture is relatively individualistic may be a result of the devastating impact of the 2nd World War on Germany.
In interdependent cultures, with the cumulative effect of their holistic cognitive style, proneness to focus on eyes of the face (rather than mouth), being alerted to someone’s face (whereas samples from interdependent cultures tend to feel relaxed), and with non-verbal communication and cyclical reasoning with complex and broad cause-effect relationship, consistently deducing what the other one actually means and attempting to control others’ judgments, I considered how tough it is to be on tenterhooks, to recognize to figure out something unknown and trying to see more that it seen in these social environments.
The ERP study focuses on self-views in independent vs interdependent cultures, it is remarkable how Western people internalize positive characteristics in themselves, whereas people in Eastern culture demonstrate other-enhancement bias. Benefitting from N400 as a tool to measure the response magnitude in incongruent conditions is quite helpful for the study.
In the study that asks comparing motivation with self and friend condition by exchanging gifts, checking for ERN response change is meaningful since it is preconscious, and there is no significant difference in self-reports between the European American and Asian American samples.
Even though I considered people in collectivistic cultures to depend more on others’ impressions (e.g., the postchoice attitude changes when social eyes disappear), after learning about Western self – reports negative affect ratings on biological health to maintain their positive self-image, I thought that others are effective on acts in both independent and interdependent cultures.
‹ W1 – Cultural Psychology and Social Dynamics W3 – More and More Complex: The Four Basic Social Science Issues (COSI) ›
It was a really comprehensive summary Rana especially when we consider the hardness of this chapter for most of us. Specifically, the part you mentioned the tightness of German society catched my attention too while reading. This question was on my mind from the first chapter, I mean I questioned how German people can be both individualistic and also really strict about the rules and follow them by heart.
I think you pointed out most important parts but I actually would like to hear more about your opinions as well.
RENEWED VERSION:
The ‘Culture and Neuroscience’ chapter is very informative. It illuminates how culture affects the mind and gene & culture relationship profoundly and comprehensively in psychology.
Comparing self-reports of self-esteem in East Asians and Europeans, I agree with the interpretation of intentionally hiding self-esteem in Eastern cultures and their social modesty norm. Alıgned with this, we may be too humble to take ownership of our success and tend to attribute it to external conditions or chance in Turkey.
Among many studies on different domains such as self, cognition, emotion, and motivation, it surprised me that environmental conditions, reward contingencies, and cultural experiences are encoded and kept in the brain so strongly that they can ‘teach’ the brain and provide neural effects with repeated engagement cycles.
That German society is tight even though the culture is relatively individualistic may be a result of the devastating impact of the 2nd World War on Germany.
In interdependent cultures, with the cumulative effect of their holistic cognitive style, proneness to focus on eyes of the face (rather than mouth), being alerted to someone’s face (whereas samples from interdependent cultures tend to feel relaxed), and with non-verbal communication and cyclical reasoning with complex and broad cause-effect relationship, consistently deducing what the other one actually means and attempting to control others’ judgments, I considered how tough it is to be on tenterhooks, to recognize to figure out something unknown and trying to see more that it seen in these social environments. To escape these judgments and the haste to draw inferences, conforming entirely to societal norms becomes, paradoxically, another expectation of Turkish society. This idea reminded me of the depiction in Füruzan’s Kırkyedililer, where a mother, despite being more educated than her surroundings, suppresses her daughters and their choices in adherence to these societal expectations and sense of right and wrong.
The ERP study focuses on self-views in independent vs interdependent cultures, it is remarkable how Western people internalize positive characteristics in themselves, whereas people in Eastern culture demonstrate other-enhancement bias. Benefitting from N400 as a tool to measure the response magnitude in incongruent conditions is quite helpful for the study.
In the study that compares motivation with self and friend condition by exchanging gifts, checking for ERN response change is meaningful since it is preconscious, and there is no significant difference in self-reports between the European American and Asian American samples.
Even though I considered people in collectivistic cultures to depend more on others’ impressions (e.g., the postchoice attitude changes when social eyes disappear), after learning about Western self – reports negative affect ratings on biological health to maintain their positive self-image, I thought that others are effective on acts in both independent and interdependent cultures.
Dear Zeynep Rana,
I really like the changes you made to your blog—great job! It looks fantastic now. As Berjin mentioned in her comment, your text reads more like a general summary of the week’s material. For a reaction paper, we’re looking for more in-depth discussion of specific topics from the reading. You could choose one or two key points to explore further, whether to better understand them, support the ideas, or even express disagreement with the author. This week’s topic was admittedly tough to follow, but I’m confident that future topics will lend themselves more to this type of discussion.
Best,
Refik