Culture on my mind

This chapter demonstrated that neuroscience can be and should be an important tool in exploring culture and psychology. The reason for this is the fact that most of the self-report measures cannot specify whether people elicit different behaviors because of the real differences at the level of cognition, or is it because of the differences in self-presentation. Example with Chinese participants proves this point: Chinese had higher other-enhancing bias than self-enhancing bias, but still favored alphabetical letters used in their own names. This invites for research on the level of brain and neural patterns.

It surprized me how culture is like a habit: neural patterns in the brain strengthen every time person receives a feedback – that is how one views something as a norm, and enforces it further. It made me understand why it could be so hard to see “outside of the box”, when you are nurtured in the limitations of certain culture. It made me think of the recently popular show “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives”. The show illustrates how a certain mindset can stick with someone in each and every situation they face, so that they interpret the situation from the standpoint of that mindset. Mindset the main female character followed was that “it is always woman’s fault”, so she tolerated abusive relationships and struggled to set personal boundaries. However, with the help of supporting friends she was able to see that she deserved better, and was able to initiate a break-up.

This example shows that sometimes there might be maladaptive norms or traditions in any culture, but it doesn’t mean that everything is hopeless. Just like the bad habits that can be turned to something productive and healthy, cultural norms can also change and adapt to daily life. So, to answer one of the questions in discussion forum, although cultural norms are “printed” on our brain, it doesn’t lead to lack of free will and change. Change is always possible.