{"id":83,"date":"2025-01-06T12:24:50","date_gmt":"2025-01-06T12:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.metu.edu.tr\/e264456\/?p=83"},"modified":"2025-01-06T12:24:50","modified_gmt":"2025-01-06T12:24:50","slug":"week-14-culture-and-interpersonal-intergroup-relationships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.metu.edu.tr\/e264456\/2025\/01\/06\/week-14-culture-and-interpersonal-intergroup-relationships\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 14 – Culture and Interpersonal\/Intergroup Relationships"},"content":{"rendered":"

Initially, I had difficulty grasping the concept of enemyship<\/strong> especially because I thought of collectivist cultures to be interdependent focusing on social harmony. If they focus on social harmony, how is enemyship so prominent in this culture? Later, I understood that enemyship, as a concept, might be completely different than what I imagine it to be. This is because the idea of enemyship in other cultures might be different than in West Africa.<\/p>\n

The article argues that enemyship is not a universal or inherent human trait but is deeply embedded in cultural norms and practices.\u00a0In the class, we discussed enemyship in terms of superficial ideas or some specific superstitions. For example, Turkish people often possess muska<\/em> (amulet) and nazar boncu\u011fu<\/em> (evil eye repellent) to stay away from evil eye or black magic cast by ‘enemies’. In Pakistan, sometimes they wear a thread on their hand as a way of protection. There are different ways of protection in different cultures.<\/p>\n

Regarding the method employed in the article, I was convinced that it was a good idea to conduct group interviews<\/strong> in West Africa because, during our discussion topic of methodological issues, we learned that it is essential to use different methods for different cultural contexts. In this case, to study an individual’s thought process, it is important to study them in a group setting to gain a deeper understanding of how personal relationships, including concepts like enemyship, are shaped by group norms, expectations, and social dynamics.<\/p>\n

With respect to the findings of the article, 43% of the U.S. sample ignored or did nothing upon the discovery of an enemy compared to 40% of the Ghana sample that avoided. This is important because avoidance could mean avoiding holding a conversation with the enemy or avoiding going to gatherings or events where the enemy was going. This highlights that having an enemy holds a different meaning in the U.S. and West African cultures. This also led me to think about possible interventions like intergroup contact to solve the enemyship issue, however, my professor guided me to understand that those groups are already in contact with each other and do not need any intervention because enemyship is not a threat for them but rather a part of their daily life.<\/p>\n

It was interesting to contemplate how a person in the West African culture might be labeled a fool if that person thinks he\/she has no enemies. We also looked into the possibility of studying enemyship in the person who thinks he has an enemy and the person who is thought to be the enemy to understand if the person’s perception of receiving harm from the enemy is true or not. However, we reached the conclusion that the perception of receiving harm from an enemy is enough in itself as a concept, regardless of whether it is true or not. This helped me gain a deeper insight into the concept of enemyship in diverse cultural situations.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Initially, I had difficulty grasping the concept of enemyship especially because I thought of collectivist cultures to be interdependent focusing on social harmony. If they focus on social harmony, how is enemyship so prominent in this culture? Later, I understood that enemyship, as a concept, might be completely different than what I imagine it to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9008,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-psychology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.metu.edu.tr\/e264456\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.metu.edu.tr\/e264456\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.metu.edu.tr\/e264456\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.metu.edu.tr\/e264456\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.metu.edu.tr\/e264456\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.metu.edu.tr\/e264456\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.metu.edu.tr\/e264456\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.metu.edu.tr\/e264456\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.metu.edu.tr\/e264456\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}