Socioeconmic Status and Health

I believe what we are very lucky in that we have such great health care provided to us. Depending on your house hold income, plays a major role in the health care you receive. To me, I have never had a problem with having to deal with not being treated equally do to low SES. A couple of years ago my mother was very sick with a brain aneurism and was hospitalized for many weeks. During her stay, she was treated the very best as we had good medical coverage which allowed her to stay in one of the best rooms on the neurology floor. It was hard enough seeing her spend such a large quantity of time in the hospital, but I cant imagine seeing her spend this time in a hospital room filled with doctors who treat people based on their SES. In some cultures this happend everday.

In a study done by Marmot, Shipley and Rose, research shows that the top administrators were 60% more likely to die over a 10 year period, their clerical staff (lower SES) were 120% more likely and the unskilled laborers were 170% more likely to die. To me, this is not acceptable and everyone should be treated with the same health care around the world.

Suicide Rates

Suicide is one of the most tragic mental illnessses. Although suicide is viewed quite similarly around the world, its frequency varies tremendously. For example, in Lithuania rates for men were almost 82 and women we 13 out of 100,00 people. This rate is serveral times more than that of Egypt. This shows that Suicide is more significatn in some cultures than others.

I believe that this has a lot to do with culture as in the areas where suicide is very high, their religion is very prohibited against suicide.

A reason why suicide is underlied with a great risk in Canadian populations, is for example in the first nations as these youths are growing up they can no longer relate or identify much with their traditional culture. Therefore this absence of culture might relate to the heightened suicide among first nation Canadian people.

Physical Health

I am writing this blog as I find it very interesting how culture influences medical practices. In a study done, research was found that doctors and lay people from the same country have similar views of health compared to doctors and lay people of different countries. In the modern world, today we base our medical health care around scientific based evidence as in other area of the world such as Asia, they base their medical system on their tradition culture such as Yin and Yang. For example, when someone in the modern western world is sick with some type of infection, then antibiotics are used to treat it, whereas someone in Asia may be treated with herbal remedies or acupuncture to cure their sickness and get their chi back in balance.
This topic really interests me and I plan to research the effectiveness of this type of medicine in more depth.

When it comes to the similarity attraction effect, people tend to be attracted to those who are most like themselves. Research shows that people are more likely to view someone as attractive as either a potential friend or a romantic partner if both are similar in their attitudes, economic background, personality, religion, social background and activities.

This allows me to understand why certain people are attracted to others. If you look at a couple, they have many similarities, most often their 'attractiveness' is around the same level. For example, in Hollywood, these beautiful people are always seen with very attractive partners. They also tend to have the same econmoic background, same attitudes and same social backgroud.

Attractiveness across cultures

Depending on an individuals weight, different ratings of attractiveness may be assigned based on different cultural view of what constitutes as attractive to them. For example, people from the west view woman who are remarkably thing as attractive. This constitutes for us westerners being so self cautious on gaining weight. We take drastic measure such as dieting, eating disorders and extensive exercise to stay thin to meet the acceptable views of our society.
This also correlates with the high rates of eating disorders and depression in the western area of the world. Due to the dieting regimes and the extreme emphasis western culture places on being thing, such as size zero models in the media, there is immense pressure on being skinny. Throughout my highschool career and university career I have seen many of my friends go through these pressures and struggles of being thin.

Making Choices

Primary control consists of people who achieve a sense by striving to shape existing realities to fir their perceptions, goals, or wishes. Primary control influences the choices you make on a day to day basis. For example, if you want a hamburger then you go down to the hamburger jount to get one. I can relate to this type of decision making as if I have a desire for something whthere it is a goal or simply a type of food I am craving then I work extremely hard aimed at these goals or outcomes I want.

Independent versus Interdependent

In a study conducted with participants from Kenya and America, findings suggest that there are two ways that humans see themselves. In many statements by the Americans in the study, the self can be though to derive its identity from its inner attributes. These attributes a referred to as the independent view of the self where individuals have a closely related 'in group' consisting of friends, brother, mother, and acquiantances and with strangers in the outgroup. In the interdependent view of self, the outgroup shows a stable distinction compared to the ingroup. In this view, the ingroup interact with eachother in much closer terms, and the have a hard time relating to and gistinguishing a close relationship with the outgroup (strangers).

For me, I can relate to the interdependent view of self more accurately as I allow my ingroup (mother, brother, friends)  to be closely related to me and allow them in and out of my life freely. I also have a hard time getting close with individuals who I consider 'strangers' and who I am not comfortable with.

How do early childhood experiences differ across cultures?

Evidence suggests that infancts acquire cultures, therefore making it a developmental process. The more one engages in cultural practices, the more ones way of thinking becomes a mere habit to response of such practices. An example of this is our present westernized culture consists in for example the way we eat. In early childhood you are fed whatever your parents choice of food is and after multiple consumptions of this type of food ( whether it be asian, italian, vegan etc.) than that practice becomes more habitulized and tend to follow it throughout your life span.

Transmitted versus Evoked Culture

Evoked culture is a way that different geographies can affect cultural norms. It is the notion that all people, regardless of where they are from, have certain biological encoded behavioural repertoires that are potentially accessible to them, and these repertoires are engaged when the appropriate situational conditions are present. That is, for example, all individuals are capable of acting in an intimidating manner when their child is being threatened by others. This ability to act in this manner is universally present, however it is only evoked in some people when they find themselves in a threatening situation. Transmitted culture is when people come to learn about particular cultural practices through social learning or by modeling others who live near them. For example, if you see your neighbour planting a specific seed and seeing benefits from doing so than you are more than likely to plant the same seed.

I believe that I grew up in and evoked culture when comparing my upbringing to how we pick our mates. Physical attractiveness means a lot to people in our culture these days. But that is not everything that us individuals are attracted to. Other characteristics consist of intelligence, kindness, sense of humor and so on.

Is Culture Unique to Humans?

Depending on what you believe is the appropriate definition of culture, anwswers the controversial question of whether culture is unique to humans. Although there is much evidnece of culture in the animal kingdom, still today not everyone believes in this research. I grew up interacting with many different animals such as dogs, cats, cows, horses etc. therefore due to my cultural upbringing, I previously noticed signs of cultural learning in these animals. For example, after hearing the sound of the food bag crinkling before being fed multiple times, the dog and cat symnolize and relate the sound to being fed. This learned experience shows that animals besides humans are able to engage in cultural learning.

There are often psychological processes from different cultures that are often found quite controversial to other cultures. For example, The Sambi is a tribe who lices in New Guinea. These cultures also have many differnet beliefs such as that femaleness is an innate natural essences, whereas maleness is a tenuous essence that must be explicitly cultivated. When borm, boys are viewed as existing in the female word, spending the majority of their time with their mothers and doing what are socially viewed as female tasks. When born, they also wear the same type of grass aprons as females from their tribe wear to distinguish between genders. In the Sambia tribe, it was a very crucil and demeaning process for boys to be 'masculanized'. Painful practices are often encountered in this transition such as piercing their septum of the nose and thrashing the boys with sticks. By the age of 7 years boys regularly ingest semen by performing daily oral sex on adolescent boys and men and around the age of 15 these boys switch roles and provide semen to younger boys. To me, I view this process as very unacceptable. I believe that part of this is due to the heterosexual word we grow up in. In our common culture, boys grow up to be men, not all children born are female and grow up to be men through 'masculization' by ingestion of semen etc. I have not been exposed to many different cultures throughout over my life, therefore I find this process extremely disturbing that it is considered a acceptable and mandatory process in certain cultures.