Transcript
Assignment 4
There are several key differences between explicit and implicit characteristics of culture, however, to understand these differences, one must know what culture is. Culture is defined as a group of acts and behaviors that a population of people share, although there are more aspects of culture such as speech and symbolic objects. Cultural attitudes can be political or religious while behaviors consist of rituals, the garb an individual chooses to wear, or the role an individual has in their society or household. Multiple subsets of cultural attitudes include: beliefs, values, or empirical and theoretical knowledge. Race also plays a large part in culture as well as knowledge, because there are different traditions and customs that are attributed to certain races and knowledge can determine how people behave. There are four different types of knowledge: scientific, popular, ideological and legal. Scientific knowledge is based on whether something can be measured and consists of keen observation. Different ideas are tested using experiments in order to generate theories and principles. Popular knowledge consists of beliefs that are believed by many people. Although these beliefs are popular, some aren’t verified by or recognized by the scientific community. Popular knowledge and scientific knowledge go against each other because of this. Ideological knowledge is based on values and is more moralistic. This type of knowledge has to do with the concept of good and evil and whether things are inherently bad or good. Ideological knowledge is also philosophical in the sense that it raises the question of what each person’s individual purpose is in life. Legal knowledge has to do with laws and concerns those who are in authority. According to the textbook, explicit characteristics of culture are defined as, “the set of observable acts regularly found in this culture.” This could range from the kind of foods that are eaten within a culture to music and what people find attractive or pleasing to the eye. Cultural practices, or rituals that are executed within a culture are considered to be explicit characteristics of culture as well. Another example of explicit characteristics of culture could be clothes as they symbolize different things in certain cultures. On the other hand, implicit characteristics of culture are considered to be the underlying values in which explicit characteristics of culture are based upon. Things such as grammar, or how people greet each other in certain situations are examples of implicit characteristics of culture. There are many implicit characteristics of Western culture. An implicit characteristic is how we greet each other and the social norms that we are expected to follow on a daily basis, such as not interrupting someone when they are in the middle of a sentence or holding open a door for strangers when out in public. When a stranger, or someone we know approaches us, it’s normal for people in Western society to say “hello” or smile and wave. When these acts aren’t performed in this kind of situation, it’s considered to be rude and disrespectful. A similar example is how people are expected to eat in public. We’re expected to use proper etiquette, which means no elbows on the table, no chewing with our mouths full, and using the correct utensils when eating a particular food. In Western society, we have traditions and customs that we assign to specific days of the year known as holidays. An example of an explicit characteristic of Western culture is Halloween. On one day of the year, it’s common for people to dress up in costumes, attend parties, and for the little children- to go trick-or-treating. Another example of an explicit characteristic of Western culture is Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving Day, it’s normal for people in Western society to gather around the table with family members and friends and partake in a feast.
Intelligence can be defined in different ways. In some instances, intelligence is defined as an individual’s ability to learn and apply the knowledge they gather to different things. Intelligence can also be defined as an individual’s ability to solve problems, or how skillful a person is when it comes to completing certain tasks. Intelligence varies from intelligent behavior because intelligent behavior can be different depending on the culture whereas the concept of intelligence is alike in all people. One culture might find something that another culture regularly does to be vastly unintelligent. An example of this is the El Colacho festival that is held in Castrillo de Murcia, Spain. This event, a combination of both Catholicism and paganism, takes place on a yearly basis in June and represents good prevailing against evil forces. It isn’t known when this ritual originated, however, some experts think this ritual may have derived from the concept of fertility. When the festival begins, there are devilish beings that go into the streets saying mean things to people and whipping them. After this takes place, the atabalero, which is a group of men wearing black, come to fight against evil. This is when babies are put on mattresses while the men jump over them. The reason why this is done is because it is believed that this cleanses the babies and makes them pure as well as protects them from potentially harmful things. While this baby jumping ritual is seen as normal and a part of their culture, to others belonging to different cultures, this could be seen as weird or even potentially dangerous. Another example of behavior that could be seen as unintelligent to other cultures is Famadihana, a ritual that takes place in Madagascar every couple of years. This ritual is executed by the Merina tribe and involves unearthing their dead ancestors because according to their beliefs, they serve as a link between the spiritual realm and earth. This is important to them because having that connection between earth and the afterlife grants them the ability to predetermine and change how things turn out on earth. While unburying one’s ancestors might seem sad and unheard of, Famadihana is actually a happy event that takes place and gives the living a chance to reconnect with their ancestors. However, the way they reconnect with their ancestors might seem disgusting and impertinent to people of other cultures- the ritual requires dancing with the dead.
Dichotomous variables are described as circumstances that can either be one way or the other- there’s no room for anything in between. An example of a dichotomous variable could be gender as we typically recognize that there are two distinct genders- male and female. Another example of a dichotomous variable is the concept of passing or failing. If a student takes a test and fails, then it’s obvious that he didn’t pass and there’s no possibility of him scoring anything between a pass and a fail. In contrast to dichotomous variables, continuous variables are defined as two opposing circumstances that include possibilities for circumstances in between. An example of a continuous variable is weight. In addition to being obese and skinny, an individual can also be average. Age is also a continuous variable because someone could be a toddler or an adult, but there’s a middle ground where someone could be a teenager as well.
References
Khan, G. (2017, June 16). Look Inside Spain's Unusual Baby Jumping Festival. Retrieved from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/destinations/europe/spain/el-colacho-baby-jumping-festival-murcia-spain/?user.testname=none
Munnik, J., & Scott, K. (2017, March 28). Famadihana: The family reunion where the dead get an invite. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/18/travel/madagascar-turning-bones/index.html
Shiraev, E. B., & Levy, D. A. (2016). Cross-Cultural Psychology: Critical Thinking and Contemporary Applications (5th ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
