Last Christmas I read Natascha Kampusch's self biography "3,096 days". Natascha Kampusch is an Austrian woman who was kidnapped by a stranger at the age of 10 and then held in captivity by him for almost 9 years. I have the book in case you would like to borrow it from me. I have a few reflections on the book.
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I have got some extra information for you in regards to cultural dimensions. On Youtube I found two short interviews with Hofstede in regards to individualism-collectivism and power distance:
Hofstede on power distance Hofstede on individualism - collectivism I also want you to note that Hofstede, in his original research investigated cultural norms in the workplace. So there is not only a generalisability problem to other countries, there is also a generalisability problem to other institutions than the workplace. However, Hofstede's research may be very useful to understand cultural preferences at the workplace. If you want to try out Hofstede's workplace questionnaire on culture (The CWQ) there are some sample questions on uncertainty avoidance here. The web site also allows you to compare your score with other countries. An explanation of the CWQ can be found here. Mr Pettine also recommended me an RSA animate on a lecture by Dr Phil Zimbardo on time. Dr Zimbardo's talk relates to the short term/long term orientation dimension. It is a type of measure of the extent to which a culture is focused on the future or the present. People from cultures with a short term orientation are more focused on quick results, spend more and save less money, whereas cultures with a long term orientation are more willing to work for a long term goal. Eastern cultures tend to be more long term oriented than Western cultures. Finally, I found a Youtube clip that explains all the cultural dimensions easily. This may be useful in case you want to remember all the cultural dimensions. This is however not necessary, as the IB psych syllabus only requires two of them. If you happen to be interested in looking at the original studies of what we have been learning over the years (for instance, when something is unclear in the summaries), here are links to some of them:
Biological level of analysis H.M. (Corkin 1997) - One of the many case studies of H.M. Caspi (2003) Fessler & Navarette (2003) - An evolutionary study of disgust. Sent to me by Nicky Cognitive level of analysis Loftus and Pickrell (1995) - Lost in the mall experiment Sociocultural level of analysis Yuki (2003) - Abstract Cialdini (1976) "Football supporters study" Bandura (1961) Human relationships Cohen and Nisbett (cultural norms of violence study) - given to me by Nicky Abnormal psychology Chiao and Blizinsky (2009) - The correlational study of the relationship between individualism-collectivism and the 5-htt Serotonin transporter gene - given to me by Ling I have been wanting to write this post since Autumn last year, but I lacked a forum to air my thoughts until now. I may have told you about the American University graduate who wrote the world´s probably longest suicide note (1.904 pages), relating to everything from nihilism, to religion and history in September last year.
A few months later, in Sendai, Japan, a 24 year old man hanged himself live on a video streaming site: Man broadcasts own suicide live on video streaming site Unfortunately there may be a possible link between the Japanese suicide and a Swedish suicide one month earlier. The 11th of October a 21 year old man committed suicide live on a Swedish forum by hanging himself. The Japanese event may therefore be an phenomenon called copycat suicide. It was first observed in the early 1800s when many young men are believed to have killed themselves after reading the book "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Goethe, a book about man who shoots himself after a romantic rejection. Copycat suicide often occurs after a celebrity commits suicide or dies, the latest occurrence was after Michael Jackson died. Other types of suicides are mass suicides, where a group of people kill themselves for the same reason, or suicide pacts, where 2 or more people make a pact to kill themselves at the same time. Copycat suicides, mass suicides, and suicide pacts can be explained by social factors, such as social learning theory (imitation) and group pressure. As with all psychological phenomena, there may however also be other factors at play. An interesting factor of all the examples I just mentioned is that they occurred during Autumn, a fairly dark season for the northern hemisphere. It may also be noticed that all the suicides mentioned were committed by men. Men are also more likely to commit successful suicides. It is interesting that men are more likely to commit successful suicides, while more women than men are treated for depression. Depression is often mentioned as one of the main causes of suicide. It is therefore likely that many men go untreated for depression, maybe because of cultural norms, or maybe because men often have more difficulties in communicating their emotions than women. In the case of Michell Heisman, the man who left that 1.904 pages suicide note, it may have been a "philosophical" suicide. With this I mean that a person commits suicide out of the belief that it is the best thing to do. Our belief is therefore an additional cognitive factor of suicide, which of course may affect our emotion and view of life. It is however interesting to note that Mitchell Heisman was diagnosed with a mild form of Autism (Asperger´s syndrome) and I happen to know that the same was the cases of the Swedish internet suicide and the 13 year old boy who committed suicide after being bullied by a group of girls (which we watched recently in class). I lack supporting research for my speculations, but there well be that autism is a factor that is also related to suicide. If my speculations turn out to be correct, an additional question arises. If mildly autistic individuals are at risk for suicide, is it because of alienation or because of their social difficulties? Suicide, by the way is considered to be an act of violence according to the WHO, as it physically and psychologically harms others (besides the suicide also relatives and friends). Dutch researchers have demonstrated that a run-down neighborhood can increase stereotyping. Participants were asked to answer questions related to prejudice in different physical environments. The more disordered the context, the more prejudiced they were. The results were confirmed in three consecutive studies, but also need to be confirmed/replicated by other researchers.
I speculate that the underlying reason for the results is a change in emotion. Negative emotion is a component of stereotypes, and if the emotion is altered, so is the stereotype. This may be a study you can use for the formation of stereotypes or as a study to illustrate the sociocultural principle of how our social environment affects our behavior (it also affected participants discriminating behavior, as measured by how far they were seated from a foreign person while answering the questionnaire) Abstract of the Dutch study on the effect of physical environment on stereotyping |
AuthorThis is my class blog for IB Psychology. Here I will publish reflections on psychology, reviews of psychology books, recommended links, lecture notes, and information on psychology topics that are not covered by the syllabus. You are free to add comments or ask me questions. Archives
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