Fernanda Menk Pathway

  Culture and Psychology I enjoy learning about psychology, and now to learn about culture and psychology has been wonderful for me.  Brother Ivers taught some very deep things in this lesson, it is hard to choose what to write and comment here. However I will share some points to help us understand this subject. "Culture is a way of shaming people in situations where they would not be shamed in other cultures." That is interesting, what can be shameful for a person in my country may not be in the United States, for example, and the opposite is also true. He goes on: "In all cultures, they have their things that make a real man, a real woman, and it's common to have shame if you don't live up to those things." "Culture can have a big affect on your psychology." And he gives us some examples:  * "Self-esteem: every culture has the culturally created ought self. The real self may or may not correspond to this culturally-demanded ought self....

  Differences in Manner Manny things can be acceptable in one culture, but not in another, we must pay attention not to offend people around us, or be offended by these same people, just because our culture is different than theirs. Some examples that are acceptable in one place, but not in other places are: *tossing something to someone;  *staring at other people;   *walk around with hands in your pocket;  *loud music day or night;  *blow your nose in public;  *yawn and stretch in public;  *belching;  *shake hands;   *no tipping;   *the "okay" gesture;  *the peace salute (fingers in V gesture);  *exposing your palms;  *chewing gum;  *left-handed greetings.     These are just a few things that can have a very different meaning for different countries, there can be a lot more, so it is a good idea to try and learn some of these things if you are traveling abroad. Also if we as teachers have stu...

  Cross-cultural students in the classroom Expressivity - There are many different subcultures in the United States and each one has a different way to express themselves.  Wyoming, Idaho, Utah - are not very expressive. New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, New Jersey - they are very expressive. African American and Hispanic students are more expressive than white students. Asian students are less expressive than white students, they are very respectful. Brother Ivers talk about the differences between Asian students and American students, or how Asian students see American students. Asian Students Positive Comments *"System of University Education: the way that class provides students considerable opportunity for asking questions, engaging in critical thinking, and participating in a dialog with the professor, opportunity to develop an interpersonal relationship with the professor." Asian Students Negative Comments Students:  *"are crude, inconsiderate, don't all...

  Attributional Tendencies In the video we learned that Attributional Tendencies "refers to what do we attribute success, to what we attribute failures."  "Attribution are references that people make about the causes of events and behavior." "Are your personal attributional model consistent with those dominant in your culture?" Internal attributions: personal disposition, traits, abilities, feelings (it's my fault). External attributions: situational demands, or factors, environmental (it's their fault). "Individualistic culture: attributes success to themselves and failures to others. Collectivist culture: attributes success to others and failures to themselves." Although, even in an individualistic culture it is common a mother to ask herself what she did wrong when her children make bad decisions, society asks "Didn't your mother teach you?" However when her children do well, she will feel proud of herself and society wil...

  Personal Space Differences In the text we can read: "When you understand the implications of this (talking about personal space), you can gain enormous insights into your own behavior, and the face-to-face reactions of others can be predicted." In the picture we see some people on the elevator, each one is looking down to his/her phone or book, avoiding eye contact with others. It is really important for us to understand Personal Space, each person is different from others in this matter, it depends on where he or she was raised, large cities, town, rural area, open spaces. It differs from one country to another, or even from one person to another in the same family, depending on personal circumstances. So, if you want to work with people you will have to understand and respect these boundaries to have success.  You can find out where someone is from by the way they shake hands with someone they just met.  "The closer people feel to each other the closer they will stan...

  Individualism vs Collectivism Brother Ivers teaches us about Individualism and collectivism. I like how he reminds us: “in all different culture orientations there are pluses and negatives”, and we should be aware of the negatives, and maybe we will be able to fix them. Individualism – tolerance for individual mistakes. American children are known throughout the world for having extra rights than many other children because they can express themselves, they can express their opinions to adults, they can make their own choices. Collectivism – group orientation, group unity, togetherness, and harmony. Less tolerance for things that could hurt other members of the group. “In Asia countries, children are rarely allowed, if at all, to their own thing, without the consent of their parents.” (Empada Uheda, anthropologist in the Philipines)    We can observe these cultural differences between countries, but sometimes even from one family to another in the same neighborhood, d...

  Differences in Emotional Expressivities This week we are learning about emotional expressivity. I believe that this is a really important subject. We need to to be emotionally mature to learn and recognize our own feelings, and how and when to express them. It will help us to learn to recognize other people's emotions. That is especially important for a teacher or we won't be able to know what is happening in our student's minds as we try to involve them in a whole new world that is a second language.  Brother Ivers teaches us about "Emotional Expressivity": We all have the same emotions! In private we all express our emotions in a similar way. But in public, we're very dissimilar in the way we express our emotions. There is a lot of misinterpretation going on for people from different pats of the world or even within the same country. Within the United States there are huge differences! Low Tolerant                    ...

  Cultural Miscommunication     Body and facial expressions may mean different things for different cultures! Sometimes it is difficult to understand what people are really trying to say, if we don't understand their culture and traditions. We must pay attention and try to find out a little about their culture or we may think they are being rude or unkind with us, when it is the opposite, they are kind and we are being rude with them. So, I think we should always give them the benefit of the doubt when talking to someone from another country or even from another part of the same country. Be aware of potential misunderstandings. People's gestures may not mean the same things. Sometimes we take peoples gestures as an insult, but they're not an insult. It is interesting how some things are very different in other cultures:   If you complement a Japanese, he or she will say something negative about themselves, they don't like being in the spot, they believe that everyone...

                                                                              Monochronic X Polychonic                Cultural Paradigms   Brother Ivers teaches us about TIME. How the perception of time is different for different cultures. Monochronic (United States, Northern Europe, and others) "is oriented to tasks, schedules, and procedures. Policy is extremely important". (Edward T. Hall)                                               TIME "American businesses have a reputation for being cut off from employee morale and not worried about employees... Everything in our culture works for and rewards a monochronic view of the world...

  TESOL - 103 - 10/15/2021   Week 05 - Cultural Paradigms Paradigms are very interesting they help us to understand and interpret the world around us.  The paradigms is what our brain does when we look at a drawing and say we are seeing a tree, or a house or an animal when it is just a drawing and not really a tree, a house, an animal or  anything else, actually our brain works to recognize the symbols. There are much deeper paradigms, harder to identify, like what is beauty, funny, humorous, polite, modest, and so on. These values differ in a great amount from one culture to the other.  I am Brazilian, although I have livid in the United States for several years, and I with this study I helped me recognize many different paradigms from my country to that one. Many people in Brazil told me that American people are not friendly, but I learned that you just have to learn how to gain their trust and be friendly yourself.  Right now I work only with Brazil...