Module 2 Lesson Plan 1 - Cross Cultural Psychology

Native American Cultures
- Part I
 Alaskan Eskimos

Daily Language Blooper

Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux."  webofculture.com

Review - Group Thoughts

1.  As part of your homework, you were asked to complete the individual rankings to the NASA Decision Making Exercise.  Today in class we will complete the group rankings to the NASA Decision Making Exercise.

2.  During the previous class session you were introduced to Margaret Mead and to Ruth Benedict.  Today in class we'll examine your answers to the questions about Mead and Benedicts' writings.

3.  As part of your homework, you read about the use of projective tests, such as the ink blot test.  You began to see that because of different environments and experiences, answers reported on such tests will not be uniform throughout the world.

Class/Internet Activities

1.  Group Problem Solving - Solve the NASA rankings in small teams

The instructor will assign you to small groups.  Take your time and reach consensus in rank-ordering the survival items used by the stranded crew on the surface of the moon.  You may not flip coins, take a vote, or result to any conflict reduction techniques.  The best way to do this is to present logical reasons for your choices, and then to give way to others if the logic is stronger than your own.  Do not act as though any person must be rewarded for having acceded to others.  (That might be humane, but it wouldn't be logical.)  Someone in your group has the best logical answer, and you need to compare everybody's reasons in order to discern what the best reason is.

Your instructor will debrief the exercise when all groups are finished.

2.  Let's examine your responses to the homework questions concerning Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict.

The question about Mead was asked to see if you could sense that different experiences are valued in places as widely separated as are Samoa and the United States.  Each separate culture determines which experiences contribute to and enhance survival and the well being of the group.  Thus what seems appropriate in America may not seem appropriate in cultures outside of America.  And what seems appropriate in Samoa may seem out of place in America.

The questions from Benedict should begin to show you that answers given by Japanese people will not be very much like the answers given by Americans.  Human beings can be socialized quite differently, and you can expect to see this throughout the remainder of the course.

3.  Introductions to Two Optional Cultural Vignettes, and Video excerpts from "Holy Boy" who has the leading role in "The Making of the Human Heart."

Today's lesson concern's American participation in interracial love and prejudice.  We "travel" to Alaska via the film to meet "Holy Boy," a young Alaskan Eskimo who falls in love with his childhood sweetheart, a Canadian Indian, while both are being treated for tuberculosis in a Canadian hospice run by an order of Canadian nuns.  

Today's lesson includes you as an American participant who witnesses these processes of love and prejudice also.  Therefore, before showing the film, you may hear two short vignettes from your instructor on courtship that take place in Iran and Japan.  You will be asked to select one or more appropriate responses to each vignette, and to justify your position in writing, before the video.  The vignettes are:

#79 - Bringing Him Home To Dad, and 
#80 - The Delay

After the video, we debrief what we observe about the Alaskan Eskimo, his sweetheart, and the two vignettes from Iran and Japan.

Summary

1.  You completed the NASA problem solving exercise.  If your group worked well together, it may have outperformed some or most of its members.  If your group did not outperform its members, your group should re-examine its abilities to discover logical reasons before making decisions together.  Low-performing groups distract themselves if they intend simply to finish a project in the shortest time.  As a result, low-performing group members have not put quality work into achieving team results.  Low-performing groups may disrupt themselves by employing conflict reduction techniques.  Successful group effort is time consuming, but can produce results that surpass the capabilities of team members operating alone.  High-performing groups achieve consensus by discovering the logical bases upon which agreement should be based.

2.  Geographic boundaries kept the human race apart for most of human history.  Similar genetic makeup did not erase the results of learning that occurred which reflects local custom and expected behavior.  What seems common to you will seem uncommon to everyone who was not raised in your particular circumstances.  The variety of nuances in human behavior is much, much broader than the lifetime of any one person can encompass.  Thus occurs a famous paradox:  what seems most common in our social experience is indeed unique.  (There are a great many different societies, each unique.  Said differently, what is truly common, is that each individual and each society is in fact unique.)

3A.  Courtship rituals are not standardized throughout the world.  Courting behaviors must be taught and learned, and therefore are culturally, and not biologically determined.  Courting may lead through marriage to relationships which produce offspring and therefore influences biological determination.  Biological attraction may influence whom we date, but elders play more important roles in other cultures than in America in influencing whom we marry.  (Try doing an Internet word search to identify societies allowing more than one wife, and societies allowing more than one husband.)

3B.  Prejudicial behavior is learned and not standardized throughout the world.  One means of understanding prejudice is to ask what functions it serves.  From a functional perspective, if psychological phenomena (like prejudice) do not have a use for people, they would disappear.

3C.  Adjustment
People have  a need to adjust to the world in which they find themselves.  To the extent that prejudices, (like who's the in-group and who's the out-group), serve that function, prejudice will be maintained.

3D.  Ego-defense
Does your prejudice or behavior protect your view of yourself?  If so, you are likely to retain that prejudice.

3E.  Expressing one's self-image
Behaviors that are prejudicial and that nonetheless provide an expressive outlet for your personality are likely to be maintained.

3F.  That special knowledge
Does the in-group retain "facts" and insights about the out-group from which outsiders are excluded?  Such prejudicial knowledge reinforces and makes prejudicial behavior more likely. 

3G.  The vignettes create scenarios which may have more than one right answer.  Said differently, the answers have differing degrees of validity.   A team of "expert opinion" has already decided upon the relative merits of each answer.  You may find your ability to understand foreign nationals improved if you discover the basis upon which this team of experts evaluates each possible choice.  Compare your own choices and explanations with those of the experts.

Homework

1.  From Reading #4 in  Cross-Cultural Perspectives in Introductory Psychology :
Read pages 18-21 "How Much is too much Kayaking?  A Case of Kayak-Angst. 

Answer the following questions in your notebook:

2.  Read pages 43-75, "Chapter 3 - Taking One's Proper Station" from Ruth Benedict's The Chrysanthemum and the Sword. 

The questions and numbered paragraphs in which to look for the answers are:

Customary Behaviors (Other than my own)

"All people smile in the same language" ---- Unknown