MODULE 3: CULTURE AND PERSONALITY

Part I: Culture and Society

Culture – shared way of living; the only way to share it is to learn it.

A group of people needs to have the same principle and belief.

CULTURAL UNIVERSALS

 Sports
- Depend on geographical location
 Cooking
 Funeral rights
- Shintoism: bright colors when someone is dead
- Chinese: hired criers
- Italians: very expressive; they jump over the coffins
- Indians: grand and luxurious as a sign of respect
 Medicine
 Marriage and family
- 77% of divorce cases are filed by females
 Sexual restrictions
- India and Philippines impose more sexual restrictions, poorer and higher mysogyny

CULTURAL CHANGES

 Innovation
 Discovery
 Invention
 Diffusion

GLOBALIZATION

 Mcdonaldization of Societies

ELEMENTS OF CULTURE – what makes up the identity

 Language
- Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
- Verbal and nonverbal communication
- Example: 2nd Commandment in the Bible
 People do not want to label God as “profane” – ordinary vs “sacred”.
 Symbols
- Could be an object, a gesture, a value, or anything that connotes other meaning
 - Symbolic Interactionism by Herbert Blumer (see notes)
- Example: Bird in UP symbol
 Before 1975, UP athletes were called “Fighting Parrots”
 A parrot (Rhynchopsitta terrisi) characterize a UP graduate – can thrive in
multiple environments, expected to be adaptive
 The bird in UP symbol is actually an EAGLE.
 Values and Beliefs
- Values: what the community believes is “ideal”
- Beliefs: what the community considers as “true” or “false”
- Rules: what you can and cannot do
 Proscriptive – can
 Prescriptive – cannot
 Norms
- Types of Norms
 Formal
 Informal
 Mores – moral rules with consequences/sanctions
 Folkways – etiquette
 Sanctions
 Material Culture
- Artifacts

ASSUMPTIONS ON CULTURE

 Culture is generally adaptive.

- Postpartum sex taboo (Kwashiorkor)
- Fight or flight (Hopi Indians)
 Culture is mostly integrated.
- !Kung
 Culture is always changing.
- Maladaptive behaviours
 Feasting – practical; to eat all excess harvest
 food cannot be preserved
 Indian burials – grand and luxurious

ETHNOCENTRISM AND CULTURAL RELATIVISM

 Ethnocentrism –
 Cultural Relativism –

ADDITIONAL: KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE (Spencer-Oatey reading)

 1. Culture is manifested at different layers of depth
2. Culture affects behaviour and interpretations of behaviour
3. Culture can be differentiated from both universal human nature and unique individual
personality
4. Culture influences biological processes
5. Culture is associated with social groups
6. Culture is both an individual construct and a social construct
7. Culture is always both socially and psychologically distributed in a group, and so the
delineation of a culture’s features will always be fuzzy
8. Culture has both universal (etic) and distinctive (emic) elements
9. Culture is learned
10. Culture is subject to gradual change
11. The various parts of a culture are all, to some degree, interrelated
12. Culture is a descriptive not an evaluative concept

ADDITIONAL: INADEQUATE CONCEPTIONS OF CULTURE (Spencer-Oatey reading)

1. Culture is homogenous
2. Culture is a thing
3. Culture is uniformly distributed among members of a group
4. An individual possesses but a single culture
5. Culture is custom
6. Culture is timeless

Part II: Personality

Thinking is an inner conversation.

Minding – inner dialogue (Mead)

Taking the role of the other – mentally imagining you are someone else who is viewing you

VARIABLES RELATED TO PERSONALITY

SOCIAL STRUCTURE PERSONALITY

(social conditions, norms, (cognition, affect, behavior)
cultural values)

SUBJECTIVE PERCEPTION
/ MEANING /
INTERPRETATION
 STRUCTURE, PROCESS AND METHOD

 For Blumer, structure is a STRAIGHT JACKET.

 People are ever active, ever striving, ever adjustable beings.
 Structures are important (social roles, social positions, rank orders, bureaucratic
organizations, relations between institutions, differential authority relations, etc.) BUT
THEY DO NOT DETERMINE BEHAVIOR.
 The structure forces you to behave according to your group.
 The structure should not have a strong hold on you.
 There are many unstructured or undefined situations in which human beings must
device their own conduct.
 Problematic situations – playful situations where sentiments play a major role.
 Infectious humor
 Dancing crowds
 Quarrels
 Conflicts

UNDERSTANDING SOCIALIZATION

Personality Theorists

 Sigmeund Freud
 Jean Piaget
 Lawrence Kohlberg
 Carol Gilligan
 George Herbert Mead
 Charles Horton Cooley
 Erik Erikson

SOCIAL EXPERIENCE

Socialization – lifelong social experience by which people develop their human potential and
learn culture

Personality – a person’s consistent way of thinking and behaving (biological and psychological
facts)

NATURE VS NURTURE

Biology vs Culture

 Are we born to behave this way? Or are we taught to behave this way?
Social Isolation

 Experiments of Harry and Margaret Harlow on Rhesus monkeys

 Baby monkeys were violent after being caged for 6 months without human
contact
 Cases of Anna, Isabelle, and Genie
 “retard” – to hold back
 Longer isolation retard the personality PERMANENTLY.
 Shorter isolation (3-4 months) retard the personality TEMPORARILY.

FERAL CHILDREN

1. Anna
 Born in 1932
 Mentally-ill mother and disapproving father
 She was put up for adoption but was returned to her parents 5 ½ months later.
 She was locked in an attic, only given milk and no attention.
 After 6 years, she was found malnourished, could not talk and walk, and chained
like a dog.
 After being rescued, it took her 2 weeks to SMILE.
 Skills fell behind children of her age
 She died 2 years later of blood poisoning as a result of being exposed to milk for a
long period of time.
2. Isabelle
 9 months after Anna
 Illegitimate
 Forced to hide
 Kept in the dark
 Deaf and mute
 Born at the time of Paris Hilton when it is “in” to have babies
 Learned verbal and social skills
 Proof that shorter isolation = temporary damage
3. Genie
 Has a 50-year old mother
 Locked in a room for 18 months – 13 years
 Made grunts and could not utter words because she was taught by her
grandmother in the forest
 Suffered irreversible damage
 Her father committed suicide and she was taken back to her mother
 Still alive with a mental capacity of a 4 year old, permanently damaged
*Learning and capacity of language can only be learned before a child becomes 8 years old.

PERSONALITY THEORISTS

1. SIGMEUND FREUD
 Basic human needs are satisfied by instincts.
Instinct – whatever is pleasurable
The most pleasurable things in life are the basic needs which drive the instincts.
 All behaviour can be attributed to:
Eros – life instinct (everything is for pleasure)
Thanatos – death instinct (everything is to avoid pain)
 Freud’s Model of Personality
ID (pleasure seeking part)
EGO (part that balances the two; make pleasures socially acceptable)
SUPEREGO (“conscience” in psychology; “society” in sociology)
These cannot exist alone.
2. JEAN PIAGET’S THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
1. The Sensorimotor Stage
 The level of human development at which individuals experience the
world through senses
Example: Why people like percussion instruments
Rural babies, compared with urban babies, are more trusting, and more
socialized. They are held longer and by more people. As a result, they
perceived the person’s warmth, scent and heartbeat which gave them
comfort and security. Heartbeats can be associated with RHYTHM, which
explains why people like percussion instruments.
Example: Breastfeeding
 Simplest form of care
2. The Preoperational Stage
 The first use of language and symbols
3. The Concrete Operational Stage
 Humans first see the causal connections in their surroundings
4. The Formal Operational Stage
 Humans think abstractly and critically
3. LAWRENCE KOHLBERG’S THEORY OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT
1. Preconventional Level
 Right and worng depends on what “feels good”
Example: “Hindi salbahe, hindi pa lang developed and morality.”
2. Conventional Level
 Right and wrong depends on what society dictates
3. Post-conventional Level
  Right and wrong depends on abstract ethical principles
4. CAROL GILLIGAN’S THEORY OF GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT
 Kohlberg’s paper was sexist.
 Males have a “Justice Perspective” because they live in an impersonal world
(workplace/instrumental)
 Females have a “Care & Responsibility Perspective” because they live in a
personal world (home/social)
 Example: What would you do when someone committed thief”
Man – call the police
Woman – gathers information on who committed the crime, what was
stolen, what was the motivation before she makes a judgement
Before a woman makes a decision, she has to see the whole picture first.
 Example: Female teachers statistics
Preschool – 99%
Elementary – 72%
High School – 64%
College – 16%
Postgraduate – 8%
5. GEORGE HERBERT MEAD’S THEORY OF THE SELF
 The self is the product of social experience.
1. The self develops only through social experience.
2. Social experience is the exchange of symbols.
3. Understanding intentions require imagining the situation from other’s point of
view.
By taking the role of the other, we become self-aware.
*Self-actualization – you know your capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses
 Development of Self
1. Infants learn SELF through imitation.
2. Children learn SELF through play (assuming roles modelled on significant
others).
3. Children evolve play into games (complex with multiple roles).
4. Generalized Other – widespread cultural norms and values we use as reference in
evaluating others
 Charles Horton Cooley’s Looking Glass Self
 Self image based on how we think others see us
 People reflect who you are
 Whatever you project will always be reflected back to you
6. ERIK ERIKSON’S EIGHT STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT
i. Stage 1: Infancy (0-18 months)
 The challenge of trust vs mistrust
 ii. Stage 2: Toddlerhood (1-3 years)
 The challenge of autonomy vs doubt/shame
iii. Stage 3: Preschool (3-5 years)
 The challenge of initiative vs guilt
iv. Stage 4: Preadolescence (6-12 years)
 The challenge of industriousness vs inferiority
v. Stage 5: Adolescence (13-21 years)
 The challenge of role vs confusion
vi. Stage 6: Young Adult (21-39 years)
 The challenge of intimacy vs isolation
vii. Stage 7: Mid-adult (40-65 years)
 The challenge of generativity vs stagnation
viii. Stage 8: Older Adult (65 years and above)
 The challenge of integrity vs despair

MODULE 5: Me, Myself, and Others: Development of Values, Principles and Ideologies,
Love and Attraction, and Risk Taking Behavior and Peer Influences

Part I: Young Adult Fertility and Sexuality (YAFS) Study 2013

Sex becomes risky when done by those who are physiologically and psychologically ill prepared
for its consequences. And early sex among the youth is much riskier.

1. PRE-MARITAL SEX (PMS)

 YAFS data revealed that PMS is becoming more prevalent among the youth. An
increase from 18% in 1994 to 23% in 2002 was revealed in YAFS 2 and 3 results,
respectively.
 Almost all of those who already had sex said they were unwilling and unprepared to
become parents.
 YAFS 2 showed that among those who had PMS, 38% among males and 72%
among females have sexual intercourse again with the same partner after the first
time.
 The “idle” (35%) and the working (32%) youth are more prone to engage in PMS
than students. These findings suggest that studying in school postpones PMS.
 Percentage of sexually active young adults rise with age.
a. Early Sexual Debut
 The average age of initiation to sex among the youth has changed slightly.
Surprisingly, youth who had sex before age 15 has increased eightfold
from less than 2% in 1994 to around 16% in 2002.
  55% said that they did not plan for it to happen at that time but still sent
along with it, while 43% said that they planned for it at that time.
 40% had no protection in their first PMS while 70% still had no protection
in their current PMS.
 Nearly 3 out of 10 first sex experiences were not planned or totally against
the will of the youth.
 The most likely victims of rape are those with disadvantageous
background or being out-of-school, of low education, not schooling at all,
not currently working, or in live-in situation.
b. Characteristics of First Sex Partner
 4 out of 5 females had PMS with older men considered boyfriend.2 out of
5 males had PMS with friend or acquaintance.
 5% of males had PMS with males. 1% of females had PMS with females.
 12% (below 13) PMS – homosexual
 90% of youths had PMS with unmarried partners.
 4% of females had first sex with married males. 3% of males had first sex
with married females.
c. Venue of First Sex
 Among males, venue of first sex is most common in hotel or motel,
sauna/beer house (29.6%) and least common at home (10.1%)
 Among females, venue of first sex is most common at partner’s home
(31.9%) and least common in other venues including cars, beach, parks,
etc.
d. Multiple Sex Partners
 Among males, around 45% aged 15-19 years had multiple partners while
approximately 52% aged 20-24 years had multiple partners.
 Among females, around 10% aged 15-19 years had multiple partners
while approximately 12% aged 20-24 years had multiple partners.
2. UNPROTECTED SEX
 YAFS 2 reveal that more females did not use any contraceptive method during
their first sexual encounter.
 Reasons:
 Not knowing about contraception
 Objection of partner
 Sex is not fun with contraception
 Contraception is either wrong or dangerous to health
 Spontaneity of sexual encounters
 Contraception use is higher among the younger ones.
 Males reported using a condom during casual or commercial sex although use was
largely determined by the situation (e.g. unplanned) and their condition (e.g.
drunk, or too aroused to stop).
3. MARRIAGE OR LIVE-IN
 The proportion of youth remaining single at older ages is expected to be much
higher in 2025.
 1998 NHDS revealed that nearly 4% of females aged 15-19 and around 8% of
females aged 20-24 were in live-in arrangements.
 YAFS 2 AND 3 showed increasing percentage of the young ages 15-24 who were
living in
 In 1994, 28% or nearly 3 out of 10 youth were living-in.
 At present, 2 out of 5 young adults are living-in.
4. PREGNANCY DURING ADOLESCENCE
 Pregnancy is common among young females who are out-of-school, in low
paying jobs, and residing in rural areas.
 YAFS 2 – 33% of females have given birth before the age of 21
 30% of all births are young pregnancies
 74% of illegitimate births come from young pregnancies.
 1/3 of Filipino young women already have 2-3 children.
5. ABORTION
 Abortion is illegal in the Philippines yet it has been estimated that about 400,000
abortions are performed every year.
 Reasons for having an abortion or married females (YAFS 1):
 34% economic reasons
 38% already too many children
 Reasons for having abortion of live-ins (YAFS 1):
 29% economic difficulties
 26% too many children
 11% instability of relationship
 6% having married partners
 Reasons for having an abortion of single youths (YAFS 1):
 22% studying
 20% fear of parents
 14% father of the child is married
 Abortion methods used:
 Taking unprescribed drugs like cytotec (40%)
 Taking prescribed drugs (16%)
 Taking herbs and related concoctions (9%)
  “Hilots” are the most popular service provider to the young women in
distress (29%)
6. YOUTH REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH PROBLEMS AND HEALTH SEEKING
BEHAVIOR
 70% of males and 35% of females report RH problems.
 Female RH problems are less serious than males but has increased from 18% -
23%.
 Serious vs Less Serious RH problems (see pic)
 As a general practice, our young people do not seek medical help for their
reproductive health problems. More males than females seek health care for their
RH problems, perhaps because the problems they experience are more serious.
 Infection from circumcision (22%)
 Painful urination (20%)
 Penile discharge (17%)
 Reddish and swollen testicles (15%)
 Itching in the genital area (11%)

Part II: Mate Selection

MATE CHOICE OR MATE SELECTION

a. Free Choice Spouse – two people like are attracted to each other, fall in love, and get
married
b. Free Choice with Parental Approval
c. Arranged Marriages

FAMILY FORMATION: MATE SELECTION

1. Who to marry?
 Endogamy vs Exogamy – inside vs outside
 Homogamy vs Heterogamy – same traits vs different traits
 Hypergamy vs Hypogamy (extremes; very different or very similar)
2. How many to marry?
 Monogamy – two committed partners get married; a life-long relationship
 Serial Monogamy – marriage to several spouses one after another; a result
of divorce and separation
 Polygamy – one man or woman married two or more partners (punishable offense
in Canada, but common in other countries)
 Polygyny – 1 male, multiple females
 Polyandry – 1 female, multiple males
3. Attraction
  Chaggo tribe – males dress up to attract females
 Wodabe tribe – wife-stealing festival; world’s vainest people especially male
 Karen tribe – women with longer necks are more attractive
4. Love
 Strong emotional attachment with sex desire and tenderness
 “Romantic love complex” in relationships (i.e., falling in love as a highly
desirable basis of courtship) and marriage is rare.
 Love is not necessarily the foundation of marriage (Caveat).
 Arranged marriages last longer than marriage out of love.
 Marriage based on socio-economic issues last longer than marriage out of love.
 Love is replaced over time.
 15 years – communication
 20-30 years – mutual respect

THEORIES ON MATE SELECTION

A. NATURAL SELECTION
 Evolutionary psychology (Darwinian)
 What we find attractive is prehistorically determined
 The best or most advantageous physical traits (fit, strong, fastest, child-bearing)
are found to be attractive
 Most attractive = most likely to survive
 Key points:
 Exchange of valuable reproductive resources
 Individual preferences regarding an attractive mate
 Competition to attain the most attractive
B. STERNBERG’S LOVE TRIANGLE
 Three components of love:
 Passion – physical attraction, sexual desire/attraction
 Intimacy – intense friendship which develops slowly through sharing, and
a willingness to meet other’s needs; encompasses feelings of attachment,
closeness, connectedness, and bondedness
 Commitment – maintaining the relationship as the rewards grow;
encompasses in the short term the decision to remain with another, and in
the long term, the plans made with each other
 Sternberg’s love triangle
 Non love – casual interactions
 Liking/friendship (intimacy alone) – closeness without long-term
commitment
  Infatuated love (passion alone) – passionate arousal; beginnings of a
romantic relationship
 Empty love (commitment alone) – can be the beginning or end of a
relationship; strong love may deteriorate to empty love or empty love may
develop to stronger love (e.g., arranged marriages)
 Romantic Love (Intimacy + Passion) – drawn physically to each other
and bonded emotionally but without a sustaining commitment
 Companionate Love (Intimacy + Commitment) – strong platonic
friendship; observed in long-term marriages where passion is no longer
present, but where a deep affection and commitment remain.
 Fatuous Love (Passion + Commitment) – whirlwind courtship and
marriage; commitment is made on the basis of passion without the
stabilizing influence of intimate involvement
 Consummate Love (Intimacy + Passion + Commitment) – the complete
form of love, representing an ideal relationship which people strive
towards

*Theory of the perfect couple:

i. They cannot imagine themselves happier over the long-term with anyone
else
ii. They overgrow their difficulties gracefully
iii. Each delight in the relationship with one another
iv. These couple will continue to have great sex fifteen years or more

*It is hard to maintain consummate love. It may not be permanent; if passion is

lost over time, it may turn into companionate love.
C. SOCIAL HOMOGAMY
 Individuals are attracted to those with a similar social background.
 Attractiveness rating is influenced by similar social positions (age, race, status,
religion and political views)
 Physical sameness is also a variable in attraction
 Explains how attraction between different races/ethnicities occurs because of
similar social environments
D. PROPINQUITY THEORY
 We marry/select people that we know
 The more often you see someone, the more likely you are to form a relationship –
friendship or intimate.
 Time and Place:
 We meet many potential partners over the course of our life – people that
we find attractive
  We marry the person we are dating when “the time is right”
 Factors include educational attainment, financial stability, career status,
geographical location
E. COMPLEMENTARY NEEDS THEORY
 You are attracted to qualities, skills, or resources in others that you do not
possess.
 Basis: complementary characteristics (introvert-extrovert, dominant-submissive)
 Not necessarily motivated by the idea that “opposites attract” but working well
together
 Opposites do attract but not for long, “opposites attract, then they attack”
 Dominant-submissive relationship is an exception
F. FILTER THEORY
 Kerkhoff and Davis
 As time passes, and exclusiveness increases we go through a screening process.
 Potential partners narrowed.
 Factors include age appearance, status, personality, beliefs
 Attractiveness → Social Background → Attitudes and Values →Readiness for
Marriage, “The One”
G. STIMULUS-VALUE-ROLE THEORY
 Murstein
 Influenced by Filter Theory and Homogamy
 Stage 1 – Stimulus
 Partnership because of physical attraction, social compatibility, and
personality
 Rewards are greater than costs
 Stage 2 – Value
 Consider sex, religion, marriage, children, lifestyle, attitude
 Greater compatibility or sameness = REWARDING
 Stage 3 – Role
 Role that agreed values will play in your life together
 Expressing these roles
 Stability and optimism in this expression