Welcome Blog

Welcome to my blog! I will start off by introducing myself as a student who is enrolled in Human Development across Cultures; a Psychology course offered at St. FX University. Throughout this blog I will discuss how culture has shaped me as a person and how culture affects the development of other individuals. One example that I can think of where culture shapes my development as a person is the traditions that are held around ones death. Recently I had a conversation with a friend who is form a different province than myself and they had said that they never experienced a wake. In my culture when a person passes away the tradition is to have a wake as well as funeral. This process has shaped the way that I grieve when losing a loved one, making it more of a community enriched process. The experience of having the community come out to express their sympathy at wakes and having a funeral allows for closure for myself. After having that conversation with my friend it got me thinking that the traditions or the way a culture responds to the death of a person is going to impact the way people will grieve. For example, those in Madagascar celebrate a ritual Called Famadihana, or "Turning of the Bones”. After the death of loved one they dig up the remains of their relatives and rewrap them in fresh cloth then dance with the corpses around the tomb to live music. Other emotional factors that my culture influences is how it is okay for me to express my emotions publically. It is okay for me to be upset in front of other people, because that is what my culture has taught me. On the other hand, some cultures may not express their emotional states. These are just a couple of examples of how culture can impact human development, and for this case it impacts emotional processing.