Health across Cultures

Health can vary greatly across cultures. One obvious way that health may differ is because all cultures are exposed to different environmental factors. Some cultures may be exposed to one illness, while another may not be exposed to it at all because they are not in the environment that causes it. Although, this is changing because of the world becoming a smaller global community, with the increases of technology we can travel more, and are thus able to be in contact with disease factors that we other-wise would not have been exposed to if we did not travel there.  Another interesting aspect of health among cultures is that some ethnic groups may be more susceptible to certain illness’ compared to others, as a pre-determined biological factor. For instance, in one of my courses at university I have learned that Native Americans have a predisposition/are more susceptible to diabetes. Thirdly, another interesting concept to health across cultures is how cultures may define health. Or, how does any one person define it. Maybe health means happiness. Or maybe health means free of disease. Maybe in one culture a person who has a disease but is spiritually happy may claim that they are in good health because they are spiritually healthy and happy. Health can vary across cultures in the way that treatments are done. In western societies hospitals, doctors, medicines, drugs, surgeries are all common ways to interact with disease. Other cultures may rely on natural herbs only. Or other cultures may not believe that you should do anything or alter anyone’s health. Some cultures may believe in blood transfusions, while others may not. Some culture may see large bodies as a sign of healthiness, while other may see it as a sign of obesity. What is the common thing seen here? That culture determines what is said to be healthy, what health means, how health is coped with, how it is treated. Culture is the defining aspect of how health develops across cultures. 

Gender across Cultures

When we are born we are either biologically a male or female. But what exactly does that mean? Are there certain characteristics, behaviors or attitudes that males should hold up, or certain ones that females should hold up. What determines these characteristics? Culture. It is culture that helps to define what is masculine or feminine, and different cultures may have different ideas of what fits into each category. For example, a culture that lives in harsh environments and depends on hunting may define a masculine trait that is strength, while another culture may not need to depend on strength for survival so the characteristic of strength is not as highly valued to be masculine.  There are also different gender roles across the labour force. Traditional gender role differences began to emerge in the families centuries ago. The notable gender roles include that women were expected to take care of household duties, child rearing and providing a nurturing house. This differs from men, who were expected to join the labour force and provide to the family financially. In the early 20th century it was not of the "norm" for mothers to go out and work, while the men stayed home and cared for the children and house. Thus, began the birth of traditional gender roles. This is what culture created it to be. It’s not what HAS to be done. There are not biological laws that make it impossible for men to care for children or women to work, it’s just what culture has created in the western societies. This point is being made clear now in the present days where the opposite is happening and women are working more and men are caring for the family more. Gender roles are becoming more fluid, because cultures are changing and accepting this new fluidity of gender roles, at least in the western societies that I have witnessed. 

Socialization

I will start this blog off with a little anecdote. The other day my friend told me a story about one time when she went to Peru that in the community she was at they had speakers around the town and a leader or a government official, whatever you want to call it, would make announcements over the speaker system that was around the town. Members of the community were to stop what they were doing and attend to the messages and respond accordingly. She described it as bizarre and felt like she was in the movie “The Hunger Games” if you had ever seen that movie you’ll know what I’m talking about. This got me thinking, and sparked a thought in my mind that related back to my human development course on the topic of socialization. Why was this community acting this way? Was it really bizarre, or was it just foreign to her? Next, we move to development across cultures to explain this. From the moment we are born we begin to interact with other human beings. The first months of our lives we may only interact with a select few people, but as we grow our circle of peers also grows creating the need for a better understanding of social interaction, moral development and justice. As we begin to interact with others we can go one of either way, as Kohlberg’s Theory suggests. We can interact positively with people, or negatively. Our actions can be positive in a way that benefits others, we could be sharing, or doing other actions that benefit the other person. Or, our actions can be negative in that they do not benefit the other person, for example, we could be aggressive, or rude to the person. So what then determines how we respond to people, how we interact and socialize? Well our cultural dimensions play a key role here. Depending what cultural dimension a person belongs to, for example, either individualistic or collectivist cultures this can effect what characteristics are emphasized in socialization. In an individualist community characteristics such as competition, individual achievement might be more prominent, while in a collectivist community cooperation and harmony are more prominent. So, to answer the question mentioned at the start of this blog, was that community acting weird for have a PA system among the community. Probably not. They could have been a collectivist community where equality was important so they depended on each other, worked together as a whole community, thus having a public speaker system to achieve goals together. 

The Self across Cultures

What is the self? The self is a concept that we believe of ourselves. It is how we as a person behave, our personality, our unique characteristics, our actions, why we do what we do, etc. It is how we identify with ourselves. How does this unique concept develop differently among people? Why are some people different from others? One context of the self is the innate, or the pre-determined temperament that we are born with. We are all born with some pre-determined personality. For example, you probably have noticed that not all newborns are the same. I have personally experienced this where my nephew as a newborn would cry and be agitated much more then my niece, who was calm and slept a lot. These are just innate characteristics. Although we are born with some aspect of a temperament or personality there are also cultural factors that come into play. Culture molds us into unique individuals and plays a huge role on how we act, behave and respond. Some cultures may be individualist or collectivists and this in turn plays a role on whether a person is said to be independent or interdependent, a trait that is said to be of the self. Those who are interdependent have a lot of flexibility in their characteristics and can change according to who they are interacting with. The relationship with others (one who is interdependent) is a big characteristic of their life, therefore they depend a lot on the relationships of others so they can adapt and accommodate themselves. For example, someone who identifies themselves as an independent person does not really depend on the relationships of others so there is no need to change their personalities. They remain the same person when interacting with different people. An interdependent person on the other hand does depend on relationships, therefore they will change their personality if they were interacting with say their mom, then their friend, then a leader, or their child. Since independence and interdependence are highly related to individualistic and collectivist cultures it can then be said that culture does impact ‘the self’, it is not just an inborn trait that is pre-determined for us.