This chapter talked about seeking compliance and in the culture part it talked about how in our individualistic cultures we focus on rewards and punishments. But in collectivistic cultures they focus on altruism and duty. In our culture a mother would say "Clean your room and when you're done we will go out for ice cream" or "Clean your room today or else you cannot watch TV for a week." In Japan, for example, a collectivistic culture, it would sound more like "Clean your room because it is your duty in the family" or "Clean your room as to not embarrass your family when guests come over." That would not work very often with American kids! American kids would say, "I don't care" about altruistic or duty reasons.
In fact, I am Russian and I don't know if Russia is individualistic or collectivistic, but when it comes to cleaning our house, my mom has always pushed me to do it for collectivistic reasons, and it does not work so well for me. My room is always a mess. I think another reason this works in collectivistic cultures so well is because there is such a great level of respect, where as in the US, we value everyone equally. So many children do not think of their parents as high of an authority, they see them as closer to equals than collectivistic children do.
3 comments:
I agree that having respect for people of authority, whether it be your parents, people who are older, or the police, affects compliance in a relationship. In general I would agree with the cultural generalizations, but they are generalizations. I'm Korean and lived in Korea for quite a while, so I understand the contrast between individualistic and collectivistic cultures. But I would add that generational differences have a large impact too. Many young Koreans in their teens and twenties are very individualistic and deal with pressures to comply in this way. For example, a friend of mine in his late thirties works for LG and he tells me that "young kids these days just do whatever they want and ignore the company's culture." When he was their age, he wouldn't have dreamed of turning down a superior's invitation for after work drinks, for example. I'm not saying that there aren't cultural differences, just that they aren't always applicable. Back to your point, though, I think that the values you are taught early in life (like respect figures of authority or look out for the larger community and not just yourself) can impact how we are molded, and some personalities are more amenable to that than others.
It’s funny how you mention that different cultures have different ways of handling situations. I definitely experience this first hand as my family has lived in America as far back as I know so very little of our original Italian heritage stays with us (except the occasional noodle being thrown against the wall). My boyfriend on the other hand is from Japan and you were right on about how they are expected to do thing to honor the family, or out of respect for their parents. I couldn’t imagine cleaning my room out of respect for my mother. How would that show respect? I guess it really is just the difference in culture styles.
I would have to agree with what you had to say about how different cultures handle different situations because I believe that this statement is very true. I run into families in the Caucasian culture who would put their children in time outs when they act up or do something wrong. In the Mexican culture, the families would give a little spanking or take something away from their child that they love. It depends on how each culture was brought up. A lot of children these days do whatever they want when they want to. Some hardly even get disciplined. It's sad to see that happening and it's important to have structure.
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