Societal/Cultural Factors and Themes

Cross-Cultural Psychology
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Cross-Cultural Psychology
Societal/Cultural Factors and Themes
Culture constitutes a set of behaviors, symbols, and attitudes shared by a given group of individuals and mainly shared across generations. The diverse cultural factors that impact an individual’s worldview include social, political, technological, and economic realities. Cultures are shifting and mixing. People within different political, technological, economic, and social systems develop and embrace different cultures. Accordingly, people are free to embrace specific cultural messages that they wish to receive within society. Another cultural factor that could influence an individual’s worldview includes globalization. It is a concept anchored on few interrelated canons, including cultural-psychological (tolerance, openness, freedom of choice, and democracy) and economic-political (democracy and free market). Given that the globalization process entails various facets of human activities and transcends diverse national and cultural boundaries, the psychological tenets of openness and tolerance become important in individuals’ lives (Shiraev & Levy, 2016).
Accordingly, activity and access to resources are also socio-cultural factors that influence a person’s worldview. Activity constitutes that procedure of a person’s goal-centered interactions with the immediate environment. Human thought, emotion, reactions, and motivations are inseparable from human activity (a) influenced by environmental, socioeconomic, cultural, political, and individual conditions and (b) alters these conditions. In this vein, human psychology develops and manifests through human activity. Access to resources is another socio-cultural factor that unifies and splits cultures and people from each other (Shiraev & Levy, 2016). Individuals’ access to resources impacts many facets of individual and cultural behavior.
African cultural expectations concerning gender identity dictate that women and girls dress in generally feminine ways and be polite, nurturing, and accommodating. On the other hand, culture dictates that men be strong, bold, and aggressive. However, Western cultures dictate that clothes are won based on occasion, and people have the freedom to wear unisex attires. Every culture, ethnic group, and society has gender identity expectations, but they vary from one population group to another. Sexual orientation can be viewed differently within different cultures since some societies portray homophobic expressions. For example, Asian societies have fear, discomfort, aversion, anger, and disgust when interacting with gay people compared to North American culture that embraces diversity and acknowledges the existence and rights of gay people. Accordingly, culture influences the language or ethnicity of an individual, including how a person makes decisions or behaves based on their initial socialization contexts. An individual’s ethnicity can be viewed differently when culture is introduced into the picture to lay the foundation for objectively judge their behavior or actions, particularly because of distinct socialization settings (Shiraev & Levy, 2016).
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