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Cross Cultural Misunderstanding
Cross Cultural Misunderstanding
Summary of the article
This article is about an experiment that was conducted to determine if differences in cultural perspectives might act as an impediment to empathetic responses. It was conducted among American college students, these participants were to read on targets that experience in social context and assumed a consistent or inconsistent perspective with norms found. It entails the methodology used to carry out the experiment, the results from the experiment and a discussion of the results. It also gives an explanation of the meaning of empathy indicating how theorists have perceived the cognitive aspects of empathy. It also contains some examples of psychological research on exploring empathy.
Methods, participants, design and procedure
The participants of the experiments were 147 voluntary students, 36 male and 111 female from a university supported by the state (Nelson, & Baumgarte, 2009).The participants were to read on experiences of two individuals that were to be targets and give their impressions. Two vignettes were read which described targets who were distressed in social or work context. The targets of the vignettes were three different areas in cultural norms. The assigning of the vignettes was done randomly to the participants, one vignette with a dissimilar perspective and a second one with a similar perspective but relating to different cultural perspectives. There was a counterbalance made between the orders of the presentation of the vignettes. The participants then responded to questions that had been designed for assessment of perceptions of the similarity and empathetic responses.
Measures used
There were different measures used in the experiment this include similarity manipulation check that was used to make assessment of extent to which the manipulations of the different cultural perspectives had an influence on perceptions, similarity. The participants were asked the extent to which they felt similar to the target.
Cognitive perspective taking was used to assess perspective taking .participants were required to answer a series of six questions. Those were designed to asses the dispositional and situational attributions on the response of the target. The final measure used was empathetic concern which was used in making assessment of the effective empathy. The participants were asked to rate their experience on several emotions when they were reading the vignettes.
Results
From the preliminary analysis there was an indication of no existing difference emerging on the measured variables which as a function of gender, the specific vignette or the order which the vignettes were presented. This indicated that there was a collapse or responses across these dimensions mentioned. From the manipulation check cultural similarity as successful. When it came to cognitive perspective measures individuals who were in cultural conditions that are similar showed greater perspective as compared to those in a dissimilar cultural condition. On empathetic concerns individuals in similar culture showed greater empathetic concern than those in culture conditions that are dissimilar.
Discussion.
This study was purposed to examine whether empathetic responses are dependant on the level of their similarity in their cultural perspectives. The hypothesis made was that there would be less emotional and cognitive empathy for people that were experiencing distress from incidences that were reflecting unfamiliar cultural norms. The hypothesis also showed that reduction of empathy on the target person would be mediated through lack of taking the perspective of the observers’ part. The hypothesis were tested in the context of three distinct social domains were target and respondents norms were expected to be different. There was an expression of distress from targets on issues related to the norms on personal versus group recognition and independence among friends.
The results reveal that in the cases, respondents presumed to have cultural norms that are typical in the United States that exhibit less perspective taking when evaluation of distress of targets that respond to different cultural norms. The likelihood of respondents to relate to response from targets and perceive the response was very low. There were lessened feelings of empathy with respect to targets whose behaviors were a reflection of the different culture norms.these findings has an importance on the implication for cross cultural relations.
Shortcomings and criticisms
In the article, the possible shortcoming it’s how an empathic response depends on the cultural perspectives. In the article, we are shown how individuals are experiencing less emotional as well as cognitive empathy in targeting the experiencing in distress stemming from the incident of unfamiliar norms. However the reduction of affective empathy was majorly felt to the targeted people who were then mediated by the lack of perspective hence taking on the part of the observer. This shows how criticism was displayed in the article. For instance, the participants who were undergraduate students from the University in South Carolina were enrolled for introductory psychological course, just to be told that they will do reading only about the experiences of the two individuals along with giving their impressions.
Methodology
The methodology used in the article has been improved. From the article, it is shown that, the present findings have got a great significant implication for the cross-cultural relations, this shows how the methodology has greatly improved. The societies across the world are also shown on how they have started becoming increasingly diverse in regards to the cultural norms and behaviors.
Analyses
The analyses of the articles are not clear and none is convincing. For instance, the cultural similarities conditions were expected to bring an impact to the empathic concern because of the difficulty in appreciating divergent cultural perspectives. In Schwartz work, he analyzes that the cross-cultural investigations given in the article is only based on what may determine to set a universal values but there are no further analyses to that. The path analysis also indicated that the reduction in empathic concern was mainly mediated by the lack of perspective takings.
Suggestions about the article
The article should clearly reveal the results in each case to make them more convincing. For instance, the results from the article are presumed to have the typical cultural norms which exhibit a less perspective when it comes to evaluation of the distress of the targets responding to differing the cultural norms. In the article the shortcomings that may lead to conflicts should be at all times be solved just in the case of participants from the University in South Carolina who were undergraduate students where there were only 36 male and 111 females.
Reference
Nelson, D.W & Baumgarte, R. (2009). Cross-Cultural Misunderstandings Reduce
Empathic Responding.
A Description of the Formation of the Rainbow
A Description of the Formation of the Rainbow
Name of Author
Institutional Affiliation
A Description of the Formation of the Rainbow
Historically, Aristotle (the classical Greek philosopher) was the first person to devote much effort in studying the rainbow. Despite its appeal to the Pythagorean numerology, his qualitative explanation of the rainbow was relatively consistent and remained unchallenged for centuries. It was not until his death that more scientific theories about the rainbow got formulated. The early scientific explanation coined by Hüseyin Topdemir Gazi, the Persian physicist, asserted that a rainbow is a concentric circle that forms on the axis of concave mirrors. His theory was founded on the refraction and reflection of the sun rays. A number of modern scientists relied on these two scientific principles in advancing the rainbow formation experiments. This research focuses on the dispersion, refraction, and reflection of light as the primary processes involved in the formation of the rainbow.
The rainbow is a multi-colored spectrum of light meteorological and optical phenomenon caused by refraction and reflection of light rays in water droplets. The formation of the rainbow takes place in seven stages. In the first stage, white light produced by the sun strive the raindrops at an acute angle before any light spectrum forms. The angle at which the white light rays from the sun hit the drops of water in the sky is important. It is because this determines the direction of the refracted and reflected light rays after hitting the water surface, thus playing a decisive role in the formation of the rainbow (XXXXX).
The second and the third stages of this scientific process are reflection and refraction of the white light rays respectively. Like a glass window, water reflects and transmits light. When the white light rays radiated by the sun hit water droplets in the sky, a fraction of these light gets reflected in accordance with the laws of reflection (XXXX). Some white light rays get refracted, thereby crossing the air-water boundary layer. However, they slow down in speed because of the differences in medium densities. Therefore, the light path bends upon entering a denser boundary – a process referred to as refraction of light. It is this bending of the white light toward the normal line that gets directed into the eye of the observer (XXXXX).
The fourth stage involves the splitting of the white light into seven component colors. XXXXX (…) established that the white light is a spectrum of different colors and wavelengths. They include red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet (ROYGBIV). Depending on their wavelengths, these colors have different speeds when they travel from one medium to another of different densities. It is these variations in densities that determine their degrees of dispersion. However, the rainbow remains invisible to the viewer unless total internal reflection takes place. This happens in the fifth stage of rainbow formation. In this stage, the white light hits the raindrop surface at the incident angle that exceeds the theoretical critical angle (XXXX).
The final two stages are double refraction and further dispersion of these light spectrums. The speed of the white light changes again for the second time when it leaves the raindrop boundary. Given that it enters a lighter medium (air), its speed increases and it gets refracted away from the defined normal line. Each component of the white light is further dispersed depending on its wavelengths, thereby forming a circular arc. The red light gets refracted away from the normal line at a steeper angle relative to the blue light. It is for this reason that the red light gets directed to the eye of an observer standing at an acute angle to the ground. The blue light is directed at obtuse angle through a trajectory path that passes over the head of the observer. This is why the red and blue lights are observed at the top and bottom of the rainbow respectively.
In conclusion, the formation of the rainbow is one of the scientific processes that have remained controversial. While Aristotle proposed the first theory explaining its formation, it got dismissed on the account that it was a qualitative to this scientific process. However, most scientists relied on this theory to advance scientifically proven explanations about the formation of the rainbow. There are three processes involved in the formation of the rainbow. These include reflection, refraction, and dispersion of the white light, which is a spectrum of seven light colors. Before the rainbow forms, the white light radiated by the sun and water droplets must exist. Depending on their wavelengths, different components of the white light get dispersed and refracted at different angles away from the normal line, hence the formation of the rainbow.
References
Ahrens, C. D. (2013). Meteorology Today: An Introduction to Weather, Climate, and the Environment. Boston: Brooks & Cole Publishers.
Dawkins, R., & McKean, D. (2012). The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True. New York: Free Press.
Filippenko, A. V., & Leven, J. (2007).Understanding the Universe: An Introduction to Astronomy. Springfield, VA: Teaching Publishing Company.
Norris, K. D. (2012). A Guide to Bearded Irises Cultivating the Rainbow for Beginners and Enthusiasts. Portland: Timber Press.
Different Religions
Different Religions
Since the dawn of man, people have had their own forms of religion. Be it simple ceremonial burial or complex blessing rituals, each person had their own way to explain the wonders of nature like, how did we come here and what our purpose here was. Another thing that each individual person had was their own morals. Morals are what define a civilization. Labels like peaceful or barbaric are put on different civilizations because of their morals. The morality of each civilization defined their religious beliefs.
The lives of people who lived in the early ancient history time period were tough. They had to roam the land always looking for new game to hunt and plants and berries to gather. The people weren’t united because of all this traveling, and therefore contact with other people was minimal. Morals are hard to develop without much contact with other people and so the religion of these early people was minimal. Then came the development of farming into this time period. Farming brought the people together. Small cities began to develop because the people didn’t have to move around as much. With all this closeness, the people developed moral views on what to think about thieves or murderers.
If certain civilizations didn’t mind violence and killing, then they developed into a Brutal civilization. Consequently, the religions of these civilizations were evolved around sacrificial rituals and allegiance to brutal gods. The Assyrian civilization worked around this principle. They used scare tactics to overcome their enemies and treated their captives badly. They also believed in powerful gods who they feared. If certain civilizations became peaceful, then their religion reflected their peaceful nature and didn’t have things like sacrifices. The people in peaceful civilizations believed in their religion because they wanted to not because they were afraid to. A good example of this is the Hebrews. The Hebrew were a peaceful people who disliked violence.
Because of this peaceful nature, their religion taught values like brotherhood, charity, human dignity, and universal peace. Violent cultures cause violent religions and peaceful cultures create peaceful religion
The Greeks were a peaceful civilization. They believed in the idea of democracy and they strongly believed in philosophy. This gave them plenty of time to contemplate about things like morality and religion. Their morals were always related to individual freedom, because they stressed a person’s right to criticize, be curious, and be different. Thus, their religion of many gods supported their way of life. Each god would represent a different aspect of life. Kind of like each person is different and represents good and bad in different degrees. The Greeks believed in people being different and their religion involves many different gods.
The Romans were very much like the Greeks. They were ruled by a senate for most of their reign, but towards the end were ruled by dictatorship. They were composed of many different cultures and were very tolerant of the different customs and beliefs. This acceptance of many different cultures explains their religious beliefs. First the Romans had a religion with a few main gods like Janus and Jupiter and thousands of little gods like the god of fever and the god of gold coins. Then, as the Roman power expanded, Greek influence grew. So the Romans stole many of the Greek myths and legends and applied them to the Roman gods. This pleased the people for a little while, but they began to become dissatisfied by the old religion. Finally, Christianity began to get converts.
Because of the accepted diversity of the Roman Empire, the religious beliefs changed with the changing morality of its people.
The middle Ages provide the best support for the thesis. It shows how the church adapted to changing morals. During the middle Ages, there was a decline in intelligence as a chief moral. This era is even sometimes referred to as the ‘Dark Ages’. People became more superstitious. The control of land and money became a big part of everybody’s life. This was reflected in the changes that occurred in the Catholic Church. The church evolved to become the learning center for the people. The church also started collecting taxes and serving as a hospital for the sick. These changes in the church were brought about by a change in morals.
The word Renaissance means rebirth. The Renaissance period in Europe was a rebirth of ideas. Europe mainly had customs and institutions before the Renaissance, but after the Renaissance period got started, it sparked a revolution. This revolution also created a change in religious beliefs. The morals of many people had started to change. Many people started to feel that the church wasn’t for them. These people broke off from the church and formed their own religions. One such person is Martin Luther. Luther openly stated ninety-five reasons why he didn’t like the church. He went off and formed Lutheranism. During the Renaissance, because of the changing morals, religion had to change.
The morality of each civilization created their religious beliefs. It is obvious with all of these civilizations that this holds true. The people from the Ancient Historical time period formed many little colonies. The religion of these colonies changed with the views of the people in them. If the people liked violence, then their gods became powerful to scare them into believing. If the people like peace, then their gods became peaceful and used good ideas to get them to follow. The morals of the Greeks were believing in independence and being different. It isn’t a coincidence that their religion contains many different gods each with its own personality and skills, like humans. The Roman culture dealt with so many different cultures, that its morals were frequently changing. The Romans changed their religion three times.
During the middle Ages, there was a decline of intelligence, cleanliness, and overall morals. The church became the tax collection agency, the hospital, and the school, which is a direct correlation between the declines in morals. So the increase in power of the church in the middle Ages was because of a change in morals. The Renaissance was a rebirth of ideas and morality. These changes had the greatest effect on the church, which had grown strong in the middle Ages.
The peoples changing morals forced them to adopt new religions like Lutheranism and Protestantism. Morals are what define a human being. They become present in every part of life, especially religion. Because civilization is moving so fast forward, peoples morals are changing rapidly too. When people’s morals change, it changes their whole life. That is why there have been so many different religions in the past.