Chapter 5 - Genes, Culture, and Gender

CHAPTER FIVE: GENES, CULTURE, AND GENDER HOW ARE WE INFLUENCED BY HUMAN NATURE AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY? - - - - All of us everywhere, are intensely social. We join groups, conform, and recognize distinctions of status. We return favors, punish offenses, and grieve a love one’s death Donald Brown identified several hundred such universal behavior and language patterns. To sample among just those beginning with “v,” all human societies have verbs, violence, and vowels Even much of our morality is common across cultures and eras Everywhere, humans prefer living with others – in families and communal groups – to living alone Such commonalities define our shared human nature. Although differences draw our attention, we’re more alike than different. We’re all kin beneath the skin - Culture – enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next - The universal behaviors that define human nature arise from our biological similarity Natural Selection – evolutionary process by which heritable traits that best enable organism to survive and reproduce in particular environments are passed to ensuing generations Evolutionary Psychology – the study of the evolution of cognition and behavior using principles of natural selection CULTURE AND BEHAVIOR - Perhaps our most important similarity, the hallmark of our species, is our capacity to learn and adapt “evolution made us for culture” Genes are not fixed blueprints; their expression depends on the environment Epigenetics – a field of research exploring the expression of genes across different environments - Nature predisposes us to learn whatever culture we are born into CULTURAL DIVERSITY - GENES, EVOLUTION, AND BEHAVIOR - Our genes enable an adaptive human brain Ironically, our shared human biology enables our cultural diversity - - The diversity of our languages, and expressive behaviors confirms that much of our behavior is socially programmed, not hardwired As we work, play, and live with people from diverse cultural backgrounds, it helps to understand how our cultures influence us and how our cultures differ In a conflict-laden world, achieving peace requires a genuine appreciation for both our genuine differences and our deep similarities NORMS: EXPECTED BEHAVIOR - As etiquette rules illustrate, all cultures have their accepted ideas about appropriate behavior Norms – standard for accepted and expected behavior. Norms prescribe “proper” behavior. (In a different sense of the word, norms also describe what most others do – what is normal) CHAPTER FIVE: GENES, CULTURE, AND GENDER - - Just as stage play moves smoothly when the actors know their lines, so social behavior occurs smoothly when people know what to expect Norms grease the social machinery Cultures vary in their norms for expressiveness, punctuality, rule breaking, and personal space. Consider the following: • • • • • Individual Choices – culture vary in how much they emphasize the individual self (individualistic cultures) versus others and the society (collectivistic cultures) Expressiveness Punctuality Rule Breaking – norms are especially important in traditional, collectivistic cultures o Collectivistic cultures are more likely to stigmatize people seen as different, whether through identity or behavior Personal Space – buffer zone we like to maintain around our bodies. Its size depends on our familiarity with whomever is near us o Individuals differ: some people prefer more personal space than others. o Groups differ too: adults maintain more distance than do children. Men keep more distance from one another than do women. For reasons unknown, cultures near the equator prefer less space and more touching and hugging Culture differ not only in their norms for such behaviors, but also in the strength of their norms - Societies with stronger, enforced norms for behaviors are “tight” cultures, more likely to have been exposed to threats such as territorial conflict or resource scarcity CULTURAL SIMILARITY - • • • • As members of one species, the processes that underlie our differing behaviors are much the same everywhere Universal friendship norms – people everywhere have common norms for friendship Universal traits dimensions – around the world, people describe other with between two to five universal personality dimensions Universal social beliefs – there are five universal dimensions of social beliefs. Across 38 countries, people varied in cynicism, social complexity, reward for application, spirituality, and fate control o People’s adherence to these social beliefs appears to guide their living Universal Status Norms – wherever people form status hierarchies, they also talk to higher-status people in the respectful way they often talk to strangers. And they talk to lower-status people in the more familiar, first-name way they speak to friends o Most languages have two forms of the English pronoun “you”: a respectful form and a familiar form o The first aspect of this universal norm – that forms of address communicate not only social distance but also social status – correlates with a second aspect: Advances in intimacy are usually suggested by the higher-status person CHAPTER FIVE: GENES, CULTURE, AND GENDER THE INCEST TABOO - Best known universal norm Attitudes and behavior will always vary with culture, but the processes by which attitudes influences behavior vary much less HOW ARE MALES AND FEMALES ALIKE AND DIFFERENT? - For most people’s self-concepts and social relationships, the two dimensions that matter most – and that people first attune to – are race and, especially gender Transgender – people whose sense of being male or female differs from their birth sex emotions, and be attuned to others’ relationships - - - - GENDER AND GENES Gender – in psychology, the characteristics, whether biologically or socially influenced, by which people define male and female - - Of the 46 chromosomes in the human genome, 45 are unisex On the most psychological attributes, the overlap between the sexes is larger than the difference Your “opposite sex” is actually your similar sex - In conversation, men more often focus on tasks and on connections with large groups Women focus on personal relationships Women are more aware of how their actions affect people Women’s phone conversations last longer, and girls send more than twice as many test messages as do boys Women talk for longer when the goal is affiliation with others Men actually talk more overall and when the goal is asserting one’s opinions and giving information Women spend more time sending emails, in which they express more emotion, and they spend more time on social networking sites When in groups, women share more of their lives and offer more support When facing stress, men tend to respond with “fight or flight” Women who are under stress more often “tend and befriend” Vocations – In general, women are more interested in jobs dealing with people, and men in job with things Women are wonderful effect – a phenomenon where most people rate their beliefs and feelings regarding women as more favorable than their feelings regarding men Family Relations – women’s connections as mothers, daughters, sisters, and grandmothers bind families INDEPENDENCE VERSUS CONNECTEDNESS Smiling – women’s greater connectedness has been expressed in their generally higher rate of smiling Play – girls talk more intimately and play less aggressively. They also play in smaller groups, often talking with one friend Friendship – as adults, women – at least in individualistic cultures – are more likely to describe themselves in relational terms, welcome help, experience relationship linked Empathy – women are far more likely to describe themselves as having empathy – the vicarious experience of another’s feelings; putting oneself in another’s shoes - Women tend to outperform men at reading others’ emotions CHAPTER FIVE: GENES, CULTURE, AND GENDER - - - Women also are more often strikingly better than men at recalling others’ appearance Women are more skilled at expressing emotions nonverbally. This is especially so for positive emotion Men, however, were slightly more successful in conveying anger - Precarious Manhood – a phenomenon where men’s greater social power is not entirely positive, as they may fear losing it - SOCIAL DOMINANCE - - - - People rate men as more dominant, driven, and aggressive Men more than women rate power and achievement as important In essentially every society, men are socially dominant Gender differences vary greatly by culture, and gender differences are shrinking in many industrialized societies as women assume more managerial ang leadership positions People perceive leaders as having more culturally masculine traits – as being more confident, forceful, independent, and outspoken When writing letters of recommendation, people more often use such “agentic” adjectives when describing male candidates, and more “communal” adjectives when describing women candidates The net effect may be to disadvantage women applying for leadership roles Men’s style of communicating undergirds their social power. In leadership roles, men tend to excel as directive, task-focused leaders; women excel more often in the “transformational” or “relational” leadership that is favored by more organizations, with inspirational and social skills that build team spirit Men more than women place priority on winning, getting ahead, and dominating others - - - - - - Men are much more concerned about being identified as feminine than women are at being identified as masculine Men also acts more impulsively and take more risks Men and women do not differ, however, in taking social risks, such as expressing an unpopular opinion In writing, women tend to use more communal prepositions, fewer quantitative words, and more present tense Men use more complex language and women use more social words and pronouns In conversation, men’s style reflects their concern for independence, women’s for connectedness Men are more likely to act as powerful people often to – talking assertively, interrupting intrusively, touching with the hand, staring more, smiling less Women’s influence style tends to be more indirect – less interruptive, more sensitive, more polite, less cocky, and more qualified and hedged AGGRESSION - Physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt someone. Men admit to more aggression than women But again, the gender difference fluctuates with the context. When people are provoked, the gender gap shrinks