...Introduction Individuality and independence are highly valued in our society. It is sometimes easy to forget that everything we do, including our private thoughts and fantasies, grows out of or is shaped through our interactions with others, especially others close to us. Whether we like it or not: we are born into groups and spend most of our social lives in those same groups. All of us assimilate, at least in part, the perspectives of these groups and thereby acquire our language, values, attitudes, beliefs and sense of identity. The most basic sociological premise is that humans are social beings, shaped in many ways by the groups to which we belong. Whether they be families, athletic teams, clubs (such as sororities and fraternities), religious groups, socioeconomic classes, complex bureaucratic organizations, or nations, much of human life is guided by group norms. Much of human life is also consumed with conflicts between groups, each of which tries to defend its own self interests. The competition of individuals and groups for wealth and power is the fundamental process shaping social structure. The conflict of groups produces a progressive development of greater equality, democracy, autonomy and individuality, as different forms of privilege are abolished. Many factors interact to generate changes in people's behavior and in the culture and structure of their society, including the physical environment, population, clashes over resources and values, supporting values...
Words: 1675 - Pages: 7
...thought and behavior (Feist & Feist, 2009). To enable more precise understandings of such differences and distinctions, psychological theorists develop explanations and parameters from various contexts. Psychoanalytic, humanistic and/or existential, dispositional, and learning theories help psychologists account for why and how people develop such individual and specific characteristics. They study these characteristics and the significant affects that the characteristics have on human development, as well as, the whole of human nature. Personality Defined According to Feist,& Feist (2009) personality is a global concept referring to a relatively permanent pattern of traits, dispositions, or characteristics that give some degree of consistency to a person’s behavior. Feist & Feist (2009) also wrote "Although no single definition is acceptable to all personality theorists, we can say that personality is a pattern of relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that give both consistency and individuality to a person's behavior."(Feist and Feist, 2009) There are many different theories of personality which can be grouped into one of four classes: traits, psychoanalytic, social learning, and humanistic personality. At the begining an individual needs to understand exactly what is meant when viewing the term “personality”. The word personality itself stems from the Latin word persona, which referred to...
Words: 1571 - Pages: 7
...nurture have never been explored until now. I have always assumed that I am who I am because God made me this way. Now that I have learned a bit more about this debate, I find that I am a product of both nature and nurture. I am tall, have brown hair, wear glasses, and speak with a country accent because of my gene structure given to me by my parents. The way that I act and my thought processes come from influences in my environment and the teachings of my family. “We are a product of nature and nurture, but we are also an open system” (Myers, pg. 167). This means that even though genes and culture are influences in a person’s overall structure, a person can defy each. For example, as a teenager, I was always pressured to go with the crowd and conform to their ways of thinking and acting. I wanted so badly to fit in and found it difficult because I was tall, lanky, and had acne which was all given to me by my nature or genetic structure. Growing up in a smaller town, teenage drinking was a pressure of my social group and while I knew it would be the “thing to do”, I opposed what culture was telling me was okay. I chose not to go with the crowd and for that, I enjoyed my high school experience in my own way. I was taught by my parents the consequences of right and wrong and knew that making such choices were wrong for me which was instilled in me through the nurture part of my makeup....
Words: 1113 - Pages: 5
...that most philosophers and thinkers alike look for a deeper meaning within their lives and throughout society. Previous to this course my viewpoint and attitude were based on the people of which I surround myself with, the life experiences I have encountered and the way in which we make our decisions and why. Following my studies I have found this foundation of my knowledge to be valid and rather accurate although there are numerous factors which make up our decisions and how we end up where we are, studying sociology has assisted me in becoming more aware of different factors which I may have not considered to make up a society and how in turn this has enhanced my sense of identity. In relation to individuality and where I am in society I have found there are a number of entities which define me within the social order, that being of where I have lived in the world, the people I surround myself with, the cultures I have endured and seen, the values I was taught as a child and to this day as an adult and the way in which I come to make my decisions. Attending 13 schools and living in 3 continents over 7 major cities all over the world up until the age of 16 I found this hard to deal with as a child, the older I become the more I realise how this has facilitated the way in which I live my life, I have come to realise how adaptable I am to many situations and that I am resilient to most circumstances of...
Words: 1623 - Pages: 7
...and patterns of social constructs. These meanings can only to be found by interpreting the ritual participants unconscious understanding of the symbols used and the overall context. Levi-Strauss is the founding father of structuralism, as it is applied to anthropology. Many have refined his thesis such as E.E.Evans-Pritchard and Arnold van Gennep. This essay outlines the main features of the theoretical position, the key proponents of the theory as well it critically examines structuralism as a theory used for ritual interpretation. Main features of Structuralism Bronislaw Malinowski among other ritual theorists “began to ask: if such symbols, beliefs, and patterns of ritual activity do not serve simply to maintain the patterns of social relationships, then what do they mean to the people who use them? (Bell, 1997, pg.34). Spawning from functionalism, structuralism is the theory that analyses the function of rituals and how they promote social order and community. Furthermore, structuralism aims to analyse the meaning of ritual activity such as the ideologies and core group values that are conveyed through symbols and the underlying patterns (Bell, 1997). “Structuralism in its widest sense is all about pattern: how things at first glance appear to be unrelated actually form part of a system of interrelating parts” (Barnard, 2000, pg. 127). Structuralism is a theoretical framework grounded in linguistic analysis. It goes beyond analyzing the functions of social life and looks...
Words: 2233 - Pages: 9
...defining a natural, yet, unavoidable topic. A re-education of sorts, thanatology is revived in accordance to contemporary day and time. Keywords: spirituality, death, dying, bereavement, suicide 4-Mat Review; Leming and Dickinson Leming & Dickinson (2011), pen about the manner of dying, death and bereavement supported by research and contemporary social theories. Emphasizing experiential knowledge which reinforces concepts of death, dying, and bereavement, a social-psychological tactic was employed throughout the four chapters. Life span comparisons expanded the reader’s perspective. Not to leave out other approaches, concepts are advanced through biological, philosophical and anthropological edifications as well. These systems reveal the interactivity of behavior and subjectivity within the subject matter. Summary Chapter one develops death and dying through the lens of human development and educational theories. Approaching death and dying by means of examining related behaviors develops meaning. Important to most individuals is the significance of death’s connotation which appears to be fundamentally and universally social. Popular culture, terrorism, religiosity, memorials/rituals, and medical advances help conceptualize todays meaning of death. Educational constructs deal with coping skills, mortality, compassion, cultural differences...
Words: 2453 - Pages: 10
...in the area of violent crimes such as murder (Balfour’ 739). This has produced a new form of feminist studies in an area called feminist criminology. What hasn’t been studied as extensively is the question of why women kill. I argue that by using the individuality concept of third wave feminism and doing more research in the field of feminist criminology, patterns of criminal behavior may be established which may prevent severe female crime such as murder. This paper seeks to explain how advancing the study of feminist criminology is good for the U.S. legal system and could have changed the outcome for Aileen Wuornos. In this paper I will discuss what third wave feminism is, then I will discuss what feminist criminology is and how it applies to the Aileen Wuornos case, and lastly I will show that with advanced studies into the field of feminist criminology, odds of severe crimes committed by women could decrease. The third wave of feminism is not easily describable. However, it can be framed by saying that it is a movement that continues to advance the women’s rights agenda of the second wave (Zimmerman et al. 77). Unlike the second wave which was intended to give a voice to all women, the third wave tends to reflect more on the individual. By focusing on personal narratives, responsible choices, and by individual level political activism, the third wave gives us the idea that anyone, not just straight, privileged white woman can identify themselves as feminist and be...
Words: 1769 - Pages: 8
...this family 10 Question 6 References 11 Plagiarism 12 Ecological map of the Rogers family 3. (a) Briefly describe the story as seen from the perspective of each of the family members According to Erik Erikson's model of psychosocial development, life is a series of lessons and challenges which help us grow and it outlines the reason for such growth. The theory is helpful for Child Development and adults too. Erikson's theory like Freud is largely concerned with how...
Words: 3934 - Pages: 16
...By LAWRENCE WRIGHT John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Read the Review TWO LIVES-- ONE PERSONALITY? A pair of identical twin girls were surrendered to an adoption agency in New York City in the late 1960s. The twins, who are known in psychological literature as Amy and Beth, might have gone through life in obscurity had they not come to the attention of Dr. Peter Neubauer, a prominent psychiatrist at New York University's Psychoanalytic Institute and a director of the Freud Archives. Neubauer believed at the time that twins posed such a burden to parents, and to themselves in the form of certain developmental hazards, that adopted twins were better off being raised separately, with no knowledge of their twinship. Neubauer also recognized the exceptional research possibilities such a separation offered. Studies of twins reared apart are one of the most powerful tools that scholars have to analyze the relative contributions of heredity and environment to the makeup of individual human natures. Identical twins are rare, however, and twins who have been separated and brought up in different families are particularly unusual. Neubauer was aware of a mere handful of studies examining twins reared apart, and in most cases the twins being studied had been separated for only part of their childhoods and were reunited at some point long before the study began. Here was an opportunity to look at twins from the moment they were separated, and to trace them through childhood, observing at each...
Words: 6661 - Pages: 27
...CITY 2.1. PRE-ISLAMIC PRECEDENTS 2.2. FORMATION OF URBAN MODELS 3. DESIGN PRINCIPLES OF THE ISLAMIC CITY 3.1. NATURAL LAWS 3.2. RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL BELIEFS 3.3. DESIGN PRINCIPLES STEMMED FROM SHARIAH LAW 3.4. SOCIAL PRINCIPLES 4. MORPHOLOGICAL COMPONENTS OF THE ISLAMIC CITY 4.1. THE MAIN MOSQUE 4.2. SUQS 4.3. RESIDENTIAL QUARTERS -COURTYARDS 4.4. STREET NETWORK 4.5. WALL 4.6. EXTERIOR 4.7. ELEMENTS ABOVE THE STREET. 4.8. ISLAMIC EXTERIOR AND INTERIOR DECORATION 4.9. THE WAQF 4.10. WATER SYSTEMS 4.11. SERIAL AND CONTINUOUS SHAPES OF WATER 4.12. POLAR AND CLOSED WATER SHAPES 5. CONCLUSION 6. REFERENCES 3 4 4 4 6 7 7 7 7 8 9 9 11 12 12 12 12 12 13 14 15 18 19 20 |Page2 1. Introduction Man is a natural planner and all through history has planned for his own changing needs and for the needs of those around him. His towns and cities have been subject to continual 'progress' and 'modernization', evolving, adapting and assimilating new ideas and technologies. The changes came about through additions, alterations and adjustments to what was there before and in a way that continued to allow each place its own expression of culture and society. The infinite variety and diversity of mankind is identified by cultural preferences, modes of social behavior and interaction, rationale, intellect, beliefs, history and sense of space, time, color, texture and environment; and in the fulfillment of their ideals and aspirations. Progress must have its roots in the established culture, history...
Words: 5477 - Pages: 22
...Microsoft | The Power Relationship between Teachers and Learners in a TESOL context | [Type the document subtitle] | Student 9/6/2013 | Contents Introduction 2 Literature 3 Theories 3 Identity Formation of a Teacher 3 Language and Identity 4 Poststructuralist Perspectives on Identity 5 Positioning 7 Pronunciation factor of learners 7 Culturally relevant pedagogy 9 Conclusion 10 Works Cited 11 Introduction With rise in economic globalisation and information technology, the need for a common language became a necessity for all. It wasn’t possible to trade and have subsidiaries in foreign countries without being able to converse. Now, world has become a global village and IT has further reduced the regional barriers, that is why English came up as a common language to communicate. English became a global language and it became the necessity for every country to be equipped with English performance (Khamkhien, 2010). It has been seen that with the rise of globalization of English language teaching, the total of Non Native English Speaking (NNES) in the US who are graduated in the TESOL teaching programs have increased at a massive rate (Brain, 2004). From the last decade a considerable growth has been observed in the research of NNES and their experiences in school and society. Experts gave their views related to non-native English speaking and its advantages and drawbacks in TESOL, NNESs attitude and their behaviour in classroom, challenges...
Words: 5600 - Pages: 23
...not realised for several reasons. Taking a relational/processual rather than a systems approach, a case study of a global HRIS development project is examined using strategic exchange to highlight important social considerations of organisational, group and individual projects. As employing organisations and their environments become increasingly complex, their managers face growing difficulties in coping with workforces spread across various countries, cultures and political systems. Given such trends, information technologies have considerable potential as tools to be used by managers generally and in human resourcing functions particularly. But information technologies are not simple and uncomplicated tools to be picked up by managers and others and utilised without debate, reflection and contestation. They are tools that are used by human beings who have personal and group interests, values and identities to develop and defend. And, at a more structural level, there are numerous influences on the way that such technologies are incorporated into the strategies and plans of contemporary organisations. These include the changing structures of the organisation, the increase in partnerships and collaborations, the globalisation of markets and suppliers, changing social values and developments in communications and information technologies themselves (Mayo, 1992). Managers are frequently advised that to enhance organisational effectiveness, they should establish effective...
Words: 9829 - Pages: 40
...focus on the course readings as you prepare your responses. Assignment Structure and Marks |Assignment Section |Percentage of Mark | |Section 1: Communication Features |20 | |Section 2: Groups’ Shared Interests and Features |20 | |Section 3: User Interaction |20 | |Section 4: Business Communication Practices |20 | |Section 5: Social, Cultural, and Ethical Issues |20 | |Total |100 | Section 1: Communication Features (20%) 1. Sanders and Amason (2011) explain that online users must be effective in accomplishing their desired communication goals. This implies using the best methods and strategies possible with the least amount of complexity and effort. Provide two examples of your own online competency and explain whether or how you adapt your message to a social medium and its users’ needs in order to achieve your goals. Correctly...
Words: 4193 - Pages: 17
...cultural data set, this paper examines the impact of cultural characteristics on a nation’s economic performance. Using a two-step estimation procedure, we first estimate a panel growth regression and obtain estimates of each nation’s fixed effects, which reflect idiosyncratic differences in growth performance. In the second step, we regress the fixed effects on invariant cultural and institutional variables. Our estimation results suggest that individuality and tolerance for uncertainty are the most important cultural factors in explaining nation-specific growth performance. Furthermore, our findings suggest that political and property rights play a major role in determining idiosyncratic growth. Keywords: culture, economic growth, freedom, property rights JEL classification numbers: C23, O1 I. INTRODUCTION Using several measures of culture, we seek to determine the effect of culture on a nation’s economic performance. Among the cultural characteristics that we examine, individuality and uncertainty avoidance are found to be the most important in predicting economic growth that is not otherwise explained by economic fundamentals. Moreover, we discover that these cultural characteristics indirectly influence growth by shaping the legal framework of the nations in our study. On an intuitive level, these findings are not particularly...
Words: 8413 - Pages: 34
...indicators, we find that individualism and uncertainty avoidance are positively associated with a firm’s ethical policies, whereas masculinity and power distance are negatively related to these policies. KEYWORDS: business ethics, codes of ethics, cultural values JEL: G300, L210, M140 Introduction Are there differences with respect to the ethical policies of firms that are headquartered in different countries? And are there differences among firms that belong to different industries? Chryssides and Bert Scholtens received his Ph.D. at the Universtiy of Amsterdam. Since 1999 he has been working at the Department of Finance of the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. His research particularly looks into the interaction between financial institutions and corporate social responsibility. He has published in, among others, Ecological Economics, Journal of Banking and Finance, Finance Letters, Journal of Investing, Sustainable Development, and Journal of Business Ethics. Lammertjan Dam is a Ph.D. student at the Universtiy of Groningen. He expects to defend his thesis...
Words: 7933 - Pages: 32
