Cultural Psychology

It is no shocker that “students of Asian background speak up less in class” as I often find us taking things in, personally lots of my friends who are Asian often have very good debates on topics after we have heard everyone else’s opinions. I find myself often sitting in the back of the classroom also to take everything in, like the behaviour of people. I also found it interesting to hear that Asian Americans perform poorly on tests when they are talking as when I’m writing a quiz I need it to be absolutely silent or even writing a paper as I find it makes me lose my train of thought. In relation to this, I find it very difficult to listen to different conversations or many people talking to me at once. I also find myself often eavesdropping and listening to conversations to get a scene of people and to hear all their opinions before voicing my opinion.  

Cultural values and practices have positive as well as negative impacts, personally one of the things is the stigma that occurs around education. In the education system, education is extremely important in Asia and highly prioritized whereas in Canada the education system is not as important and is not prioritized. There is a stigma that children are very good at math and are very smart, as well as put in long hours and are very focused on education. From this stigma, I have a learning disability and have faced challenges due to the stigma around Asian kids being extremely smart. At some points, I felt overlooked because of the stereotype that Asian children face day to day in relation to education. I also would say another thing that is overlooked is weight gain, as often those of Asian descent are seen to be skinny, even though bulimia is not really seen in Asia, due to Asian people being skinny there is also a stereotype that all Asians are skinny and don’t have any fat. This has a...

The aspects of my family’s past history does have an impact on shaping my thoughts and feelings. Due to the timing of me going into an orphanage, my family’s history is unknown, and this can be overwhelming at times not knowing because going to doctors appointments or when people ask, sometimes I feel ashamed of not knowing the answers. At a young age “moving to a new culture involves psychological adjustment,” looking back to my adoption I can remember hearing stories for example, when I came to Canada I was petrified of men as they were not seen inside of orphanages. I would also say that I also had an adjustment period after immigrating to Canada as things like pizza and pastas were not part of my food pallet and communicating in English was originally a challenge. My older siblings would tell stories of me biting them and hitting them when I didn’t get something I wanted, they would get frustrated as well because when they would tell me something I never had any idea what they were...

My niece just turned one and has been babbling and starting to talk, she understands a ton of what my sister says to her. It was mind-blowing that when she said to get her shoes on, she went and found her shoes. An episode for Babies on Netflix was Language, which discusses how babies are able to understand a language so quickly and able to pick it up. In the episode, it is seen in one family that children at a young age are able to pick up language extremely fast if they have emerged in that culture. This was seen in the parents where one only spoke English and the other only spoke French. At a young age, I was adopted from China, I always found it so interesting how I was able to pick up English after fully being immersed in Chinese and my parents knowing no Chinese. A study was also done in the video that looked at putting words together and sounds that frequently were heard. The findings were that  babies looked to the natural side more quickly and paid more attention to the n...

Over the years, society has seen significant cultural change, from cultures becoming more diverse, the impact of social media, careers changing, intelligence and technology. It has been super interesting to see how culture has been changing by looking back in the past. As our textbook said interconnections are increasing and it has been seen that "Starbucks is being drank worldwide." When my family and I went to Spain last spring we were able to get Starbucks. Instead of having a bagel at their Starbucks, they had pastries, we are seeing that big companies are able to adapt to the culture they are put into. Not only are big companies adapting but people are adapting, we have seen an increase in cultures becoming more diverse. This summer I lived in Moncton, New Brunswick and I’ve always visited as I have family there, and I’ve always noticed there wasn’t much of a diverse population but this summer I noticed there has been a big increase in the diversity of Moncton. As well s...

Travelling changed my cultural perspective. All my life I can remember travelling which is something I will cherish and thank my parents for doing. Taking my siblings and I to travel has allowed us to experience many different cultures. From state to state the cultures I have been exposed to have been very eye-opening. Travelling also has allowed me to immerse myself into these cultures for example when I went to China, I was able to go to school for a week. In the mornings calisthenics occurred with the whole school, then we would be released to class which we would be in for the majority of the morning. During those classes, we would have mind breaks, where we would play games, do exercises, go on mini adventures etc. Being in school in China was very different than school in Canada, as the education system does not look the same, the teaching methods and the expectations were different which allowed me to get a contrasting perspective on how culture shapes education. I was also able...