Individuals Of Different Cultures Research Articles

Quality of Life Comparison: Objective Assessment versus Subjective Assessment

Quality of life assessment has been proposed as a possible research tool for evaluating the life experiences of individuals in different cultures. The bulk of the literature on quality of life recognizes the existence of two separate but related measures of quality of life: objective measures (tangible and observable measures) and subjective measures (cognitive assessment or satisfaction with existing tangibles). The question is whether the subjective and objective measure of general quality of life of one culture can be used to assess or predict the quality of life in another. The current investigation suggests quality of life is best assessed within the context of the culture in which the individual resides and makes recommendations for social work education to reinforce cultural sensitivity through study abroad in order to prepare future social workers to meet the social service demands in a globalized world.

Acculturating Adolescents: Micro-Integration and Social Support

As has been often descried, the well-being and integration of refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants mutually influence each other. Therefore, OMEGA Health Care Center is carrying through programs which at the same time further integration on the level of individuals and help prevent or address psychological, social and medical problems. Women and minors are the main target groups of these programs. Aside form giving adolescents concrete support—e.g. in their schoolwork—most of our youth programs focus on active work toward integration. This we understand as supporting real contact between individuals of different cultures. Currently, OMEGA is conducting outreach activities in refugee shelters and schools. In afternoon activities minors have the opportunity to join a music group, to participate in a school support program and to attend computer courses. One goal of our work it to include marginalized youth in all these groups and actively support their social integration in the mainstream society. Finally, the results of an evaluation of our music group and possible interventions for group leaders are discussed.

Do Cultures Clash? Evidence from Cross-national Ultimatum Game Experiments

Economic, political and social globalisation entails increasing interaction between individuals of different cultures. While experimental economists have established differences between the behaviour within different cultures, the effect of cultural difference on cross-culture interactions has so far not been sufficiently explored. This paper reports on the results of experiments with ultimatum games designed for this purpose, in which Malaysian Chinese and UK subjects played opponents of their own as well as of the other culture. We find that cultural differences exist between the behaviour of Western and Asians interacting (a) within their own respective national groups, and (b) with members of the other group. This evidence is discussed in terms of the possibility of a 'clash of cultures'.

Five potential principles for understanding cultural differences in relation to individual differences

This paper deals with psychological differences between two cultures, with respect to the differences between individuals in those same cultures. Five principles are presented which describe either actual or probable empirical relationships between within- and between-culture differences, and a possible theoretical account is given for each of the presumed differences. (1) The differences between “cultures” seem “bigger” than the actual differences between the individuals in these same cultures. This relation is attributed to the idea that universal human biological predispositions are often opposed by cultural traditions, so the outcome is somewhat of a compromise between the two. (2) Differences between individuals in different cultures are generally larger in behavior than in thoughts or feelings This is attributed to the fact that it is easier to socialize behavior than mental events. (3) Many cultural differences are expressed in individuals in terms of different default responses or interpretations or preferences for the same situation. Dominant responses in one culture are usually a less salient part of the repertoire of individuals in another culture. (4) Much of the effect of culture, and our impression of culture differences, results from the physical/social artifacts (environments, institutions) created by the culture. There is a strong tendency by psychologists to under-rate or ignore the effects of the physical environment. (5) In the contemporary world, differences between individuals in two cultures will be larger in older generations. Cultural differences may be markedly reduced in the most recent generations, on account of globalization. The position put forth is an attempt to integrate the ideas that there are real human predispositions of various sorts and that culture is a powerful force, and to explain why it is surprisingly easy for us to understand the viewpoint of people from other cultures (their “reality”is often a less preferred alternative in our own repertoire).

The essential elements of spirituality among rural Thai elders.

The purpose of the study reported here was to understand and describe the essential elements of spirituality among rural Thai elders. The research question that guided the study was: How do rural Thai elders experience and describe spirituality in their daily lives? This question was explored through in-depth, audio-taped, face-to-face interviews with 12 rural Thai elders living in the Nakhorn Prathom Province in the central part of Thailand during the period from January to March 1998. Prior to implementing the study, approval to conduct this study was granted from the Institutional Review Broad of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Through the process of hermeneutic phenomenological data analysis, three categories and nine themes emerged. The findings of the study provide a knowledge base for Thai nurses to explore and explain spirituality to enhance nursing science and provide holistic nursing care. Further research should be conducted throughout the health and illness continuum with all age groups and with individuals of different cultures and belief systems.

Two Faces of AIDS in Hong Kong: Culture and the Construction of the `AIDS Celebrity'

Since the first reported case of HIV infection in Hong Kong in 1985, only two HIV-positive individuals in the territory have voluntarily made public their seropositivity: a British dentist named Mike Sinclair, who disclosed his condition to the media in 1992 and died in 1995, and J.J. Chan, a local Chinese disc-jockey, who came forward in 1995 and died just a few months later. When they made their revelations, both became instant media personalities and were invited by the Hong Kong Government to act as spokespeople for AIDS awareness and prevention. Mike Sinclair worked as an education officer for the Hong Kong AIDS Foundation, and J.J. Chan appeared in Government television commercials about AIDS. This article explores how the public identities of these two figures were constructed in the cultural context of Hong Kong where both Eastern and Western values exist side by side and interact. It argues that the construction of `AIDS celebrities' is a kind of `identity project' negotiated among the players involved: the media, the Government, the public, and the person with AIDS (PWA) himself, each bringing to the construction their own `theories' regarding the self and communication. When the players in the construction hold shared assumptions about the nature of the self and the role of communication in enacting it, harmonious discourses arise, but when cultural models among the players differ, contradictory or ambiguous constructions result. The effect of culture on the way `AIDS celebrities' are constructed has implications for the way societies view the issue of AIDS and treat those who have it. It also helps reveal possible sites of difficulty when individuals of different cultures communicate about the issue.

On the study of ancient Chinese rhetoric/Bian

N his In Defence of Rhetoric, Brian Vickers (1988) calls rhetoricalscholars to recapture the rhetorical past, rhetorical theories, andpractices developed by schools and individuals of different cultures. Thestudy of in the West has featured primarily Occidental tradi-tions, although Western scholars have made attempts to introduce,explain, and explore the of other cultures. Chinese rhetoric, inparticular, has received some attention from some Western scholars(Crump & Dreher, 1951; Dreher & Crump, 1952; Garrett, 1983, 1991,1993; Jensen, 1987,1992; Kincaid, 1987; Oliver, 1971; Reynolds, 1969).Unfortunately, some historians of deny the existence of anancient or draw narrow descriptions of Chinese rhetoric. JamesMurphy (1983) concludes: There is no evidence of an interest inrhetoric in the ancient civilization of Bahylon or Egypt, for instanceneither Africa nor Asia to this day produced a rhetoric (p. 3). Jensen,Kennedy, and Oliver contend that Chinese is characterized hyharmony, deprecation of speech, and lack of interest in logic (Jensen,1987; Kennedy, 1980; Oliver, 1971). We wish to broaden and embellishthe portrayal of Chinese as it has heen painted hy Murphy,Jensen, Oliver, Eind Kennedy. We believe that the ancient Chinese hadsenses of (Scott 1973) and that these senses of reveala tradition of speech and argumentation that should be recaptured byhistorians of rhetoric.Chinese should be of interest to the Western audience andthe Western rhetorical scholar. As Jensen (1987) notes:

Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Patient Teaching

Patient education for individuals of different cultures provides the professional nurse an opportunity to make a difference in the increasingly complex and changing problems in our bureaucratic society. Use of therapeutic relationships, indeed, can blend two worlds. Although we never can fully predict a patient's response to health teaching, we are likely to be much more effective if we understand and draw from the cultural context in which the patient is enmeshed.

La communication interculturelle : constitution d'une nouvelle discipline

Intercultural communication : the creation of a new discipline. Intercultural communication, a university discipline which appeared in the United-States at the end of the 60s, is the scientific study of the barriers to communication between individuals of different cultures and sub-cultures. This field of research opened when the two trends relating to culture and communication overlapped from 1965 onwards. Intercultural communication, in order to build up its object and to assert its legitimacy, relies on a certain number of subdisciplines derived from contemporary, cultural anthropology : cognitive anthropology and symbolics in particular. It also gives great importance to the phenomenological alternative which inspires the social theory of today (ethnome-thodology applied to the school sector, for instance). Intercultural communication is particularly interesting for the world of education, international management and all the institutions concerned with the improvement of interethnic relations. The intermixing of populations in the world of today will more and more impose the development of serious scientific studies in this field.

The Means End Relation and its Significance for Cross-Cultural Ethical Agreement

Radical ethical relativism as presented in Ruth Benedict's Patterns of Culture not only denies absolute values, its thesis of the incommensurability of cultural configurations precludes possibility of any agreement on values by individuals of different cultures. This fact provides the proper perspective from which to judge the current controversy between radical and “modified” ethical relativists. A double error is committed, therefore, by those who contend that there has been no reduction of the “area of indeterminacy” existing between the ethical principles of different cultures since, despite the newer developments in the social sciences, there are still no absolutely valid ethical values. Not only is the term “validity” vague and in need of reinterpretation, but, in assuming the denial of absolute values to be the distinguishing characteristic of radical relativism, they actually identify this theory with modified relativism. This brief paper attempts to prove the untenability of the denial of cross cultural agreement on ends and means by treating the question first, from the point of view of C. L. Stevenson's Dewey-inspired notion of the derivation of ends from means, and, second, from that of Stevenson's more original idea, complex ethical agreement.