Sunday, December 14, 2008

A lesson in Psychology

My wife alerted me to this interesting article that she was given to read, and to write an essay based on it for her psychology class. She was pretty impressed about it as it had made an impression on her, and wanted to test it out on me. As I got to the second printed page, I made a comment that she interpreted as I "got it."
"Most cultures exhibit a particular configuration or style. A single value or pattern of perceiving the world often leaves its stamp on several institutions in the society. Examples are "machismo" in Spanish-influenced cultures, "face" in Japanese culture, and "pollution by females" in some highland New Guinea cultures. Here Horace Miner demonstrates that "attitudes about the body" have a pervasive influence on many institutions in Nacireman society."
Read it with an open mind and see if you get it too. Without giving away too much, it an article about rituals in different cultures. It will surprise you if read with a judgmental tone.

1 comment:

msoori said...

If you didn't get it, heres a clue. Read the name of the culture mentioned backwards.