The Gum Vendor

On the way to work this morning, I heard an interesting and unsettling story about a 10 year old named Jamal who lives and works in Afganistan. Yes, that’s right…lives AND works. Despite his youth, he hits the streets every day and stays there selling gum until nightfall. To add to this sad picture, he’s been doing this for several years, and so have many, many other kids.

Contrast his life with that of your favorite 10 year old who might balk about carrying out his or chores in order to get an allowance. Jamal gives the money to his family, not vice versa. What about your 10 year old’s expenditures?

In psychology, one of the theories we discuss is Bronfenbrenner’s ecological approach to development that offers four levels of the enviroment that  influence a person. Using Jamal as an example, can you see how his microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem combine to make him who he is and who he will become?

If that’s a little overwhelming, then just pick one. To make things interesting, you might choose one of the four levels and compare Jamal’s life to a 10 year old  in your neighborhood.

Avoiding Bias

One of the concepts recently discussed in the intro course is ethnocentrism, the tendency to think one’s ethnic or cultural group is the standard against which other groups should be judged. Some people even think that their group is the absolute best, superior to all others. In the United States, for example, psychology has reflected such a bias because most of the founding fathers (not too many founding mothers in this group) have European American backgrounds. Think Freud, Piaget, Watson, and Skinner for starters.

Accepting the values of their own culture as “the way,” it makes sense that their views on child rearing, human development, emotional disorders, and relationships would be influenced by these values. Today, however, our world is much more diverse, and psychologists have become more sensitive to cultural differences including those of race, ethnicity, and social class.  As a quick example, America is an individualistic society that values autonomy, individual goals, and personal achievement while many Asian cultures are collectivistic in nature. They value group goals and needs in many areas of life including the family and the workplace. There’s nothing wrong or weird with either outlook, and as we become more of a global community, we’ll all benefit by becoming a little less ethnocentric.

Can you think of an example in which your ethnocentric outlook has influenced your thinking or behavior? I’ll start. Americans love the idea of romantic love, and many theories on interpersonal attraction and mate selection have been developed. Most students enjoy reading these theories and trying to figure out how their relationships fit into them. However, many cultures focus on what’s best for the family group as a whole and don’t see the “big deal” about romantic love. Does that seem weird to you? Do you think your culture has affected your beliefs?

Life’s a Beach

When looking at the video of the 100 people beating the drum of life, I began thinking of life itself and all the changes that people experience. It occurred to me that how people live, the choices the make, and the attitudes they have largely depend on their overall outlook towards life itself. That brought to mind lots of metaphors of life, and I thought it might be fun and perhaps enlightening to look at some of them and try to figure out what your favorite metaphor is. When you do, it might help you understand your actions and feelings a little better. Here goes:

Life’s a beach,
an assignment,
a bowl of cherries,
a box of chocolates,
a mystery,
a journey,
a ten speed bike with gears you never use,
an adventure,
a test,
or a miracle.

What’s your life metaphor, and what do you think that reveals about you? And can you think of others that I left out? That’d be fun to look at.

The Drum of Life

Here is something to start off the semester.  It is 100 people beating a drum….from age 1 to age 100.  Very enjoyable and a good way to begin ‘Development Across a Lifespan.’

 posted by M. Williams

It’s Your Life

I frequently wear this great  bracelet from American Eagle that my son gave me for Christmas last year.  It has a silver rectangular middle piece attached to narrow burgandy straps, and the words, “Live your life” are engraved on the rectangle. He bought it for me because of my hints and because he knows that I truly believe in living one’s life to the fullest. However, when I took off the bracelet last night, I took note of the other two words, YOUR and LIFE.

It’s YOUR life. Yet many people live their lives trying to please their parents, friends, significant others, children, co-workers, neighbors, and so forth that they forget about themselves. They choose careers that others approve of, live in areas that they can barely tolerate just to appease relatives, remain in dead relationships to mollify others, attend certain schools to make someone happy, and the list goes on and on and on. Are you guilty of this? I think most people can see something of their behavior somewhere in there.

And what about the LIFE part of the bracelet’s wise words? Life is such a gift, and yet many of us sort of muddle through it barely conscious of the miracle it is. Being able to breathe, move, walk, speak, read, and experience all that life and love have to offer are truly things we should be more aware of and grateful for.

I don’t want to turn this into a preaching, teaching post, but I do want to encourage you to ask yourself if the life you’re living is the one you’ve chosen. If not, what are you going to do about it? This is YOUR LIFE, and it’s not a dress rehearsal.