Blog 1

September 25, 2018

Abrar Kazem

Social Psychology

UNF

I want to further discuss Social thinking because I can honestly state that I was not aware

that one’s basic culture had such an impact towards their thoughts and action in social situations.

I Before learning about collectivist and individualist if one were to ask me which group, I

consider myself apart and if that has an impact of on my day to day social decisions and actions

in social situations, I wouldn’t have a complete answer. Yes, I want to further my career and see

myself succeed; I have goals that I want to achieve however my mindset is in a very collectivist

culture. I tend to put family first and I don’t make decisions by myself; I always ask my mom

and family what they think is best. You see I never really knew that had to do with my culture I

just thought it was the “right thing to do” or “normal thing to do.” In our text chapter two page

33 it asks, “How do you complete the I am__ statement?” Now it could be a personal trait or a

social identity. I found my self-answering this question with group identity. I remember in my

personality theories course we had to fill out this type of form and state 5 answers to the

statement I am. Some of my answers were; I am a daughter and I am Muslim, yet I really didn't

try to answer questions bias to a certain topic, I just wrote what came to mind. Yet It shocked me

to see that my decisions have a strong correlation towards my culture. In addition to that, a mere

Facebook profile picture has an impact on one's culture. The difference between having an up-

close selfie then a selfie with more background hinders one individualist side or collectivist side.

When I did use social media the profile picture, I selected was a selfie I took on a balcony at a
hotel, I decided to take this picture because of the background balcony view was a beautiful

river. However now when I put a profile picture anywhere it's usually a close-up picture; so, I

have this slight cultural change which I learned more about in chapter 2, page 34 when it stated

that “Cultures can also change over time, and many seem to be growing more individualistic.”

That’s what I have been experiencing. It's shocking and new so I decided to read more in-depth

about collectivists and individualist. I can break down the two different aspects and reveal

outcomes from each culture. With collectivists you see a lot of protective family connections,

everyone looks out for their family. Since they look out for each other they try to reduce the

chances of disagreements and issues that disturb the family. However, there isn't much individual

freedom since the majority of things that are done have been accepted by the whole group. As for

individualist culture; You are your own person. Complete freedom to do, be, say, and or like

anything you want. Fewer issues meaning less stress. So, you only think about yourself. The

issues would be for starters not much outsider like the idea of keeping loved ones at such

distance. Since its always about me myself and I then what if you find yourself in a situation

where you can't help yourself out what does an individualist do in such positions? I watch a ted

talk where Saba Safdar an Iranian Canadian professor briefly talked about collectivists and

individualist. For example, the basic insults from each culture is different. The individualistic

insults are considered rude and inappropriate thus influences other humans to respond in a rude

an unmannerly way. The collectivists' insults are relational. In conclusion It fascination seeing

how ones culture can influence their brain into thinking and acting towards social situations in

connection to their culture no matter what the situation is.

W.C: 660