scholarly journals Towards a Psychology of Cultural Globalisation: A Sense of Self in a Changing World

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 162-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Ozer

Cultural interconnectivity motivated by globalisation has transformed societies and interpersonal interactions around the world. Furthermore, on a psychological level, individuals are intensely influenced by the new contextual complexity challenging the processes of developing a sense of belonging and a sense of self. This article discusses and integrates relevant psychological theories for approaching the psychological study of cultural globalisation. This integration is done by pragmatically drawing from various psychological theories concerning cultural interaction and psychological development, specifically globalisation-based acculturation, biculturalism, dialogical self and identity theories. Two general reactions towards cultural globalisation are identified as exclusionary and integrative ways of either accepting or rejecting new cultural influences. In addition to the adaptation to cultural globalisation, an individual’s sense of self and belonging is developed through levels of cultural, social and personal identities. Furthermore, locally embedded identity challenges related to these general reaction patterns towards cultural globalisation could emerge as identity confusion and extremism. The article argues that the psychological study of cultural globalisation is an integral emerging field of research, which is appropriately developed through an integration of acculturation and identity research.

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaw Owusu-Agyeman

Purpose The current study examines the moderating effect of supportive campus environment on the relationship between cultural diversity and students’ sense of belonging in a university in South Africa. Design/methodology/approach An online survey was designed and used to gather data from a sample of 2,026 registered undergraduate students. Using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26 software, the data gathered were analysed by way of hierarchical regression analysis. Findings Results of the hierarchical regression analysis revealed that supportive campus environment and cross-cultural interaction serve as strong predictors of students’ sense of belonging. Furthermore, a simple slope analysis showed that supportive campus environment enhance: the positive relationship between cross-cultural interaction and students’ sense of belonging; and the positive relationship between students’ interaction with diverse peers and their sense of belonging. Originality/value This study addresses important knowledge and practical gaps in the relationship between supportive campus environment, cultural diversity and students’ sense of belonging in higher education. The results further highlight the significance of institutional structures, policies and practices that aim at enhancing students’ sense of belonging and reducing possible feeling of otherlings that arise due to a lack of supportive campus structures.


Author(s):  
Julie Smit ◽  
Elizabeth Jones ◽  
Michael Ladick ◽  
Mellinee Lesley

University faculty created the Llano Estacado Writers' Alliance (LEWA) in response to improving the quality and rigor of online doctoral programs. The goal for LEWA was to promote meaningful academic writing and transform doctoral students' identities as agentic academic writers. After LEWA's inception, the authors incorporated the perspectives of their alumni and advanced doctoral students to help address students' needs. This chapter documents the four-year journey of forming LEWA and developing new approaches to mentoring online doctoral students. Specifically, the authors recount the evolution from the faculty-led, week-long summer intensives that addressed students' anxieties and uncertainties about the doctoral program to the writing intensives that were more student centered, responsive, and primarily focused on the mores of academic writing. Results demonstrated the benefits of professor-led and peer-led networks in developing students' sense of belonging, sense of accountability to their peers, and a sense of self-worth as capable academic writers.


MANUSYA ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-92
Author(s):  
Wisarut Painark

This paper examines how an individual’s perception of the environment not only affects her treatment of the land but also plays an important role in healing her wounded self and fostering her sense of belonging to the human community in Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal Dreams (1991). It will draw upon Yi-fu Tuan’s notion of place and space in Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience (1977) and Kent C. Ryden’s notion of “the invisible landscape” in Mapping the Invisible Landscape: Folklore, Writing, and the Sense of Place (1993). Tuan postulates that space becomes place when it is endowed with value and meaning and Ryden develops Tuan’s notion by arguing that meaningful human experience in a place constitutes what he calls “the invisible landscape” which refers to various other dimensions of the land apart from its physicality. Focusing on the development of the protagonist’s perception of her hometown from a sense of alienation to a more intimate relationship in Animal Dreams, this paper will specifically argue that, because her hometown faces a disastrous contamination of the river caused by the mining company, the environmental activism in which the protagonist engages significantly deepens her understanding of the place. Thus, her participation in the environmental campaign serves as a first step towards her discernment of the “invisible landscape” and also her process of healing. The environmental activity which protects both the environment and the community’s cultural identity and also the protagonist’s developing bonds with people in the community expose her to the historical, cultural and spiritual dimensions of the land. Furthermore, this renewed perception leads to the protagonist’s inhabitation of the place and her discovery of a sense of home which helps to restore her shattered self from the traumatic experience and the feeling of displacement caused by the loss of her mother and her baby during her younger years; it also induces her to reappraise her sense of selfhood as being inseparable from both the land and its inhabitants, either human or non-human. Ultimately, her clear appreciation of this more inclusive sense of self and the environment enables her to reintegrate herself into the community of her hometown.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 273-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liam Cross ◽  
Martine Turgeon ◽  
Gray Atherton

AbstractInterpersonal entrainment has been shown to have a wide variety of social consequences which span far beyond those that could be considered purely pro-social. This work reviews all of the social effects of entrainment and the various explanations for them. The group formation framework emerges as a parsimonious account claiming that as we entrain our sense of self is temporarily diluted as an interdependent identity becomes more salient, thus leading to a range of social and psychological consequences which are pro-group. The sense of belonging arising from moving together is conducive towards pro-social behaviours; yet, it also makes the individual more susceptible to adopting the ideology of the group without critical thinking. We argue that the wide landscape of interpersonal entrainment’s effects reflects its primary effect, de-individuation, and the formation of a common group identity amongst co-actors.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-58
Author(s):  
Shane Alcobia-Murphy

This article examines the ways in which two Irish writers use the setting and symbol of the house to depict traumatic rupture and the collapse of a sense of self as a result of loss. In both texts — Enda Walsh’s The Walworth Farce, and Timothy O’Grady and Steve Pyke’s I Could Read the Sky — dissolution of self occurs due to the movement away from the childhood domicile to England. If home can be defined as ‘a sense of belonging or attachment’, then ‘[m]ovement may necessitate or be precipitated by a disruption to a sense of home’. Emigration can result in the formation of an alternative diasporic, transnational community and support network in the absence of immediate familial ties, yet it can also foster a sense of ‘displacement and loneliness’ as well as ‘self‐perceptions of being exiled’. Emigration, whether forced or not, constitutes a form of exile, one which, as Edward Said argues, is experienced as ‘an unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home’, and which results in a ‘crippling sorrow of estrangement’. That traumatic loss is conveyed in both authors’ use of the house (as setting and symbol).


Author(s):  
Bobby K. Cheon ◽  
Rongxiang Tang ◽  
Joan Y. Chiao ◽  
Yi-Yuan Tang

Cultural diversity in patterns for understanding and conceptualizing one’s relationships with others may have led to diverse cultural systems for interpreting, thinking, and reasoning about the world. Eastern holistic systems of thought rely on connectedness and relations as a primary way of understanding the world, whereas Western analytic systems of thought rely on discreteness or substansiveness as an epistemological way of thinking. From attention and cognition to social cognitive processes, neural systems have likewise adapted differently across cultural contexts to facilitate divergent systems of social interactions and relations. This chapter reviews recent evidence for cultural influences on neural systems of analytic/holistic thinking, and discusses the relevance of this neuroscientific evidence, such as that from functional magnetic resonance imaging and analysis of event-related potentials, for cultural-psychological theories of holism and dialecticism.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsten Quistberg ◽  
John Kitchener Sakaluk

The fields of social psychology and sexual science have an intuitive and growing connection, with social psychology’s tradition of theory generation poised to enrich the psychological study of the sexual. For those interested in applying social psychological theories to topics of sexuality, however, there are questions regarding the features, qualities, and strengths and weaknesses of social psychology’s theoretical offerings. We therefore conducted a comprehensive metatheoretical review of social psychology theories applicable to sexuality (n = 44). In doing so, we (i)promote a deeper understanding of the current state of social psychology theory (ii)provide original theory maps to streamline future theory testing (iii)evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of current social psychology theories. Our review finds existing social psychology theory to present a range of clarity with regards to theory definition, theory applicability, and testability. We interpret our results as encouragement for the pursuit of contemporary methods of theorizing in social psychology.


2011 ◽  
Vol 162 (4) ◽  
pp. 158-166
Author(s):  
Paweł WASILEWSKI ◽  
Mirosław KARASEK

The article presents the issues concerning the psychological aspects of human functioning in different situations, with emphasis placed on the actions of soldiers in battlefield (combat) situations. The authors start with psychological theories about the environment and, by describing human activities in situations and their influence on a person’s subsequent functioning, they attempt to explain the mechanisms responsible for shaping the human psychic sphere, with particular emphasis on a professional soldier.


Organization ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 135050842097331
Author(s):  
Renate Ortlieb ◽  
Elena Glauninger ◽  
Silvana Weiss

Do inclusive organizations live up to the term ‘inclusion’? Diversity literature depicts the inclusive organization as an ideal entity that welcomes social minorities who, in turn, feel valued and unique and have a sense of belonging to the organization. Our study offers a critical account of inclusion concepts and practice. We argue that proponents of inclusion overlook that inclusive organizations also may regulate workers’ identities. To examine the relationship between organizational inclusion and identity regulation we conceptualise inclusion as a process involving various organizational actors and practices. Drawing on a multiple-case study of refugees working in Austria we show how organizational practices aimed at inclusion contribute to the forming of refugees as ‘good’, ‘glorious’ and ‘grateful’ subjects. This identity regulation is ambivalent: while it allows refugees to work in inclusive organizations, it also constrains their sense of self.


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