Comprehensive Exam Review

1. Comprehensive Exam Review Click the LEFT mouse key ONCE to continue

2. Cultural and Social Foundations Part 1 Click the LEFT mouse key ONCE to continue

3. Definitions for Key Terms for Social and Cultural Foundations

4. There are many definitions of culture, one of which is from Levine, who defined culture as “a shared organization of ideas that includes the intellectual, moral, and aesthetic standards prevalent in a community and the meanings of communicative actions.”

5. Cultures develop in response to the historical circumstances, environmental conditions, and resources available to various members of a society at particular points in time. All cultures are dynamic, but the rate and degree of change varies among them. A person learns how to function within a specific society through his or her culture.

6. An individual’s personality features and longstanding dynamics of thinking, feeling, and behaving are formed through association with particular groups over time. These groups may be the family; a racial or ethnic group; a social class group; a group based on sexual orientation, political perspective, or religion; or another cultural group.

7. Because each person belongs to many different groups, each individual’s culture is unique. However, many characteristics are shared with members of the groups to which one belongs. Socialization is the process of learning to function as a member of society by observing and acquiring social and occupational roles. Enculturation is the process of acquiring the characteristics of one’s culture.

8. Stereotypes are rigid preconceptions held about all members of a particular group. All people hold stereotypes, both positive and negative, about cultural groups. People generally base their initial opinions of others on stereotypes.

9. According to Arredondo and Glauner, all individuals can be described through means of certain fixed characteristics, including age, culture, ethnicity, gender, language, physical makeup, race, sexual orientation, and social class. Because these characteristics are relatively visible, they readily engender stereotyping.

10. Arredondo and Glauner further described a series of variables that place all persons in historical, political, sociocultural, and economic context, including: educational background, geographical location, income, marital status, religion,

11. work experience, citizenship, military experience, and leisure activities.

12. Cultural encapsulation, or ethnocentrism, can be defined as adherence to a universal notion of truth that disregards cultural variations. When a person is unable to accept the atti-tudes, beliefs, or practices other than those in the person’s own culture, that person is said to be culturally encapsulated or operating from an ethnocentric viewpoint.

13. Cultural relativism is the attempt to under-stand another cultural system, not in terms of personal cultural beliefs, but in its own terms. Cultural racism asserts the superiority of certain characteristics of one culture (language, educational practices, religion, morality, laws, aesthetics) over those of another.

14. Segregation is the physical isolation of a cultural group from mainstream society. Race may be defined as a family, tribe, or people belonging to the same genetic pool. Many individuals today claim biracial or multiracial ancestry. Ethnicity refers to large groups of people classified according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural background.

15. Racial, ethnic, or cultural identity is an individual’s sense of belonging to a racial, ethnic, or cultural group and the part of the individual’s personality that is attributable to association with the group. Individuals may prefer to self-identify in racial terms, in terms of historical and geographical origins (ethnicity), by country of origin (nationality), or by culture.

16. A minority group is a group of people who consider themselves objects of collective discrimination and differential treatment in society for reasons of physical or cultural characteristics. Multiculturalism refers to matters having a focus on ethnicity, race, and culture.

17. Diversity means variety in regard to individual differences such as age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or physical ability through which individuals define themselves. Multicultural counseling refers to preparation and practices that integrate multicultural and culture-specific awareness, knowledge, and skills into counseling interactions.

18. Multicultural and Pluralistic Trends

19. The United States macroculture, sometimes referred to as the dominant culture, is the national culture shared by most of its citizens. In this dominant culture: Mass media, education, and com-munication are “ways of life;” Individualism takes precedence over group values;

20. Time is the organizing principle for life’s activities; Large, complex organizations employ the majority of workers; People are expected to be active and engage in productive, purposeful work; Necessities of life are purchased rather than produced;

21. Success and achievement are measured by quantity and expense of goods purchased; Significant social relationships are individually determined; Tradition is transmitted through writing and mass communication; “Modern science” is trusted to explain social phenomena, solve human prob-lems, and master the environment;

22. Religious beliefs are concerned with general morality; Social relations are characterized by informality and equality; Cleanliness is an absolute value; Humanitarianism is impersonal and highly organized; Things new and modern are considered superior to things old and traditional;

23. Every individual is thought to be entitled to equitable access to political, economic, and social structures; All individuals are thought to be equal (i.e., by nature, neither better nor worse than others); Individuals are thought to exercise con-trol over their destinies and advance according to their own efforts;

24. The nuclear family is thought to be the basic unit of kinship; Values tend to be absolute rather than ranging along a continuum or varying across situations; Youth is valued over age. One prevalent myth in the macro-culture is that the ablest, most ambitious, and hard-working individuals will attain positions of wealth and influence.

25. This theory of meritocracy has three tenets: (1) the individual takes precedence over the group; (2) the society stresses differences rather than similarities; (3) internal characteristics (personal attributes) are more influential than external characteristics (social, educational, or financial standing, race, or ethnicity).

26. Although the belief that persons reap riches in proportion to their characterological endowments is prevalent in the macroculture, research indicates that family background accounts for a large portion of the variance in educational and occupational attainment. Individuals born into wealthier, more educated families, regardless of race or ethnicity, are likely to attain wealth and education themselves.

27. Microcultures are cultural groups composed of members who share values and beliefs that bind them together. The degree to which a person shares the beliefs of the national macroculture depends on the microcultures to which the person belongs and the amount of interaction the person has with the institutions of the macroculture.

28. The counseling profession can be said to possess its own culture. Based on principles originally espoused by men of European descent, counseling promotes self sufficiency, openness, verbal expression, individualism, and internal locus of control. Many psychological measurement tools and classification systems (such as the DSM-IV) carry this Eurocentric cultural bias.

29. Members of U.S. microcultures may view counseling as a political tool of oppression. If counseling is forced, unresponsive to needs, or culturally insensitive, it may be considered oppressive.

30. Throughout life, a person develops a multi-dimensional racial and cultural identity, or as it is sometimes known, a worldview. Following are the primary dimensions typically considered in a racial/cultural identity or worldview.

31. People-Nature Relationships

32. Some cultures, such as the U.S. macroculture, maintain a mastery orientation to the people-nature relationship. Environmental and personal problems are considered to be solvable through confron-tation, active intervention, and control. Some other cultures accept difficulties as fate or acts of God, and promote harmony, loyalty, balance, and resistance to change.

33. Time In the U.S. macroculture time is a commodity, measured in minutes or hours, and future-oriented. In some other cultures, time is a dynamic process, and the passage of time is measured through the occurrence of events. Members of those cultures demonstrate a present time orientation by seeking immediate, practical solutions to everyday problems.

34. Individual vs Group Orientation In the U.S. macroculture, the individual is the basic unit of society. Independence from the family, development of autonomy, and an internal locus of control are encouraged at an early age. In many other cultures, the family is the basic unit of society; nepotism is expected; families sanction wayward members; and external locus of control is promoted.

35. Activity In the U.S. macroculture, action, or doing, is of primary importance; individuals are expected to master concepts and tasks. In this pragmatic, utilitarian approach to life, worth is linked to activity. In some cultures, being or becoming is a way of life. Contentment, serenity, dignity, and spirituality characterize the individual, group, and society. Action is often ritualized or relegated to an inferior position.

36. Social Relations In the U.S. macroculture, relationships tend to be determined by the parties involved; individuals take responsibility for the number and nature of their relationships. In some other cultures, relationships tend to be linear, vertical, and hierarchical. A person’s relationships in society are deter-mined by the person’s place in a hierarchy; and persons are grouped by caste, place in the social order, or birth order.

37. In some other societies, relationships are collateral; membership in a group of friends and family, for example, constitutes relationship of equals. Human Nature In the U.S. macroculture, people are considered at core to be both good and bad. In some other cultures, people are considered evil (fallen) and can only be saved from destruction by the deity.

38. In still other cultures, people are considered to be neither good nor bad; disease and difficulty are thought to be environmental afflictions. Relationship to Nature In the U.S. macroculture, taming the natural environment is considered to be an important challenge for humankind. A primary function of science and technology is to overcome environmental barriers such as disease, weather, distance, and geography.

39. In other cultures, harmony with nature and acceptance of environmental barriers is the norm. Intercultural misunderstanding occurs even when no language barrier exists, and large segments of the macroculture are shared by the people involved, largely because one group is ignorant of the cultural specifics of the other.

40. Assimilation is the process by which subordinate groups (i.e., microcultures) adopt aspects of the dominant culture. A subordinate group progresses toward assimilation through the following steps: The group’s cultural patterns change to mimic those of the dominant culture. The subordinate group develops large scale primary group relations with the dominant group.

41. Members of the groups intermarry fully. The groups lose their sense of separateness. Members of the microculture encounter no discrimination or prejudice. Members of the groups do not engage in intergroup power or values conflicts.

42. Cultural, sometimes known as behavioral, assimilation occurs when the subordinate group mimics cultural attributes of the dominant group. Structural assimilation occurs when two cultural groups begin to share the same social groups (e.g., attend the same church). Cultural assimilation occurs before structural assimilation.

43. In the U. S., cultural assimilation may be initiated by individuals from either group, but structural assimilation is determined solely by the dominant group. Only Western European immigrants have achieved full structural assimilation in the U.S. Other microcultural groups have achieved only limited structural assimilation.

44. Healthy and meaningful functioning in a multicultural context may require living with cultural dissonance (i.e., maintaining multiple conflicting roles attributable to cultural learning). Public policy in the U. S. historically has been driven by Anglo-Conformity Theory, which holds that all groups are expected to renounce their ancestry and culture and assume characteristics of the national macroculture.

45. The Melting Pot Theory holds that amalgama-tion of various groups produces a stronger, more diverse society. Historically, however, many laws prevented amalgamation by restricting participation of some groups in certain societal institutions and organizations.

46. The Salad Bowl Theory holds that many cultural groups can coexist and retain their uniqueness within the macroculture. Institutional racism is the combination of social, economic, educational, and political policies that give preferential treatment to members of one group over another and foster discriminatory outcomes.

47. Behavior and Attitudes Many nonverbal behaviors have culture-specific meanings. Proxemics is the study of a person’s perception and use of personal and interpersonal space. Kinesics is the study of body movements and positions, including facial expression, posture, gestures, and eye contact.

48. Paralanguage refers to vocal cues that communicate the age, gender, emotional response, and race of an individual. These cues include loudness, rate of speech, use of silence, hesitation, and inflection.

49. Low context communication demands lengthy verbal explanations. High context communication relies on non-verbal cues and collapsed meanings understood by members of a group. Proxemics, kinesics, and paralanguage are all culturally conditioned.

50. Sociopolitical thought is culture bound; specific cultural groups tend to espouse common viewpoints. Attitudes regarding work, job involvement, activity preferences, monetary compensation, and success are in large part culturally determined.