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Sleep and Cultural

It is interesting to think about how I valued sleep when I was younger compared to how I do now. As a University student now, I sleep a lot less due to many factors, such as my work and the social aspects of living at University versus living at home. When I was growing up playing all kinds of sports and being highly active everyday, I had no issues falling asleep at night, no matter what time it was. I also valued sleep greatly and wanted to rest well for all my activities. My mother also emphasized sleep significantly because she wanted me to do well in school and always valued me having a good meal and sleeping before playing a sport. Now that I live away from home, I get less sleep as I can go to bed whenever I want to with no ramifications. Also, I no longer play competitive sports, so I generally value sleep less because I know that some days, I will just be sitting at my desk all day doing schoolwork. I still understand sleep is essential, but I often see myself going to bed later on average and having a more challenging time falling asleep; I believe that is because of external factors such as living with roommates and the pressures of wanting to be included and not miss anything. Looking at sleep patterns in psychology, I was not surprised that the 8-9 hour mark is the golden suggestion for how much sleep a person can get. However, at University, I have a very inconsistent sleep schedule, as some nights I get over 10 hours of sleep, but there are some nights when I get under 5 hours of sleep. I find it very hard to keep a consistent sleep schedule, which affects my overall health. The stress level caused by University and living away from home is another factor that affects how much sleep I get, and it is connected with my struggle to fall asleep at night.

Overall, my culture impacted my sleep schedule from the time I was a child because I grew up in a house with strict rules when it came to sleep. When I was growing up, I would not say I liked the thought of going to bed, but as I have gotten older, looking back, I see that my mom was simply trying to support me as she wanted me to be well-rested for my daily life. She also cared greatly about giving me opportunities to succeed in school and sports. I believe that my connection with the University's culture has affected my sleep schedule the most. There are both internal and external factors that contribute to how much sleep I am getting. This made me ponder about the question of whether culture affects one's sleep, and I think it does. I believe that it depends on the people you are surrounded by and the social factors that are influencing you, which ultimately affect your sleep schedule.

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Cultural Self

When thinking about myself and how comfortable I am with my cultural self, many factors go into my saying I am comfortable. The largest is the geographical location I grew up in, as I was born and raised in a small town in Nova Scotia that lacked diversity. The town I grew up in and still call home in the summer is generally a safe place where you know the majority of the people you live by in your community. Because my town is so tiny and there is a substantial value put on schooling, friendliness, and family, I can be safe and feel comfortable being my cultural self. Another reason that played a role in my saying that is I was a part of a dominant social group. I do not think I would be the same person if, where I grew up I was seen as a minority. After taking this cultural psychology class, my eyes have opened to how a person's cultural identity and concept of self could be shifted or impacted when growing up around people who share similar cultural values and beliefs. My idea of self and my culture were significantly shaped by my upbringing as I am a part of a large family that was closely connected, as well as a strong friend group throughout the school. I would've been less confident in saying I am comfortable in my cultural self if I grew up in a large city because I feel I would be a much different person, and my values would differ from what they are today. I would be less connected with family and more focused on other aspects of my life than I am today.

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Friendship

Looking back at my friend group when I was younger to my group of friends now that I'm in University, I definitely can see a change. While reading chapter 11 of a cultural Psychology textbook, I was not surprised to read that Americas report having more friends than other countries. This is consistent with what is seen across North America. When looking at myself, for example, I had a significant number of friends built through school and sports. As I have grown up and gotten older, my friend group has gotten smaller as I feel less compelled to fit into a larger "cooler" group. I generally want to be around people with similar interests that have my best interests. Since coming to University, I have become much more aware of who my friends are than when I was younger; I just wanted to talk to as many people as possible. How I value friendship has changed dramatically in the past three years. I value the time spent with friends, and you learn a lot about how good your friendships were after moving away from home to go to school, as relationships are easily lost. How you choose your friends and how a person values personal friendships are strongly connected to our culture. As we go through life, friendships will come and go, but I firmly believe that those closest to you and caring about you will remain by your side through thick and thin, and your relationship will continue no matter the distance apart.

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How the School system affected my cultural shaping

When looking back to my childhood and thinking about my schooling and how it shaped me into how I feel and the person I am, several examples shaped my culture to be what it is today. I grew up in a small town in Nova Scotia, and my school was considered more significant for the area, but by no means was it big when looking at schools in the city. Our school had a close community that shaped my thoughts because the "in thing" would change often, and because the school was small, there was a close bond with all the teachers and students. I look back after reading the class textbook and think about how much time we spent on each subject and how it affected my learning and understanding of the material. My grade was the largest in the school, and grades 7-9, we were separated into three different math divisions to allow for better learning. Looking back, the separation affected how I viewed and performed in math because I was in the middle group. We got slightly less homework than the top group, and as I started my University classes and was forced to take statistics, I struggled immensely. As for my other courses, there was a distribution on how much homework was given out and the amount of time spent on every subject. My schooling growing up shaped me to be a very social person as the school was very connected, and a large amount of group work was done. Well, a big group of my friends would all play different school sports and spend all hours of the day together. If I had been brought up in a different school system, I would have been a different person than I am today, and my culture and views would have been shaped differently.

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Blog #4

I am always surprised when thinking about my childhood, the skills I learned when I was young, and how quickly I picked them up compared to now. For example, I grew up playing all kinds of sports and typically picked up the skills for all different sports relatively quickly, such as skating in hockey and throwing in baseball. In school, I remember having to take French from grades 4-9, and I found myself being able to comprehend the different languages much faster when I was younger compared to when I was in later grades in middle school. As we learned about language acquisition in class, I was brought back to thinking about French class. When thinking about the sensitive period, I definitely have lots of examples that I can think of. I was lucky enough to have a great family that would put me in many different sports and activities, requiring me to learn new skills and work on ones I already had. When thinking about the tradeoff involved with the sensitive period, I gained more skills in hockey out of all the other sports because I was playing it the most and would practice more on my own. I feel the tradeoff with becoming better at hockey was that as I got older and put more and more focus into my skills related to hockey when I went back to play other sports or do other skills with friends, I was worse and found I am unable to pick up skills as quickly as I could when younger. 

Going back to the ideas around language acquisition, I have never been a strong reader. As I have gotten older, my ability to pick up new words and understand what I am reading has worsened. I often compare myself to my sister as she has always enjoyed reading. She would read almost every after school when we were younger and also had a passion for reading, whereas I was more interested in being with friends, going outside, and playing sports. Since learning about language acquisition, I have thought a lot about how my sister is a much better reader and writer than I am, which would make sense as she would've been exposed more at a younger age, and her skills would've been picked up and developed while in the sensitive period.

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Blog #3

I came across an interesting section in a textbook while reading about cultural evolution. It discussed how communicable ideas stick better in one's mind and move on to the next person. The information or idea is more likely to be remembered if it is emotional or easily communicable. This textbook section interested me as a talkative person who enjoys sharing stories and socializing. Upon reflection, I realized that I tend to remember the emotional or easily communicable parts of a story someone tells me. After reading this section in our textbook, I have made it a point to tell more emotionally engaging stories. Looking back at some stories, I remember more vividly and can better recall what my parents or family told me; I can remember the funniest stories that carried a lot of emotional baggage. 

There is a connection between cultural evolution and the spread of ideas and transmitted culture. The most significant correlation between these two is the ideas that stick with someone the best. When we consider transmitted culture, it's evident that it connects with the same notion of what ideas and stories are remembered by others. In my opinion, I carry the aspects of my culture that I felt were most significant to my family and the parts they felt the proudest or most passionate about.

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Significant Cultural Scrips

Cultural scripts must be discussed when thinking about myself and my culture, what is important to me, and why that is. As I have learned in a cultural psychology class I am currently taking, those around them shape humans, and their family traditions, cultural scripts, and beliefs all significantly impact shaping the person one will grow into. When thinking about my childhood and family, I can see scrips and traditions that my family has done from the time I can remember. I come from a family that is extremely close to one another, and we celebrate the majority of all holidays together and typically have a large meal with everyone. The meal would be a part of my family's cultural script, and everyone at the meal knows it will happen every year, no matter the circumstances. One of the most important traditions my family does and has been doing for decades is everyone comes to one house on Christmas Eve, and one gift is exchanged for someone as we draw names on Boxing Day for the following year. When looking at how sips and traditions have shaped me today, I will want to continue many of my family traditions when I start my own family. 

            Since moving to university and living with my roommates, I have noticed how different people can be despite coming from the exact geographic location. I have a roommate who comes from a family where wearing shoes inside the house is standard, while in my family, it is customary to take off shoes before entering someone else's home. This made me realize how various cultures, traditions, and norms can differ. I recently took a cultural psychology class, which helped me understand how conformist transmission works and how it influences people's behaviors and attitudes based on their upbringing and environment.

Because of what traditions my family celebrated while I was being shaped by all of them and the routines I followed from my mother and grandmother, I believe it has given me a strong example of how important family is and that you must rely on them in hard times to get you through situations that you find yourself in. When thinking about my culture, I will continue to stay true to many of the scrips and traditions I was exposed to, and I want to continue to make my scrips to try and create meaningful and strong connections with others.

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Blog #1

After starting my second semester in my third year of university and taking a cultural psychology class, I asked myself a few crucial questions I had never considered. When thinking about cultures and differences seen between cultures around the world, I ask myself, what do I know about cultures other than my own? After asking myself this question, I quickly realized that I am not globalized and that my experience with different cultures and interactions with people from other cultures are limited. When I think of being globalized, I think about having experienced situations and a solid understanding of culture and the norms in many different cultures worldwide. Looking back through my life, I was lucky enough to have traveled as a young child and teen with family and get exposure to different cities and towns besides Nova Scotia. Unfortunately, despite traveling a fair amount, I have not left North America yet and lack an understanding and knowledge about cultures outside North America. I have, however, been exposed to an extended amount of time with others from different countries and cultures. I lived in a small town growing up, and almost everyone knew one another; when I went to school growing up, I could name practically every person in my grade, which made things boring. I was lucky enough to be in a class during grade 9 that had an exchange student from Columbia. Everyone was fascinated When he first arrived as he had a very different culture than ours. Unfortunately, he was only in our class for a few weeks, so I didn't get to know him too well. In grade 11, I had two exchange students move to our school for a year. I was lucky enough to become great friends with both fellas. One was from Denmark, and the other was Brazilian.

Both had very different backgrounds and different outlooks on the world. As I got closer to them and learned more, they always talked about aspects of our culture that surprised them. I remember them both asking about the clothing worn in Nova Scotia that they had never seen and found funny, such as doeskins for winter jackets and the people who wore work boots to school. I recall them asking many questions about why we eat at the time of day that we do and wanting to try lots of food found in the Canadian culture. While I asked about their lifestyle and culture, I was highly interested and wanted to explore more of the world since I was amazed by some of the stories they had told me. One that stuck out to me and that I will never forget is that my friend from Denmark had said they served beer in their high school in grades 10-12 during lunch hours, and it was highly routine to drink every day. The time we spent together and got to know each other was great and opened my mind up to different ideas and how my culture is much more closed off in my opinion to theirs as they were extremely open to trying other things or doing activities they have never heard of before coming to Canada. As I get older I hope to gain more experience in other cultures to allow myself to open my mind to how others live I see many videos and stories on social media but I feel you have to experience situations in person to get a true understanding.