psychology Archives - understand-culture

Never Doubt a Mother’s Word

The psychologist Rogelio Díaz-Guerrero studied beliefs he called historic-sociocultural premises. They include “Un hijo debe siempre obedecer a sus padres” (A son must always obey his parents) and “Nunca se debe dudar de la palabra de una madre” (One must never doubt a mother’s word).

In 1952, he gave a questionnaire to 473 students. According to an article in Cuadernos Fronterizos, a journal of the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez, “entre el 83 y el 92% respondió afirmativamente a tres de esas preguntas” (between 83 and 92 percent answered yes to three of those questions). The article does not say which three questions these were.

Self-Modification

Mexican psychologists have long studied the traditional beliefs of Mexican families. A 2011 study in the Revista Mexicana de Investigación en Psicología lists among them “machismo, obediencia afiliativa, virginidad, abnegación, miedo a la autoridad” (machismo, affiliative obedience, virginity, self-denial, fear of authority). The psychologist Rolando Díaz-Loving summarizes one finding of this research: “self-modification coping styles are preferred over self-affirmation as guides of interaction mechanisms.”

These beliefs change over time. The 2011 study found that “unas se mantienen inalterables, mientras que otras perdieron más del 50% de apoyo” (some remain unchanged, while others lost more than 50 percent of their support).

Ganbaru

Ganbaru (頑張る): to keep at something with steady, patient effort, especially in a hard time. Ganbatte (頑張って): keep at it. Ganbarimasu (頑張ります): I will keep at it.

In 2020, the psychiatrist and industrial physician Inoue Tomosuke wrote in President Woman Online that it has become widely known that encouraging a patient with depression with Ganbatte ne is considered wrong.

Praised in Front of Others

In President Online, a consultant who works on developing young employees wrote that many young employees today feel embarrassed when they are praised in front of others and would rather it stopped.

He asked some of them why in private. They said that they did not like drawing attention, that they did not want to be seen as remarkable when they did not think they were, and that they feared everyone would now expect the same results every time.

Parent Role and Child Role

Oyabun kobun (親分子分): parent role and child role. The encyclopedia Mypedia defines it as a relationship of domination and subordination that a protector forms with a dependent within a social group, especially one that involves the whole person and resembles that of parent and child.

Another encyclopedia notes that the phrase now calls to mind the yakuza or political factions. In sociology and folklore studies, however, it is a key term for understanding the structure of Japanese society.

Counting on Goodwill

Amae (甘え): the Daijisen dictionary defines it as the feeling of counting on the goodwill of others. In 1971, the psychiatrist Doi Takeo published “Amae” no kōzō, The Structure of Amae. The book sold more than two million copies.

Doi defined the psychology of amae as an attempt to deny the fact of separation that belongs to human existence, and to overcome the pain of that separation.

Persisting After Failure

In a study published in 2001, the psychologist Steven Heine and colleagues told Japanese participants that they had done well or poorly on a task. On a second task, those who had been told they failed persisted longer than those who had been told they succeeded.

The authors described this as a self-improving pattern.

A Study of the Air

In 1977, the critic Yamamoto Shichihei published “Kūki” no kenkyū (A Study of “Air”). The book examines the strong pressure to conform among members of a group, which Japanese call kūki, the air.

How Trust Is Built

In 1999, Peng Siqing published a paper on how trust is built in the journal Sociological Studies (社会学研究). Its title names two ways: relationship work and legal means. The paper states that “the actual degree of trust between people is determined jointly by initial trust and by their interaction.” The degree of trust between two people, it says, “depends mainly on how good the real relationship between them is.”

Becoming One of Us

In 1999, Yang Yiyan published a case study of how trust is built, titled Zijiren (自己人), “One of Us,” in the journal Sociological Studies (社会学研究). Yang argued that Chinese people include others within the boundary of their own self, the family, and that this forms a boundary of trust.

Yang wrote that the boundary can move. “Through interaction, an outsider can be accepted as one of us.” Turning an outsider into one of us generally means a process “from strangeness or surface contact to intimacy, trust and a sense of obligation, or deep interaction.”