Effect of cross cultural study in youth
INTRODUCTION AND DEFINITION OF TERMS
Behaviors can be strongly influence through biological tendencies; however, all behaviour can be influenced by experiences. Culture remains one important factors that shape, influence and have impact on individual behaviour through customized sets of attitude, belief and values shared by a large population of region.
Our genetic make up in itself can only partially explain and described human behaviour; however, as behaviour is influence by biological tendencies, all behaviour can be shaped by experience. (Berry & Poortinga; 1999).
In experience, cultural influence becomes a main factor shaping diversity in behaviour.
Everyone talks about their culture with high regard but some do not know exactly what culture is. Lets discuss the meaning of culture and its significant in the life of an individual and society.
Culture is an integral part of every society. It is learned pattern of behaviour and ways in which a person lives his or her life. It is refers to many characteristics of a group of people including attitude, behaviour, customs, values that are transmitted from one generation to the next.
Swart and Jordan (1994) define culture as “the sum of the morally forceful understanding acquire by learning and shared with members of the group to which the learner belongs”. In the same vain Alfred Crowder (1986) defines culture as the “mass of learned and transmitted motor reactions, habit, techniques, idea and values, and the behaviour they induces.
Culture is something that a person learns from his family and surroundings, and is not ingrained in him from birth. It does not have any biological connection because even if a person is brought up in a culture, different from that in which he was born, he imbibes the culture of the society where he grows up. It is also not a hidden fact that some people feels the need to follow the beliefs and traditions of their own culture even though they might be not subscribing to certain ideologies within. Every society has a distinct culture that forms the backbone of the society.
Having explained what culture is all about, that will help us to have the knowledge of cross cultural.
Cross cultural according to the definition presented in Segall, Dasen, Berry and Poortinga (1990) is “the scientific study of human behaviour and its transmissions taken into account, the way in which behaviour are shaped and influenced by social and cultural forces.
Nweke (1996) defined cross cultural psychology as the scientific study of human behaviour and experiences with respect to comparison of differences and similarities of members of various cultural groups. It is an attempt to make an empirical distinction between cultures on the applicability and validity of theories. In terms of whether such theories are specific to a given culture or generalizable across culture.
Cross cultural psychology is concerned with the systemic study of behaviour and experience as it occurs in different cultures, as influences by cultures or results in changes on existing culture (Triandis, 1980).
We are now to propose general definition of cross cultural psychology as a study of similarities and difference in individual. Psychological functioning in various cultural and ethnic groups of the relationship between psychological variable and social cultural, ecological and biological variable and of current changes in these variables.
Our culture varies in so many ways like
* Communication style.
* Interpersonal relations.
* Attitude towards authority
* Thinking style
* Tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty
* Orientation to the environment
* Values, beliefs and basic assumptions
And there some factors in which culture can be compared
* Child rearing
* Difference in personality.
With these culture variation, we can examine our. Religion political, economic and social attitude towards cross cultural study of the behaviour of Nigeria youth.
RELIGION ATTITUDE TOWARDS CROSS CULTURAL STUDY OF BEHAVIOUR IN NIG YOUTHS
Religion is defined as a recognition that all things are manifestations of power which transcends knowledge (Herbert Spencer, 1882)
Psychologically, religion has been defined by William James as the feelings, acts and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider as the divine.
Religion is like a culture itself consists of systematic pattern of beliefs, values and behaviour acquired by people as a member of their society. These patterns are systematic because their manifestations are regular in occurrence and expression: they are shared by members of a group within all religions, however where there is no homogeneity, there are difference of interpretation of principles and meanings.
Religion can be define as a system of symbols with acts to establish powerful pervasive, long lasting moods and motivation by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these perception with such an area of factuality that the moods and motivation. Seems uniquely realistic (Geertz 1996). In other words, this symbols must help to construct how a society will view the world around them.
What becomes important is to recognizes what is implied by the nature of the “sacred”. For some, this means that when you enter a church sanctuary or temple you adjust your attitude towards the sacredness of the place and the reason that you have went therefore. For instance, in Catholic churches they have some (symbols) components of sacredness such as status of virgin Mary and Jesus and blessed sacrament, that when you enter the chapel or temple, you bow down you head or do sign of the cross which signify that those mentioned components are sacred.
Moreover, Rituals are designed both to express belief and to bring about specific ends. Rituals behaviour is motivated by a desire to gain some form of satisfaction and is expected to be effective. It often deals with such human concerns as health, fertility and general welfare. However the purpose may vary with the participation. Ritual is widely regarded as the most fundamental unit of religion expression. There are rituals that are performed in the churches especially Catholics churches for instance Blessing the holy Eucharist, when these is going on, Everyone are meant to be silent, the environment will be like a silent zone and every kness must be on ground unit these rituals are over. These rituals induce quietness and adjustment of attitude within youths in that period of time.
In Christian religion, they belief in Jesus Christ as their Saviour and the their founder. He is regarded by Christians as a son of God but Jesus is regarded as a prophet by non believers especially Moslems. Adherents of this belief system are called Christians, followers of Christ. They worship the supreme God, believed to be the holy Trinity; made up of God the father, God the son and God the Holy spirit. The Holy Bible is their holy book. Everything about “religion” is recorded in the Holy Bible, which is a dependable tools for action of its believers. Their doctrines are contained in the holy bible.
The bible contain ten commandment of God, Christian obey the ten commandment. They try their possible best to live a life or behave in a ways Recommended in the ten commandments.
When a child is born as Christian, the parents rear the child in the ways of Christ Jesus, the ways God taught his disciples in the bible for instance love one another, worship no other god except lord, obey the norms of the society and a lot that are recorded in the bible. As the child grows, the religion in which he/she is reared into; have an impact on his/her behaviour. It induce a lot in his/her behaviour. For instance in Nigerian youth (Christians) we all know that killing, stealing, prostitution and so other deviant act are condemned by our lord Jesus Christ and against the societal norm, we tries to stay away from such act and disassociation our selves from people that has these kind of evil act. Likewise the Moslems live accordingly how it is recorded in their own Koran. The Moslems belief on the philosophy of fighting a holy war, this is because; it is believed that whenever believers are fighting Holy wars, they are doing the will of Allah who will strongly reward them. This belief has made Islam youths develop likness towards war; so that when they died, the Allah will reward them and also provide Ten (10) Virgins for them at heaven. For instance, these issue of Boko Haram in Nigeria. Majority of their members are youths which one of them volunteer to be a suicide bomber. Suicide bomber means an individual that accept to die in process of bombing other people, having belief that when he dies, he will go to heaven and will be crown.
POLITICAL ATTITUDE TOWARDS CROSS CUTLTURAL STUDY OF BEHAVIOUR IN NIG YOUTHS
Politics is derived from a Greek word “polis” meaning the city- state. The concept of the “polis” was an ideal state and it came from the writings of great political thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle. It is concerned with the exercise of power and authority management of public affairs and the struggle over the allocation and distribution of societal values and resources.
Politics is the activity through which people make preserve and amend the general rules under which they live. As such, it is an essentially social activity, inextricably linked on the one hand, to the existence of diversity and conflict and on the other to a willingness, to cooperate and act collectively.
According to Heywood (2002) defined it as a science of power and the contest over who should rule.
Thus, on attitude which determine the direction and intensity of our behaviour Patterns and manifestations will also be determinant aspect of our political behaviour. Our attitude to our nation and its survival will influence the politics we play.
The politician attitude in Nigeria has made people to perceived politics as a dirty game. Political powers are now bought by money. It is no more acquire by qualification and this has influence our youths. For instance, last year general election in Ebonyi State which chief Elechi won the political post, this was done by his riches. He uses money on youths by paying every individual that campaign and vote for him amount of (N5000) five thousand Naira. And that influence the youth to vote for the candidate who is not qualify to be a representative and disqualify the candidate who is qualify to represent them in the political post. The political attitude of the politians Induce the youths to vote for politicians that are willing to spend and throw out money for them. They belief in the concept of no money no vote.
Even thus, Nigerian has multiply of political parties like PDP, APGA, AC etc but it seems to be only one political party win in any election in Nigeria which is PDP. Our youths belief that once a candidate is not a member of the winning party, he/she will not occupied the political position.
Politics is seems as a blood suck game because the Nigerian politicians soak their hands with blood in order to occupied the political power. They assassinate their opponents and perform some human rituals in which they seen as a way of clarifying their way of winning the position. Our youths are used as an agents of performing these deviant act like kidnapping, killing etc. These attitude has impacted a lot in the behaviour of the youths.
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL ATTITUDE TOWARDS CROSS CULTURAL STUDY OF BEHAVIOUR IN NIG YOUTHS
Economic is connected with the trade/ industry and development of wealthy of a country, an area or a society. It can also be defined as process of transaction or activity producing enough profit. It has to do with the Gross domestic product (GDP) and Gross national product. They are all used in measuring national income and output for a given country’s economy.
The challenges confronting the Nigeria economy has a negative influence on the development of Nigeria economy, hampered the constant growth of the country and has cause a lot of damage to the citizens of Nigeria especially the youths.
Due to the fact that past and present leaders has embezzle the national income on one way or other has influence our youths in Nigeria. The youths in Nigeria developed the belief that to succeed in life, you must embezzle the national fund or family fund. For instance, we all know that Ebonyi State University do not sell handout/text or force student to purchase text books but some students extract money from their parent in the name of buying text books. They extract the money in order to take care of their girl friends or answer the most rich guy in the campus. This is the impact the criminal leaders has impacted on the youths of Nigeria, making them to accept the belief that money is better good name. The youths disregard the belief of our forefather that saying “good name is better than riches”. Some of the youths end up into been robbers, killing, prostitution etc. The incident of bank robbering and two brothers caught with decomposing body part of their brothers at festac Lagos on 24th of July are all as a result of the bad influence of our economy.
Social attitude
Human beings are said to be social animal because no individual can exist alone or in isolation. As a result of that, there is need for people to seek for affiliation within groups. Therefore, social means needy the company of others.
The history of Nigeria has made Nigeria to be one in the almagation of 1914 but the youths develop the spirit of ethnocentric making their own religion to be the most superior than the other people. The members of the out group, that is, people from other cultural groups are looked upon as inferior and people who should be rejected. The attitude towards the other groups Leads to discrimination and that influence our youth social attitude in Nigeria. This discrimination that is carried against other ethnic groups in the area of job creation, marriage, admission into higher institution an other services. The social attitude of Nigeria youths which is comparies of discrimination also give way to prejudice and sterotype towards other group which brought about disintegration in social interaction with in Nigeria.
REFERENCES
* Berry, J.W. & Poortinga (1997: Hand book of cross cultural psy: 2nd edition Cambridge University Press.
* Beery .J. (2004). The psychological foundation of culture Canadian psychology.
* Ratner. C. (2006) Cultural psychology: A perspective on psychological functioning & social
*O.J. Okereke (2004) “An Introductory Anthropology” Kongrats Press (Nigeria) Enugu: Nigeria
* Benjamin .E. Nwan & John .N. Mbah (2003) Fundamentals of social psychology” CIDPAP Press; Enugu Nigeria.
* Rev Samuel .I. Odoh (2005) “Nigeria Peoples and culture” General studies Division Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki Nigeria
* Inya .A. (2008) “Fundamentals of Sociology” 29 Water Work Roads, Abakaliki Nigeria.
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