Cross Cultural Change

Cross Cultural Change

Over the course of socio-cultural development, certain modifiers change drastically while others remain the same. One certain circumstantial solidifier in the karma of the cultural human is the need factor--the desire to belong to a greater whole. It is no more apparent than in the images and objects that a society produces.

There are two factors that are circumstantially invariable in there course of actions, one being societal change and the other personal dimensions that remain static. The latter is largely influenced by one's physical biological chemistry. Of interest is a notable psychological experiment conducted where a group of New Guinea culturally isolated and barely literate tribesmen were told to react to certain situations, i.e., your friend has come and you are happy, your child has died, etc. College students tried and successfully deciphered the emotions portrayed, affirming the hypothesis that such affects are universal (Gleitman 403). It is also generally accepted that on a biological level, humans react similarly in brain chemistry, and however different through the mediated experiences and hereditary severity of function of the individual, the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, functions of neurotransmitters, and brain structures can be shown to remain the same across all human ties.

Outward reactions however, can be stretched beyond the internal affectual dimension. Kasson suggests in Rudeness and Civility that during the time of the industrial revolution of the 19th century, people slowly began to mediate their experiences to please a larger whole. As William James stated, "Refuse to express a passion, and it dies" (Kasson, 154). The influence of control of ...

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...d between societal changes and internal functioning that remains static. One cannot exist without the other. It is the bond between the created and the creators. Can one infer that the middle ground is fear? How could it be, if one never got the notion to shift the world's way of viewing, seeing, smelling, tasting and touching? The acting troop may play in different theaters to different musicals, but the individuals that play the role will always remain unchanged.

Works Cited

Comer, Ronald J. Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology. W.H. Freeman and Company. New York 1996.

Gleitman, Henry. Psychology Four ed. W.W. Norton and Company. New York 1995.

Kasson, John F. Rudeness & Civility Manners in Nineteenth-Century Urban America. Hill and Wang. New York 1995.

Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History. Prentice Hall, Inc., Harry N. Abrams, Inc. New York 1995.