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Some cultures are more aware of emotional health than others, and some cultural practices favor good emotional health while others favor emotional neglect. No q

Some cultures are more aware of emotional health than others, and some cultural practices favor good emotional health while others favor emotional neglect. No question. But all the examples you give, I'd put in the "psychological change" category, not the "cultural change" category. Those are the things I support; and there's not enough focus on them. I'll admit my wording causes confusion; see my other reply. I think what you're highlighting is extremely different from what I refer to as cultural change, like let's say the "body positivity movement", where people have pre-existing low self-esteem, which leads to self-neglect and emotional eating, which leads to weight gain, and they're focused on the superficial problem (feeling embarrassed by being fat) rather than the core issue (being fat because of low emotional health). "Every fat cell is an unshed tear." That perfectly highlights the ineffectiveness of superficial cultural change, over deep psychology-based change like the examples you give. And to address your last point: low self-esteem is caused mostly by poor parental emotional health; you can put kids in Montessori schools, but if they don't develop healthy attachment to their parents, it'll only help on the margin. The change needs to be even deeper than that. The article we're commenting on doesn't mention kids' self-esteem as being a factor at all; or the obvious observation that some kids are afraid of being judged, while some aren't. It treats it as a cultural problem that's easily solved by culture, rather than a deeper psychological/emotional problem that can be addressed long-term by deeper cultural change; really, it ignores the psychological dimension completely. Clearly, most academic psychologists are missing the mark here.

hosh 4y ago
The reason parents in the US tend to have children with "achievement mindset" is because the culture itself rewards and favors achievements instead of growth. The reason parents in the US don't invest time with their toddlers is because they feel they don't have time. They don't have time because it is typically about career success (achievement), wealth, status, and so forth. Or in other social classes, it's just overwhelming to just be able to barely survive. Culturally, American has one of the highest overworked population (it is cultural because that is the generally accepted norm), scores among the highest for individualism (instead of collectivism). Those all play into how people parent. And don't get me started on the idea of free range parenting. In this day and age, in America, letting the kids out to play in the streets can get you, as the parent, arrested for neglect and censured by the neighbors. Those are all part of the cultural norms. To do what you suggest at the psychological level requires pushing back against those cultural norms, some with legal consequences. You are welcomed to define all of this as psychology, but I think if you talked with sociologists and other people, they would tell you these are cultural rather than psychological factors. It's not stopping my wife and I from parenting my kid in the way we think is best for them. But I'm not blind to the fact that I am going against the grain of cultural norms and generally accepted behavior, beliefs, and practices of the mainstream US culture.
- jimkleiber 4y ago
  Maybe the difference in what you two are is that psychological is often internal to one person whereas cultural can be internal to many people. For example, me working on the fear that I have to open up publicly because my house was robbed when I lived overseas and was a semi-celebrity can be my personal psychological journey. The collective "don't share too much about your private life online" could a collective cultural belief stemming from many different experiences that impacted individuals to have such beliefs and fears. I've been thinking a lot about whether to change culture (group) or change psychology (individual) and my latest belief on this is that I want to get better at loving myself and loving others and then train the handful of people who also want to do that, with the idea being that if a few of us start, it may spread to others, this going from the individual to group, maybe psychological to cultural. I don't necessarily like the psych/cultural distinction, as I think both often influence how I'm feeling. Scared to post because I might get robbed again, also scared to post because people may resond with "you shouldn't post things like that online." So I think maybe it's both. However I still like the idea of starting with me and maybe a few others who really really want to get better at it and maybe influence by osmosis.
  - hosh 4y ago
    > So I think maybe it's both. However I still like the idea of starting with me and maybe a few others who really really want to get better at it and maybe influence by osmosis. That's how I approach this too.
- concinds 4y ago
  > The reason parents in the US tend to have children with "achievement mindset" is because the culture itself rewards and favors achievements instead of growth. Self-confidence comes from achievement; there's no conflict between the two. That's again my distinction between culture (emulation, "you must achieve lots", which leads to burnt out kids) and psychology ("I'm confident in my abilities; I can achieve what I want if I work hard at it"). High-confidence kids will inherently want to achieve. There's no conflict; studies show that Asian kids have more of a growth mindset than other kids. Conditioning parental love to achievement is what's unnecesary and harmful. And I think my reply to another commenter addresses the "culture-psychology" distinction better. I'm talking about cultural change meant to improve the psychological nurturance-level of families, schools, communities, which I call "psychological change" as shorthand. I'm criticizing cultural change that's psychologically illiterate, and treats the problems it solves as cultural problems rather than psychological problems. "Teach men not to rape", for example, is cultural change that completely ignores all psychological dimensions ("rape culture", i.e. trivializing sexual assault, is just a symptom of emotionally unhealthy people, not a cause). Same with the ADL's pyramid of hate, that sees "fear of difference" and "lack of self-reflection on privilege" as the root causes, when the real problems are emotional and psychological problems within society (lack of empathy) that lead to hate and bigotry. Cultural change needs to be deeply informed by psychology to be effective. People are emotionally unhealthy, and the culture reflects that. Culture is downstream from psychology. Cultural change can address it, but only by causing psycohlogical change, not merely cultural change. Re-analyzing the examples above: reacting to bigoted people with hatred and ostracism is just another symptom our low-nurturance society. It's cultural change without psychological change. Buddhists had it right all along. Is that clearer?

hosh 4y ago

The reason parents in the US tend to have children with "achievement mindset" is because the culture itself rewards and favors achievements instead of growth. The reason parents in the US don't invest time with their toddlers is because they feel they don't have time. They don't have time because it is typically about career success (achievement), wealth, status, and so forth. Or in other social classes, it's just overwhelming to just be able to barely survive. Culturally, American has one of the highest overworked population (it is cultural because that is the generally accepted norm), scores among the highest for individualism (instead of collectivism). Those all play into how people parent. And don't get me started on the idea of free range parenting. In this day and age, in America, letting the kids out to play in the streets can get you, as the parent, arrested for neglect and censured by the neighbors. Those are all part of the cultural norms. To do what you suggest at the psychological level requires pushing back against those cultural norms, some with legal consequences. You are welcomed to define all of this as psychology, but I think if you talked with sociologists and other people, they would tell you these are cultural rather than psychological factors. It's not stopping my wife and I from parenting my kid in the way we think is best for them. But I'm not blind to the fact that I am going against the grain of cultural norms and generally accepted behavior, beliefs, and practices of the mainstream US culture.

jimkleiber 4y ago
Maybe the difference in what you two are is that psychological is often internal to one person whereas cultural can be internal to many people. For example, me working on the fear that I have to open up publicly because my house was robbed when I lived overseas and was a semi-celebrity can be my personal psychological journey. The collective "don't share too much about your private life online" could a collective cultural belief stemming from many different experiences that impacted individuals to have such beliefs and fears. I've been thinking a lot about whether to change culture (group) or change psychology (individual) and my latest belief on this is that I want to get better at loving myself and loving others and then train the handful of people who also want to do that, with the idea being that if a few of us start, it may spread to others, this going from the individual to group, maybe psychological to cultural. I don't necessarily like the psych/cultural distinction, as I think both often influence how I'm feeling. Scared to post because I might get robbed again, also scared to post because people may resond with "you shouldn't post things like that online." So I think maybe it's both. However I still like the idea of starting with me and maybe a few others who really really want to get better at it and maybe influence by osmosis.
- hosh 4y ago
  > So I think maybe it's both. However I still like the idea of starting with me and maybe a few others who really really want to get better at it and maybe influence by osmosis. That's how I approach this too.
concinds 4y ago
> The reason parents in the US tend to have children with "achievement mindset" is because the culture itself rewards and favors achievements instead of growth. Self-confidence comes from achievement; there's no conflict between the two. That's again my distinction between culture (emulation, "you must achieve lots", which leads to burnt out kids) and psychology ("I'm confident in my abilities; I can achieve what I want if I work hard at it"). High-confidence kids will inherently want to achieve. There's no conflict; studies show that Asian kids have more of a growth mindset than other kids. Conditioning parental love to achievement is what's unnecesary and harmful. And I think my reply to another commenter addresses the "culture-psychology" distinction better. I'm talking about cultural change meant to improve the psychological nurturance-level of families, schools, communities, which I call "psychological change" as shorthand. I'm criticizing cultural change that's psychologically illiterate, and treats the problems it solves as cultural problems rather than psychological problems. "Teach men not to rape", for example, is cultural change that completely ignores all psychological dimensions ("rape culture", i.e. trivializing sexual assault, is just a symptom of emotionally unhealthy people, not a cause). Same with the ADL's pyramid of hate, that sees "fear of difference" and "lack of self-reflection on privilege" as the root causes, when the real problems are emotional and psychological problems within society (lack of empathy) that lead to hate and bigotry. Cultural change needs to be deeply informed by psychology to be effective. People are emotionally unhealthy, and the culture reflects that. Culture is downstream from psychology. Cultural change can address it, but only by causing psycohlogical change, not merely cultural change. Re-analyzing the examples above: reacting to bigoted people with hatred and ostracism is just another symptom our low-nurturance society. It's cultural change without psychological change. Buddhists had it right all along. Is that clearer?