April 1, 2013
The self I was born and raised in America, however my parents migrated to the United States 30 years ago. They both are from Mexico. Hispanics are known to fall more into the collective view. I consider myself a collective person. Yet, since I lived my entire life in the United States, I believe individualism has become an essential part of me. I was raised in a Hispanic culture where family and religion is the core base in our lives. At this point you might be asking yourself what is collectivistic and individualistic? And what is the difference between both? I as well as you, asked myself the same question. Now that I have taken Social Psychology I have found the answer. I understand what each one means. By learning the concept, it made it easier to identify the type of personality and culture by which I was brought up. Lets start by defining collectivistic. Collectivistic “a philosophy of life stress the priority of group needs over individual needs, a preference for tightly knit social relationship and the willingness to submit to the influence of one’s group” (Franzoi pg. 541). In other words collectivist is a group or cultures where they are more concerned for the feelings, needs, and wants, of the fellow group members. However, they also have more influence in governing the life of the members. Collectivists are known to be more social descriptions, which can be seen as an interdependent self. People who recent migrated or are first generation in the United States tend to be more of an interdependent self. My family still holds most if not all traditions. My father is the head of the house and the breadwinner. My mother is a homemaker, which is something she has implied in my life since I was a child. For us family comes first at all times. When one of us is in need we are there to help each other. I personally believe I’m family oriented; my family are the most important beings in the world. I must confess, moving to CSUN was truly one of the hardest thing I ever done. Never before have I been way from home especially for two years. My first two to three months, I was experiencing some homesickness and debating on whether I should go home or stay. I felt lonely, depressed, lost and homeless. Before moving, both my mother and father tried to convince me to stay home and continue school somewhere closer to home. However, the ambition for successes and becoming independent crept up and I decide to stay and continue my education at CSUN. Individualist is the hole opposite of collectivism. Individualist “ is the individual needs over group needs, a preference of loosely knit social relatively autonomous of others’ influence” (Franzoi pg543). Individualists are people who are more self-dependent. They are people who put themselves first at all times. Individualists are responsible for their own life as well as their own success. They don’t necessarily participate in any type of group or is relate to a culture. As mention earlier, even though I was race in a collective family and consider myself to be collectivist I also consider myself an individualistic. In the United States people tend to be more individualist. Schools teach children to be independent. We have to learn to solve our own problems without anyone’s help. With this said, we know that in life we will be facing may obstacles and at times my family will not be able to help. So we learn at a young age that we can’t not always depend on other sometimes we have to do thing on our own. Also, personally to me, success is a priority. I believe accomplishing my many goals; I will be able to provide for my family and myself for everything we need in life. In order to identify how culture impacts my upbringing, first I would like to defined gender roles. "Gender roles refer to the set of social and behavioral norms that are considered to be socially appropriate for individuals of a specific sex in the context of a specific