PSYC 307 003 With Professor Cheung Lecture 11: How Culture Develops Review Session: · Oct 9, Friday, 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm Learning Objectives · Plasticity vs. specialization · Understand the challenges associated with school adjudgment · Define and describe the different dimensions of acculturation . Explain Arends-Toth's model of acculturation Reading 2: · How does our ability to adapt change as a function of their age or if it does change as a function of age? Discussion Questions • Claims? o There is a sensitive period for cultural learning o Under 14.5 years is easier for individuals to get into their mainstream culture • Evidence? 0 Self-report scales of identification with heritage and mainstream culture o Linear relationship between acculturation and age of immigration · Major strengths/flaws? What improvements? · Extensions? o Small sample size, great variability in responses, alternative explanations · Connections? Acculturation · Plasticity vs. specificity · Example: Imagine you as a student. You can take any courses you want and make use of a lot of information. o Or you can take courses in one specific department and become a specialist. · There is a trade-off between plasticity and specificity. · Example: It would be great to be amazing at everything, but we do not have the energy for that to happen. But when we specialize from the beginning and we choose the wrong specialization, maybe it's so useless that it doesn't help you survive in your environment because you didn't spend enough time to figure out what was beneficial for your survival. Acculturation · Solution? We're plastic in the first chunk of our lives and during this time, we absorb everything that well, and then we figure out what we need to learn to survive and gain a survival advantage. o We will then transition into specificity. We identify what skill give us better advantages and we devote time to develop those skills. · They become our dominant response. When we automatically engage in a behaviour, that's what we will normally do. · This is the case for language as well.
PSYC 307 003 With Professor Cheung · Imagine learning a new language/ During that sensitive period, your muscles will learn all the sounds that you grow up speaking. It becomes our dominant and automatic response. o When you try and speak a new language, your mouth still retains that dominant response so when you learn a new language, your mouth will carryover those muscles. Imagine! · Imagine when you were in elementary or high school. Think about the factors that made you do well in school. It could have been friends or family. o The issue for a lot of immigrants is that the find themselves in a schooling environment where there are different expectations and norms. They can't navigate the educational system with help from their parents. · They have to learn to deal with more complex relationships, more independence, bigger classrooms, and more workload. o Imagine doing all of this without parental