- [Instructor] Okay so you go over to a friend's house
and you get served up a plate of crispy fried insects.
So how do you respond to this?
Well how you do respond really depends on whether
you normally eat crispy fried insects or not.
Is it part of your culture to have this dish?
If it isn't, let us think of the different ways
in which you can react.
One of the ways you can react is to say
oh my gosh this is disgusting, this is wrong,
I don't want anything to do with this.
And one of the things that we're doing here
is that we're judging your friend's culture
from the position of your own culture.
What's an alternative way that we can actually
judge this situation?
One other thing we can say is yeah you know what,
I can see why he likes this dish.
It might not be for me but I can see why he likes it.
And what are we doing here?
We are actually again accessing and judging
our friend's culture but from a different view point.
We're judging and understanding their culture
from within their culture.
And these different perspectives are outlined.
That's why I drew this semicircle that you could see here,
'cause really how view these fried insects,
how we view them is down to our own cultural perspective
that we take.
And these different cultural perspectives
actually have their own terms.
So one term that I want, if we're going to judge
another person's culture from our own culture
and really say things like this is disgusting,
this is right or this is wrong,
whether it's to do with food, religion, politics,
any customs or rituals or anything else,
what we're doing is we're becoming very ethnocentric.
And being ethnocentric means is that we are really judging
our own culture to be superior to that of others.
On the opposite side, as we start to look at cultural events
whether it's the food or any other cultural event,
or cultural phenomenon,
from a perspective of the other person's culture,
we start to move into the concept of cultural relativism.
And what cultural relativism means is that
there's no right, absolute right or wrong
but we have different cultures
who are themselves valid.
Cultural relativism can somewhat falter
if someone uses it to conduct activities
that really violate the rights and dignity
of our fellow human beings,
no matter what culture they are in or from.
So that's something important for us to also consider.
Now based on our insect dish, I want to talk to you
a little bit about groups.
And what I want to do is,
talk to you about groups by mentioning how we,
I want to talk to you about groups
and how groups are formed.
So let us take this first group over here
and this group will think that
insects are pest and they are not to be eaten.
So let's draw a few different people
that could be part of this group.
And the second group really thinks of insects as dinner.
And let's draw a few of them over here.
Okay so,
so the reason why groups form is that people
within groups share some kind of psychological
connection with their peers.
So that could be related to their love of insect dishes
or it could be related to politics,
it could be related to spirituality,
any other cultural issues.
It could be related to anything at all.
Alright so let us label these groups.
So if we are actually in this group ourselves,
let's label this us,
and let's label the dinner group them.
Hm, let's use some more formal titles.
So instead of saying us, we can actually refer to this
as the in-group, the group that we are in
and the group that we are kind of psychologically
most connected with.
And then the kind of something called the out-group.
And what we know is that people in the in-group
demonstrate a lot stronger interactions
than people who are in the out-group,
than their interactions with people
who are different and in the out.
So these interactions don't occur.
And the other thing is that they only make these
interactions stronger or more common
but they may potentially be more influential as well.
Funny things can kind of happen in groups.
One of the things that can happen is
we can have something happen called, in group favoritism.
So what do I mean by that?
In in group favoritism, we tend to favor people
who are in our group, who share whatever this
psychological attribute is that we feel connected to.
So in this circumstance we are very friendly towards
the people in our in-group.
But what about the people outside?
What about the them, the out-group?
What do we do towards them?
Well if you find an out-group,
we are actually dead set neutral.
We don't extend them the favor.
We don't go out of our way to help.
We're not basty or horrible or unkind,
we just don't give them the favors
that we do to our in-group.
Now there's another phenomenon where we might
be a little nastier to the out,
and that's called out group derogation.
And in out group derogation what we find
is that again we are super friendly and super nice to
our in-group.
But when it comes to the out-group,
we are not so friendly.
We're actually mean, we might actually discriminate.
And this tends to happen, out group derogation
can actually happen if we feel that the
out-group is in some way threatening to undermine
or stop our in-group from achieving success.
And one last thing I want to mention
is the idea of group polarization.
Now this is a phenomenon where
the decision making machine, that is the group,
makes decisions that are more extreme,
than any of their individual members
would be inclined to make.
So the group's opinions and actions
and decision making may actually become more extreme
than what their individual members wanted.
This could effectively turbo charge
any of these other processes that are going on
and also turbo charge the group's viewpoints.
For example, if the group thinks insects are pest,
are they going to set up a fumigation society
for the local neighborhood?
I mean, I'm saying that in jest
but, you know, I hope the point is made.