The “psychobehavioral modality” dimension of culture discusses the continuum described as follows:

Based on the unit 1 readings and your own research what is multiculturalism and what does it mean to have a multicultural perspective?You must support your response with scholarly sources in APA format.  Simply stating your opinion is not enough, back up your opinion with citations.  Refer to the DB Grading Rubric for more details.
 Articles, Websites, and Videos:Connolly and Ward (2008) define and discussion the fundamentals of human rights, values connected to the them, and their relevance for human services providers.

Connolly, M., & Ward, T. (2008). Morals, Rights and Practice in the Human Services: Effective and Fair Decision-making in Health, Social Care and Criminal Justice. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Patel (2020) discusses hat while our geographic spaces have become more diverse than ever our social circles have not. 

This Info graph uses Census data from 2013-2017 to look at the diverse makeup of the US.

The History of American Diversity examines diversity statistics from 1965-2015 and makes predictions for future US racial makeup.Watch VideoThe History of American Diversity 

5-1What Is Culture?
5-1
Culture is a difficult concept to grasp because it is so basic to human societies and so intertwined with our very natures that its workings are seldom acknowledged or thought about by those who have internalized it. It is all encompassing, like water for a fish, so it remains largely preconscious and is obvious only when it is gone or has been seriously disturbed. Anthropological definitions point to certain aspects of it. Culture comprises traditional ideas and related values, it is learned, shared, and transmitted from one generation to the next, and it organizes life and helps individuals interpret their existence. In an interview for Live Science website, Cristina De Rossi, and anthropologist at Barnet and Southgate College in London said, “Culture encompasses religion, food, what we wear, how we wear it, our language, marriage, music, what we believe is right or wrong, how we sit at the table, how we greet visitors, how we behave with loved ones, and a million other things” (Zimmermann, 2015). De Rossi went on to explain that culture is fluid and constantly in motion, which makes it difficult for culture to be defined just one way.
I like the notion of culture as the ways that a people have learned to respond to life’s problems. For instance, all human groups must deal with death, but the rituals and practices that have developed around it vary greatly from culture to culture. However, all these definitions lack something that would be particularly helpful for the present purpose—a more strongly felt sense of how culture functions within the individual. To get at this, the concept of paradigm is very useful. A paradigm is a set of shared assumptions and beliefs about how the world works. It describes the cognitive worldview through which human beings perceive and relate to their world. Their paradigms, without people being very aware of them, tell us how human existence works—what is possible and impossible, what the rules are, and how things are done. In short, paradigms shape an individual’s experience of reality. Culture is the stuff of which human paradigms are made. It provides them content—their identity, beliefs, values, and behavior. It is learned as part of the natural process of growing up in a family and community and from participating in societal institutions. These are the purveyors of culture.

One’s culture becomes one’s paradigm, defining what is real and right. Diverse cultures, in turn, generate different paradigms of reality, and each is protected and defended as if a threat to it were a threat to a member’s very existence. From this perspective, it is easy to understand why the imposition of a Northern European cultural paradigm onto the lives of people of color—who possess and live by very different cultural paradigms—is experienced so negatively.
5-1aCulture vs. Race in the Definition of Group Differences

Before you learn about the various dimensions along which cultures differ, it is useful to take a short digression to discuss difficulties with the concept of race. Increasingly of late, social scientists have chosen to distinguish between human groups on the basis of culture rather than race. For example, when they refer to tribal subgroups within the broader racial category of Native Americans as separate ethnic groups, they are emphasizing cultural differences as opposed to biological or physical ones. I have followed a similar practice here by using terms such as ethnic group and culturally diverse clients to describe human diversity. The term ethnic group was defined in Chapter 1 as any distinguishable people whose members share a culture and see themselves as separate and different from the cultural majority.
The emphasis is on shared cultural material as a basis for identification. It is not likely that the concept of race and its usual breakdown into five distinct human groups will ever disappear. It is just too deeply ingrained in the fabric of American society. Rather, its importance as a social—as opposed to a biological—concept will increasingly be emphasized.
There are many serious problems with the concept of race:
· Physical anthropologists have shown quite conclusively that what has always been assumed to be clear and distinct differences among the races are not very clear or distinct at all. In fact, it appears that there is as much variability in physical characteristics within racial groups as there is among groups. For example, it is not uncommon to see a wide array of skin colors and physical features among individuals who are all considered members of one racial group. It is believed that there has been so much racial mixing throughout history that, today, groups that may have once been genetically distinct are no longer distinguishable.
· The term race has become so emotionally charged and politicized that it can no longer serve a useful role in scientific discussion.
· Racial categories have been used throughout U.S. history to simultaneously oppress people of color, justify white privilege, and confuse racial politics. For example, U.S. Census classifications of race have changed regularly every decade from 1889 to the present. In 1890, for example, they included “White, Black, Mulatto, Quadroon, Octoroon, Chinese, Japanese, and Indian.” The 2000 Census tracked the following racial groups: “White, Black, American Indian or Alaskan Native, Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Native Hawaiian, and Guamanian or Chamorro.” In addition, Hispanic/Latino group membership has become a separate racial category, as has the acknowledgment of more than one racial background. Of particular interest in regard to such redefinitions is the fact that they seem to parallel changes in immigration restrictions passed by Congress. An increased demand for entry into the United States from groups who are perceived as threats by the white establishment results in reduced immigration quotas.

· Defining race biologically and genetically opens the door for pseudoscientific arguments about intellectual and other types of inferiority among people of color.
· The social reality of race in the United States does not conform to the existence of five distinct groups. Rather, only two bear any real social meaning: “white” and “of color.” The notion of the great melting pot, for instance, was actually only about melting white ethnics. The myth was never intended to apply to people of color. For white ethnics, upper mobility involved discovering and asserting their group’s whiteness as a means of setting themselves apart from and above the groups of color who perpetually resided at the bottom of the social hierarchy of the United States. When they first arrived, various white ethnic groups were met with prejudice and scorned and were merely tolerated because they represented a source of much-needed cheap labor. In time, however, as they acculturated into the system, they discovered that they could progress most quickly by identifying themselves as white and by taking on the prejudices against people of color that were an intrinsic part of white culture.
For all these reasons, it has become increasingly compelling to set aside the term race as a distinguishing feature among groups and to turn to cultural differences as a more useful and less controversial yardstick.

However, according to Desmond and Emirbayer (2016), this is easier said than done. The election of Donald Trump, for most, ended the post-racial myth that the past election of Obama created for some Americans. Although there are serious problems with the concept of race, there are reasons for its existence. As the previous statements explain and Desmond and Emirbayer (2016) expand upon, these reasons are not always in the best interest of all individuals. It is important for helpers to understand the reality faced by clients who are living in a world where race, more than culture, still heavily influences how individuals relate to each other.

5-2The Dimensions of Culture
5-2

Cultures differ depending on their  worldview  or particular philosophy of life or conception of the world; the content and specifics of each vary from culture to culture. These differences and our natural tendency toward ethnocentrism, the assumption that everyone else views the world in the same way as we do, are the reasons that cross-cultural misunderstanding occurs. Brown and Landrum- Brown (1995) enumerate the following dimensions of culture:
· Psychobehavioral modality  refers to the mode of activity most preferred within a culture. Do individuals actively engage their world (doing), more passively experience it as a process (being), or experience it with the intention of evolving (becoming)?
· Axiology  involves the interpersonal values that a culture teaches. Do they compete or cooperate (competition vs. cooperation)? Are emotions freely expressed or held back and controlled (emotional restraint vs. emotional expressiveness)? Is verbal expression direct or indirect (direct verbal expression vs. indirect verbal expression)? Do group members seek help from others or do they keep problems hidden so as not to shame their families (help seeking vs. “saving face”)?
· Ethos  refers to widely held beliefs within a cultural group that guide social interactions. Are people viewed as independent beings or as interdependent (independence vs. interdependence)? Is one’s first allegiance to oneself or to one’s family (individual rights vs. honor and family protection)? Are all individual group members seen as equal, or is there an acknowledged hierarchy of status or power (egalitarianism vs. authoritarianism)? Are harmony, respect, and deference toward others valued over controlling and dominating them (control and dominance vs. harmony and deference)?
· Epistemology  summarizes the preferred ways of gaining knowledge and learning about the world. Do people rely more on their intellectual abilities (cognitive processes), their emotions and intuition (affective processes, vibes, intuition), or a combination of both (cognitive and affective)?
· Logic  involves the kind of reasoning process that group members adopt. Are issues seen as being either one way or the other (either-or thinking)? Can multiple possibilities be considered at the same time (both-and thinking)? Or is thinking organized around inner consistency (circular)?
· Ontology  refers to how a culture views the nature of reality. Is what is real only what can be seen and touched (objective material)? Is there a level of reality that exists beyond the material senses (subjective spiritual)? Or are both levels of reality experienced (spiritual and material)?
· Concept of Time  involves how time is experienced within a culture. Is it clock-determined and linear (clock-based), defined in relation to specific events (event-based), or experienced as repetitive (cyclical)?
· Concept of Self  refers to whether group members experience themselves as separate beings (individual self) or as part of a greater collective (extended self).
In relation to these dimensions of worldview or culture, each society evolves a set of cultural forms—ritual practices, behavioral prescriptions, and symbols—that support them. For example, a given culture stresses the doing mode on the first dimension. Certain kinds of child-rearing techniques tend to encourage directed activity. Parents differentially reinforce activity over passivity; they also model such behavior. Cultural myths portray figures high on this trait, and moral teachings stress its importance. The group’s language likely favors active voice over passive voice. What makes a culture unique, then, is the particular profile of where it stands on each of these dimensions combined with the specific cultural forms it has evolved.
As will become apparent shortly, the dimensions of culture are not totally independent. Rather, some tend to cluster. In relation to ethos, for instance, beliefs concerning independence, individual rights, egalitarianism, and control and dominance tend to occur together in the belief system of a culture, as do interdependence, honor and family protection, authoritarianism, and harmony and deference. Such clusters tend to be mutually reinforcing. It will become clear that certain cultures share a number of dimensions; for example, the cultures of color in the United States have many dimensional similarities and, as a group, differ considerably from Northern European cultures.
Finally, it is important to note that each culture generates a unique  felt experience of living . The quality of life differs in tone, mood, and intensity. The same is true of the kind of mental health issues that members must face, as well as the emotional strengths that they develop. A very dramatic example of this occurred many years ago. I was a graduate student running a personal growth group for students at a multicultural weekend retreat. The students who showed up for my group were all white, with the exception of one young Latino man, who was really there to spend more time with one of the young women in the group. Such groups seldom attracted non-white participants because it was the belief of most students of color that it was a “white thing” and something that “whites really needed.” “As for us, we don’t have any trouble relating to other people.” The group was quite successful, and it did not take long until people were sharing deeply and talking about feelings of disconnection from parents, isolation, and loneliness. At a certain point, the young Latino man could contain himself no longer and said, “I don’t understand what you are all talking about. I am part of a big extended family; there is always someone around. I can’t imagine feeling alone or isolated.” Only after that did I realize that what I had thought to be the “universal malaise” of loneliness and isolation was, in fact, a cultural experience and an artifact of the Northern European lifestyle.
Table 5-1
Summary of Worldview Positions

Worldview Dimensions

Sample Worldview Positions

Psychobehavioral modality

Doing vs. being vs. becoming

Axiology (values)

Competition vs. cooperation
Emotional restraint vs. emotional expressiveness
Direct verbal expression vs. indirect verbal expression
Seeking help vs. “saving face”

Ethos (guiding beliefs)

Independence vs. interdependence
Individual rights vs. honor and family protection
Egalitarianism vs. authoritarianism
Control and dominance vs. harmony and deference

Epistemology (how one knows)

Cognitive processes vs. affective processes (vibes)
Intuition vs. cognitive and affective

Logic (reasoning process)

Either-or thinking vs. both-and thinking vs. circular

Ontology (nature of reality)

Objective material vs. subjective vs. spiritual and material

Concept of Time

Clock-based vs. event-based vs. cyclical

Concept of Self

Individual self vs. extended self

Source: From Brown, M. T., & Landrum-Brown, J. (1995). Counselor supervision: Cross-cultural perspectives. In J. P. Ponterroto, J. M. Casas, L. A. Suzuki, & C. M. Alexander (Eds.), Handbook of Multicultural Counseling (pp. 263–287). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
5-2aComparing Cultural Paradigms in America
Ho, Rasheed, and Rasheed (2003) compare the cultural paradigm of white European Americans to those of the four cultures of color on five dimensions, which overlap extensively with those of Brown and Landrum- Brown (1995). It is worth reviewing these in some detail to appreciate the breadth of difference that does exist. It should be remembered, however, that these comparisons speak in generalities and may not fit or apply to individual group members, especially those who have acculturated. In addition, each of the five “racial” groups described is actually made up of numerous subgroups whose cultural content can differ widely. In the United States, for example, Manson and Trimble (1982) identified 512 federally recognized Native “entities” and an additional 365 state-recognized Indian tribes, each with its cultural uniqueness.

5-2bNature and the Environment
Ho et al. classify the four cultures of color—Asian Americans, Native Americans, African Americans, and Latin Americans—as living in “harmony with” nature and the environment, whereas European Americans prefer “mastery over” them. For the former, the relationship is one of respecting and coexisting with nature. Human beings are seen as part of a natural order and, as such, must live respectfully and non-intrusively with other aspects of nature. To destroy a fellow creature is to destroy a part of oneself. On the other hand, European American culture views human beings as superior to the physical environment and entitled to manipulate it for their own benefit. The world is a resource to be used and plundered. In contrast, cultures of color see the component parts of nature as alive and invested with spirit—which must be related to respectfully and responsibly. Great value is placed on being ever-attentive to what nature has to offer and teach. Out of such a perspective come notions such as the Native American idea of Turtle Island, a myth that views the nonhuman inhabitants of the continent as an interconnected system of animal spirits and archetypal characters. A “mastery” mentality results in environmental practices such as runaway logging, strip mining, and oil drilling, as well as the impetus for institutions such as human slavery, which exploits “inferior” human beings for material gain.
5-2cTime Orientation
There is great diversity among the five cultural groups with regard to how they perceive and experience time. European Americans are dominated by an orientation toward the future. Planning, producing, and controlling what will happen are all artifacts of a future-time orientation. What was and what is are always a bit vague and subordinated to what is anticipated. At the same time, European Americans view time as compartmentalized and incremental, and as such, being on time and being efficient with one’s time are positive values.

Asian and Latino/a cultures are described as past or present-oriented. For both, history is a living entity. Ancestors and past events are felt to be alive and influencing present reality. The past flows imperceptibly into and defines the present. Both Native Americans and African Americans, in turn, are characterized as present-oriented. Focus is directed toward current experience of the here and now, with less attention to what led up to this moment or what will become of it. As a group, and distinct from European American culture, cultures of color share a view of time as an infinite continuum and find it difficult to relate to the white “obsession” with being on time. Interestingly, each of these groups has evolved a term to describe its “looser” sense of time: “Colored people’s time,” “Indian time,” “Asian time,” and “Latin time.” Invariably, time becomes an issue when non-whites enter institutions where European American cultural values predominate. Lateness is often mistakenly interpreted by whites as indifference, provocative, or symptomatic of a lack of basic work skills.

5-2dPeople Relations
Ho et al. (2003) distinguish European Americans as having an “individual” social focus compared to a “collateral” one for the four cultures of color. Individual behavior refers to actions undertaken to actualize the self; collateral behavior involves doing things not for oneself, but in light of what they may contribute to the survival and betterment of family and community. These differences, in turn, become a basis for attributing value to different and opposing styles of interaction. For example, European Americans are taught and encouraged to compete, to seek individual success, and to feel pride in and make public their accomplishments. Native Americans and Latino/a Americans, in particular, place a high value on cooperation and strive to suppress individual accomplishment, boasting, and self-aggrandizement. Having pointed out this shared collateral focus, it is equally important to understand that the four communities of color differ significantly in their communication styles and the meaning of related symbols. Native Americans place high value on brevity in speech, while for African Americans, the ability to “rap” is treated as an art form. It is considered impolite in certain Asian American subgroups to say “no” or refuse to comply with a request from a superior. Among Latino/a Americans, deferential behavior and the communication of proper respect depend on perceived authority, age, gender, and class. And the same handshake can be given in one culture to communicate respect and deference and in another to show authority and power.
5-2eWork and Activity

On the dimension of work and activity (similar to Brown and Landrum-Brown’s Psychobehavioral Modality), European Americans, Asian Americans, and African Americans are described as “doing-oriented” compared to Native Americans and Latin Americans, who are characterized as “being-becoming.” Doing is an active mode; it involves initiating activity in pursuit of a given goal. It tends to be associated with societies where rewards and status are given on the basis of productivity and accomplishment. But even here, there are differences in motivation. European Americans’ work and activity are premised on the idea of “meritocracy”—that hard work and serious effort ultimately bring a person financial and social success. Asian Americans, on the other hand, pursue activity in terms of its ability to confer honor on one’s family and, concurrently, to avoid shaming them or losing face. African Americans fall somewhere between these two extremes. Being-becoming, in turn, is more passive, process-oriented, and focused on the here and now. It involves allowing the world to present opportunities for activity and work rather than seeking them out or creating them. It is a mode of activity that can easily be misinterpreted from a doing perspective as “lazy” or “lacking motivation.” On a recent trip to the Sinai in Egypt, one of my traveling companions was a hardworking lawyer from New York City, clearly high on the doing dimension. After spending several hours visiting a Bedouin village, he could barely contain his shock at how the men just sat around all day. Our guide, himself a Bedouin, suggested that they were not merely sitting but were thinking and planning. He explained, “There is a lot to think about: where to find water, missing goats, perhaps a new wife, maybe a little smuggling.” This did not satisfy the lawyer, however, who said, “I don’t understand how they can get anything done without meetings. Give me six months, and I’d have this whole desert covered with condos.”

One last point: activity and work, whether of the doing or becoming variety, must occur in the context of other cultural values. For example, in many cultures, work does not begin until there has been sufficient time to greet and properly inquire about the welfare of one’s family. To do otherwise is considered rude and insensitive. In white European American business culture, such activity would be seen as lazy, wasteful, and maybe even the shirking of one’s responsibilities.
5-2fHuman Nature
This dimension of culture deals with how groups view the essence of being human. Are people inherently good, bad, both, or somewhere in between? According to Ho et al. (2003), African Americans and European Americans see human nature as both good and bad and as possessing the potential for both. But, for each, the meanings of good and bad are quite different. In African American culture, where all behavior involves a collateral focus—or what Nobles (1972) calls “experiential communality”—good and bad are defined in relation to the community. It is good if it benefits the community and bad if it does not. Thus, human nature is seen as existing in the interaction between the person and the group.
European American culture, on the other hand, sees good and bad as residing in the individual. Freud’s view of human nature is an excellent example. The instinctive urges of the id are seen as a negative force that must be controlled. The ego and the superego are assigned this task and, as such, play a positive role in containing baser drives. In addition, Freud hypothesized a life instinct that is balanced by a death instinct. Thus, the two sides of human nature—the good and bad—are seen in constant opposition and conflict.

Ho et al. describe Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Latin Americans as sharing a view of human nature as good. This tendency to attribute positive motives to others has, at times, proved less than helpful in interaction with members of the dominant culture. Early treaty negotiations between Native American tribes and the U.S. government are a case in point. Tribal representatives entered these negotiations under the assumption that they were dealing with honest and honorable men and that whatever agreements were struck would be honored. By the time sufficient experience forced them to reevaluate their assumptions, it was too late and their lands had been stolen. Similarly, in the workplace, when members of such groups exhibit helpfulness, generosity, and caring for their fellow workers (behavior that follows from an assumption that others are basically good), they are frequently viewed as naïve, gullible, and in need of “smartening up.”

Case Study 1
A Case of Cross-Cultural Miscommunication
Sue and Sue (1990) offer the following example of cross-cultural miscommunication:
Several years ago, a female school counselor sought the senior author’s advice about a Hispanic family she had recently seen. She seemed quite concerned about the identified client, Elena Martinez, a 13-year-old student who was referred for alleged peddling of drugs on the school premises. The counselor had thought that the parents “did not care for their daughter,” “were uncooperative,” and “were attempting to avoid responsibility for dealing with Elena’s delinquency.” When pressed for how she arrived at these impressions, the counselor provided the following information.
Elena Martinez is the second-oldest of four other siblings, ages 15, 12, 10, and 7. The father is an immigrant from Mexico and the mother a natural citizen. The family resides in a blue-collar neighborhood in San Jose, California. Elena had been reported as having minor problems in school prior to the “drug-selling incident.” For example, she had “talked back to teachers,” refused to do homework assignments, and had “fought” with other students. Her involvement with a group of Hispanic students (suspected of being responsible for disruptive schoolyard pranks) had gotten her into trouble.
Elena was well known to the counseling staff at the school. Her teacher last year reported that she was unable to “get through” to Elena. Because of the seriousness of the drug accusation, the counselor felt that something had to be done, and that the parents needed to be informed immediately.
The counselor reported calling the parents in order to set up an interview with them. When Mrs. Martinez answered the telephone, the counselor had explained how Elena had been caught on school grounds selling marijuana by a police officer. Rather than arrest her, the officer turned the student over to the vice principal, who luckily was present at the time of the incident. After the explanation, the counselor had asked that the parents make arrangements for an appointment as soon as possible. The meeting would be aimed at informing the parents about Elena’s difficulties in school and coming to some decision about what could be done.

During the phone conversation, Mrs. Martinez seemed hesitant about choosing a time to come in and, when pressed by the counselor, excused herself from the telephone. The counselor reported overhearing some whispering on the other end, and then the voice of Mr. Martinez. He immediately asked the counselor how his daughter was and expressed his consternation over the entire situation. At that point, the counselor stated that she understood his feelings, but it would be best to set up an appointment for tomorrow and talk about it then. Several times the counselor asked Mr. Martinez about a convenient time for the meeting, but each time he seemed to avoid the an

AssignmentsGenius.com Plagiarism Free Papers

Are you looking for custom essay writing service or even dissertation writing services? Just request for our write my paper service, and we’ll match you with the best essay writer in your subject! With an exceptional team of professional academic experts in a wide range of subjects, we can guarantee you an unrivaled quality of custom-written papers.
Why Hire AssignmentsGenius.com writers to do your paper?
Quality- We are experienced and have access to ample research materials.
We write plagiarism Free Content
Confidential- We never share or sell your personal information to third parties.
Support-Chat with us today! We are always waiting to answer all your questions.