Introduction
Culture constructs and shapes issues that later affect perceptions aligned to personal identity. It is hard isolating culture from personal identity due to the extensive intertwining between the two aspects. Culture facilitates knowledge acquisition, opinion on natural phenomena, belief systems, character, and social relationships between various people in the community. Therefore, culture communicates ideas that later dictate the flow and influence identity of an individual. The motives, behavior, reactions, and intentions of people most of the times manifest in cultural practices. This paper will discuss how culture affects family values, social behavior, and ethical standing of individuals in the community.
How culture constructs family values
Although the general perception is that culture automatically affects family values, Rodriguez’s argues that a specific group of people or person cannot have total control over another’s identity through imparting cultural values and practices (Kidd, and Alison 13). For example, a father cannot dictate the direction his son will take even after he teaches him to adhere to certain cultural norms. It is vital to note that Rodriguez’s observations suggests that people who emerge from Christian families but are homosexual in nature took their own path despite the cultural norms drilled from childhood to adulthood. On the other hand, Rodriguez asserts that weak cultural values can make a child stray from them when he or she grows up. In short, the extent to which culture influences identity and personal values relies on the manner in which parents impart the culture in question.
It is evident that family values embodies all basic principles which later influences identity and shapes the entire value system of a person. The family is the most basic unit encompassing culture practices across various demographics, education, and social aspects all along considering the economy’s overall influence. Families shape culture into an entity that can drive change and establish a new value system with outside systems. For example, when a child leaves home, he or she has to use cultural values taught within the family domain in the outside world. The assurance from family assists a person explores the world through the cultural norms practiced at home (Kidd and Alison 28). Therefore, when a person meets an outside culture matching his or her own, he readily embraces the foreign culture. In short, a person cannot easily overturn their culture and even if they do, the traces remain rooted in various daily activities of the child. For further illustration American society believes in independence from family members, each person needs to fend for themselves and cater to their basic needs and to achieve this culture, ac child leaves home at a certain age. In addition, Americans term dependence as a feebleness that might amount to failure in the society. Hence, leaving behind, a parent’s home signifies power and progress in life.
Richard reshapes the boundaries associated with family value cultures. Holding a different perspective from what many families confirm and believe is a bold statement. For instance, the manner in which a family receives an announcement from their son when he confirms he is gay indicates a lot of things about the culture of that particular family and also the role of a mother in the family reveal the cultural norms of the family (Pack, and Jay 78). Hence, culture affects roles and relationships formed by the family members in the future, which then go on in molding the belief system further. Every family’s beliefs on various issues pronounce cultural ideologies that accompany the subject at hand. According to Rodrigues, there are two types of family; a family, which nurtures no matter the direction a child takes and the family unbent by the direction taken by a child or relative. Some families may reject a member who does not abide by their cultural norms of identity. These demonstrate the essential part played by cultural practices. In summary culture, influences decision making and the underlying meaning of functioning.
How family values and culture affect attitudes and behaviors
As stated earlier, family culture substantively affects behavior and attitude through beliefs and values learned in a person’s life. The belief system formed may affect an individual either positively or negatively (Bhattacharya, Utpal, and Veronika 109). Researches reveal that family relations affect a person from the individual level to the personality especially at the early stages of their lives. Children often imitate parents and other older people in the family and society in general. In the process of imitation, they pick up values and thinking processes that match their parent’s cultures and values without any effort. Political and social cultural surroundings influence attitude and overall personality of a person.
Conclusion
In summary, culture has a significant effect on people’ perception of life. Culture contains values and practices that affect various issues such as homosexuality and polygamy. Therefore, culture is an integration of various values and core beliefs hammered in the minds of people over time and materialize through traits and attitude toward different aspects in society. In the end, values, behavior attitudes sum up an individual’s identity and elements family values.
References
Kidd, Warren, and Alison Teagle. Culture and identity. Macmillan International Higher Education, 2012.
Bhattacharya, Utpal, Jung H. Lee, and Veronika K. Pool. "Conflicting family values in mutual fund families." The Journal of Finance 68.1 (2013): 173-200.
Pack, Robert, and Jay Parini. American Identities: Contemporary Multicultural Voices. , 1994.
