02/08/2025
Influența culturii în care ne creștem copiii contează mult. Dar presupun că diferite niveluri pot conta diferit, depinde cm sunt expuși - școala, cartierul, orașul, țara, structura suprastatală:) Implicații și pentru cine vrea să crească copii în altă țară. Unde o fi mai puțină frică în perioada asta?:)
"University of Michigan psychologists Dov Cohen and Richard Nisbett studied the reactions of college men to being insulted. They found that their reactions were not particularly affected by their size and strength or by their sense of emotional security. What mattered was where they came from.
When researchers bumped into people born and raised in the southern United States and called them “asshole,” their levels of the stress hormone cortisol and of testosterone were much more likely to rise than when the same thing was done to their Yankee counterparts. The southerners were also much more likely to support the use of violence when presented with a scenario in which another man hit on their fiancée. And in the American South, there is a long history and tradition of defending one’s honor through violence—as well as an ongoing elevation in violent crime associated with insults and “disrespect.” Interestingly, other violent crimes—like murders committed during armed robberies where there is no element of disrespect—are not affected. Culture and biology are deeply intertwined and interactive.
And so, the social world reproduces itself, in either positive or negative ways. Distress can make parents already inclined not to be empathetic even less so. Not only will frightening circumstances promote inhumane behavior, they will also tend to minimize intellectual capacity, as the fear that results from being under constant threat remodels the brain. Fear actually shuts down the higher regions of the brain, the areas of the prefrontal cortex involved in planning, creative thinking, and considering long-term consequences. Individuals who are always threatened cannot reason to their maximal capacity. When needing to fight or flee, too much reflection is not a good thing, so shutting down the contemplative part of the brain makes good sense when experiencing fear.
Again, this is adaptive only in the short term; in the long run, it means that when distress or threat pervades a society, its people’s abilities to progress in areas that require such skills will be diminished. Trade, science, technology, art—and many other areas that require creativity and cooperation—will lag behind. It is easy to imagine how these neurodevelopmental principles could have been at play historically: “Dark Ages” could literally have resulted from violent, oppressive governance and kept societies that would otherwise flourish in a self-perpetuating state of violence and terror. This would have been fueled not only by traumatized, frightened people being in a more reactive, less thoughtful state, but also by cycles of vengeance resulting from previous attacks. As we will see in later chapters, raising children in a way that fully expresses empathy may be the key to cultural productivity, creativity, and security.
As a result, it is not surprising that most of our history is brutal and dark. Because, just as children grow up as a reflection of the developmental environment provided by their parents and immediate family, so does the inventiveness, creativity, and productivity of a people reflect the developmental environment of their society. There are, of course, many other factors that have an influence as well, but we think this developmental perspective offers critical insight.
One of the best examples of these influences can be seen in the different child-rearing beliefs of ancient Athens and Sparta. These two city-states existed concurrently in time—so the genetics of each of the Greek communities were arguably similar. Yet their values were very different and their child-rearing practices—at least that we know of for the sons of the upper class—reflected this variance. What endures of each of these ancient societies reflects their priorities.
The main legacy of Sparta rests in a word: Spartan. This word exists in English because of Sparta’s notoriety for imposing harsh, even brutal, conditions on its people in order to be constantly ready for war. Though they did not fight battles themselves, even women in Spartan society were prized primarily for physical fitness. This was seen as increasing the chance that they would bear stronger sons.
Most of Sparta’s populace actually consisted of slaves. Not surprisingly, they were shown little mercy. But even the sons of the ruling class weren’t indulged. From birth, they were expected to show strength and cunning. Babies who showed any sign of weakness or birth defects were thrown into a chasm in the mountains at the direction of public officials. Those allowed to live were not coddled: baths were given in freezing water, and from the start, discipline involved shame, humiliation, and physical pain. Bullying was encouraged to stamp out weakness. At age seven, boys were taken from their mothers and put into training camps where they were not given enough food to satisfy their hunger. They were encouraged to steal to make up for this—but beaten, sometimes to death, if they were caught. Education was focused almost exclusively on discipline and military strength.
These extremes of deprivation, aggressive physical and weapons training, and intense competition helped create a very efficient ruling military class. Though they had no clue about the mechanism by which this worked, the Spartans were creating children whose stress response systems were perfect for short lives filled with intense conflict. These were brains designed to react aggressively, not think.
By contrast, in Athens, the sons of the ruling class were “spoiled.” Their mothers and baby nurses nurtured them closely until about age six when formal education started. Even then, they still lived at home. Their education was a combination of music, exercise, military skills, philosophy, poetry, and basically, a more “rounded” exposure to the range of academics, arts, and physical activity then available. Conversation, debate, oratory, and the writing of plays and poetry was encouraged.
Athenian culture provided the foundation of Western civilization. The idea of democracy, the core debates of philosophy, the fundamentals of art and drama, and the beginnings of science are all traceable to Athens. Sculpture, poetry, architecture, and a host of other remarkable advances in culture were inspired, modified, or actually created by Athenians and their closest allies. By contrast, Sparta lives on primarily in that word for harsh conditions and its reputation for military conquest.
Though there are clearly many other rich determinants of the patterns of history, the way our brains are shaped by our early environments can have an echoing impact. The relational world in which we grow up influences our ability to connect to one another, the way we treat one another, and our response to power differentials."
Sursa: Born to love, Bruce Perry & Maia Szalavitz
