D2.Psy.12.9-12: Social, Cultural, Gender and Economic Influences on Behavior Around the World

Overview

Lesson Procedure

60-70 minutes of class time across 5 phases.

1. Warm-Up5-10 minutes
2. Direct Instruction20 minutes
3. Guided Practice15 minutes
4. Independent Practice15 minutes
5. Closure5-10 minutes

1. Warm-Up5-10 minutes

   Warm-Up Prompt

   "Think of a family meal, a holiday or a greeting in your home. Name one thing people do that a visitor from far away might find unusual. Who taught you to do it, and what would happen if you stopped?"

   Collect two or three answers without judging them. Point out that each answer already involves a cultural custom, a social response from others, often a gender role (who cooks, who serves, who speaks first) and sometimes an economic condition (what a family can afford, who is at work). Today's question: how do these four kinds of factors shape what people do and how they treat each other?

2. Direct Instruction20 minutes

   Four kinds of factors (definitions and everyday examples written for this page)

   Factor	What it includes	Everyday example
   Social	Groups a person belongs to, roles, norms, the presence and reactions of others	A student speaks more freely with friends than in front of a whole class
   Cultural	Shared values, customs, language and beliefs passed from one generation to the next	Whether people greet with a handshake, a bow or a kiss on the cheek
   Gender	Roles and expectations a society attaches to girls and boys, women and men	Which family members are expected to cook, care for children or earn money
   Economic	Income, work, cost of living and how a society produces and trades goods	A teen with a job has less free time for clubs and friends

   Behavior and interactions. A behavior is what one person does; a human interaction is what happens between people, such as cooperation, conflict, sharing, courtesy or exclusion. A norm is a shared expectation about how people should act. Ethnocentrism is judging other groups by the standards of one's own group.

   Evidence from around the world. Three findings show these factors at work. (1) In 2001, a team led by the anthropologist Joseph Henrich reported results of the same sharing game played in 15 small-scale societies in South America, Africa, Asia and the Pacific (American Economic Review). Average offers differed widely from one society to another, and groups whose daily life involved more market trade and more cooperation in producing food tended to make fairer offers. (2) In 2005, the psychologist Janet Shibley Hyde reviewed 46 meta-analyses (each a statistical summary of many studies) of psychological differences between males and females (American Psychologist) and concluded that males and females are similar on most, but not all, psychological variables. (3) In 2008, Luigi Guiso and colleagues compared international test scores across many countries (Science) and reported that the gap between boys' and girls' math scores was smaller in countries with greater gender equality. Each finding is about groups and averages, not about any one person.

   Read Source 1. William Graham Sumner (1840-1910) taught at Yale and wrote Folkways to describe how customs form and hold groups together. His definition in Source 1 helped make ethnocentrism a standard term in American social science.

   114. Sentiments in the in-group and towards the out-group. The relation of comradeship and peace in the we-group and that of hostility and war towards others-groups are correlative to each other. The exigencies of war with outsiders are what make peace inside, lest internal discord should weaken the we-group for war. [...] Loyalty to the group, sacrifice for it, hatred and contempt for outsiders, brotherhood within, warlikeness without,--all grow together, common products of the same situation. [...]

   215. Ethnocentrism is the technical name for this view of things in which one's own group is the center of everything, and all others are scaled and rated with reference to it. Folkways correspond to it to cover both the inner and the outer relation. Each group nourishes its own pride and vanity, boasts itself superior, exalts its own divinities, and looks with contempt on outsiders. Each group thinks its own folkways the only right ones, and if it observes that other groups have other folkways, these excite its scorn. Opprobrious epithets are derived from these differences. [...] For our present purpose the most important fact is that ethnocentrism leads a people to exaggerate and intensify everything in their own folkways which is peculiar and which differentiates them from others. It therefore strengthens the folkways.

   Then read Source 2. Margaret Mead (1901-1978) was a 23-year-old graduate student of Franz Boas when she went to Samoa in 1925. Sample warning: by her own account in paragraph 3, she studied only fifty girls in three neighbouring villages on one island, a small sample of one part of Samoa.

   1[...] So, in order to investigate the particular problem, I chose to go not to Germany or to Russia, but to Samoa, a South Sea island about thirteen degrees from the Equator [...]. Because I was a woman and could hope for greater intimacy in working with girls rather than with boys, and because owing to a paucity of women ethnologists our knowledge of primitive girls is far slighter than our knowledge of boys, I chose to concentrate upon the adolescent girl in Samoa.

   [...]

   2I concentrated upon the girls of the community. I spent the greater part of my time with them. I studied most closely the households in which adolescent girls lived. I spent more time in the games of children than in the councils of their elders. Speaking their language, eating their food, sitting barefoot and cross-legged upon the pebbly floor, I did my best to minimise the differences between us and to learn to know and understand all the girls of three little villages on the coast of the little island of Taū, in the Manu’a Archipelago.

   3[...] And because these less measurable parts of their lives were so similar, because one girl’s life was so much like another’s, in an uncomplex, uniform culture like Samoa, I feel justified in generalising although I studied only fifty girls in three small neighbouring villages.

   4In the following chapters I have described the lives of these girls, the lives of their younger sisters who will soon be adolescent, of their brothers with whom a strict taboo forbids them to speak, of their older sisters who have left puberty behind them, of their elders, the mothers and fathers whose attitudes towards life determine the attitudes of their children. And through this description I have tried to answer the question which sent me to Samoa: Are the disturbances which vex our adolescents due to the nature of adolescence itself or to the civilisation? Under different conditions does adolescence present a different picture?

   • A cultural and social factor in interactions: Source 1, paragraph 2

     Use Sumner's definition to explain how ethnocentrism shapes the way two groups treat each other.

     Result: Each group "thinks its own folkways the only right ones," so other groups' customs "excite its scorn." The cultural factor is the group's own folkways; the interaction it produces is contempt or distance toward outsiders, even when the other group has done nothing to them.

   • A gender factor in behavior: Source 4, paragraph 2

     On days they did household activities, women averaged 2.8 hours and men 2.1 hours. What is the difference, and what can and can't these numbers show?

     Result: 2.8 - 2.1 = 0.7 hours, or 42 minutes. The numbers describe behavior in the United States in 2025. They fit the idea that gender roles shape who does housework, but by themselves they cannot show why: work hours, family makeup and habits all differ, too.

   • An economic factor around the world

     In Henrich's 15 societies, what pattern linked the way people make a living to how they shared in the game?

     Result: Groups more involved in market trade, and groups that relied more on cooperation to produce food, tended to make higher offers. An economic way of life seems to shape norms of fairness toward strangers, an interaction, although the researchers compared societies, not individuals.

   • Gender in the research itself: Source 2, paragraph 1

     Why did Mead study girls rather than boys, and what does this show about research?

     Result: She writes that as "a woman" she "could hope for greater intimacy in working with girls," and that few women ethnologists had studied girls. Gender shaped which people a researcher could reach and which questions had been asked at all.

   • Factors combine

     Invented example: in a village where families sell vegetables at a weekly market, girls usually help at the stall and boys usually help in the fields. Which factors are at work?

     Result: Economic (the family's income depends on the market), gender (a division of tasks by sex), cultural (the custom is passed down) and social (others expect it and react if it changes). The behavior is the work each child does; the interactions include whom each child spends the day with and learns from.

   Close the segment: Which of the four factors is easiest to see from outside a society, and which is hardest? Students usually say customs are easiest and economic pressures hardest, which is a reason to collect data rather than rely on impressions.

3. Guided Practice15 minutes

   Read Source 6 together. It is an invented study with invented data, modeled on the sharing game described above.

   1Invented study summary, written for this page. Researchers ran a sharing game with adult volunteers in two invented towns. In Town A, most people work for wages and buy their food at markets. In Town B, most families farm and fish for their own use and trade little with outsiders.

   2In the game, one volunteer receives 10 tokens, which can later be traded for food, and offers some of them to an unknown second volunteer from the same town. If the second volunteer accepts, both keep their shares; if the second volunteer refuses, neither gets anything. Everyone took part by choice and could stop at any time, and names were not recorded.

   3Offers by the 12 first volunteers in Town A: 5, 4, 5, 5, 3, 5, 4, 5, 5, 4, 5, 4. Offers by the 12 first volunteers in Town B: 3, 2, 4, 3, 3, 5, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 2.

   4The researchers' note: "Twelve offers per town is a very small sample, and the two towns differ in many ways besides how people earn a living. We report this as a pattern to study further, not as proof that work and trade cause the difference."

   1. Find the factor. Which difference between the towns is the economic factor the study is about? What other differences might matter?
   2. Look at the data. Diagram 2 shows every offer. Without computing, which town's offers look higher?
   3. Compute. Find the mean offer in each town and the difference between the means (students do this in the homework).
   4. Interpret. The game measures behavior (the offer) and an interaction (whether the second player accepts). What norm about strangers might each town's offers reflect?
4. Independent Practice15 minutes

   Students read Sources 3, 4 and 5 on their own and use all six sources for the quiz and homework. Source 3 is a 1914 critique by a psychologist; Source 4 is a current federal data release; Source 5 is an invented case.

   1But even if it were determined that men actually do vary more in mental traits than women do, still nothing would be proved regarding their inherent variability. In order to establish the greater native variability of either sex it is necessary to show (1) that in the trait being distributed the opportunity and training of the sexes have been exactly equal, and (2) that in neither group has variability had more or less survival value than in the other group.

   [...]

   2Briefly our thesis may be summed up thus:

   31. The greater variability of males in anatomical traits is not established, but is debated by authorities of perhaps equal competence.

   42. But even if it were established, it would only suggest, not prove, that men are more variable in mental traits also. The empirical data at present available on this point are inadequate and contradictory, and if they point either way, actually indicate greater female variability.

   53. But even if it were established that there actually is greater male variability in mental traits, it would only suggest, not prove, that there is greater inherent variability. For (a) the opportunity and exercise of the sexes have been dissimilar and unequal; (b) intellectual variability has had survival value for men, but for women it has had little or none — this by virtue of the different parts played by the sexes in the perpetuation of the species.

   64. It must be remembered that variability in and of itself does not have social significance, unless it is known in what the variability consists — whether in greater range, greater frequency at the extremes, or in flattening at the top of the curve of distribution.

   75. It is undesirable to seek for the cause of sex differences in eminence in ultimate and obscure affective and intellectual differences until we have exhausted as a cause the known, obvious, and inescapable fact that women bear and rear the children, and that this has had as an inevitable sequel the occupation of housekeeping, a field where eminence is not possible.

   1These and other results from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) were released today. They include the average amount of time per day in 2025 that individuals worked, did household activities, and engaged in leisure and sports activities. Additionally, measures of the average time per day spent providing childcare--both as a primary (or main) activity and while doing other things are provided. For a detailed description of ATUS data and methodology, see the Technical Note.

   [...]

   2--Eighty-seven percent of women and 75 percent of men spent some time doing household activities on an average day. On the days they did household activities, women spent an average of 2.8 hours on these activities, while men spent 2.1 hours doing so. (See table 1.)

   [...]

   3--Among adults living with children under age 18, those who were not employed spent over an hour more than those who were employed doing household activities on an average day--3.1 hours compared to 1.7 hours. (See tables 8B and 8C.)

   [...]

   4--People were less likely to engage in socializing and communicating on an average day in 2025 than in 2015--30 percent compared with 38 percent. They also spent less time in these activities in 2025 than in 2015--35 minutes compared with 41 minutes. (See tables 1 and 11A.)

   [...]

   5--On an average day, among adults living in households with children under age 6, women spent an hour more than men providing primary childcare to household children--2.8 hours compared to 1.7 hours. This includes providing physical care, such as bathing or feeding a child (1.3 hours compared to 38 minutes) and travel related to care of household children (16 minutes compared to 10 minutes), among other activities. (See table 9.)

   6--On average, among adults living with children under age 6, those who were not employed spent over an hour more per day caring for and helping household children than did employed adults--3.3 hours versus 1.7 hours. (See tables 8B and 8C.)

   1Invented case, written for this page. Four students in an online summer course, Rosa, Sam, Mina and Dev, are assigned a group presentation. They live in four different countries and meet by video in the evening.

   2In Rosa's family, children are expected to wait until an adult asks for their opinion, so in the group calls she rarely interrupts and waits to be asked. Sam's school rewards students who speak first and argue hard, and he fills most of the first meeting. Mina is the oldest daughter in her family and is expected to look after two younger brothers in the evenings, so she often joins the calls late. Dev works twenty hours a week in his family's shop, which is his family's main income, and can meet only on weekends.

   3After two meetings, Sam tells the teacher that Rosa "has no ideas" and that Mina and Dev "don't care." The teacher asks each student to send their ideas in writing. Rosa's written plan turns out to be the most detailed in the group, and the four agree to work on a shared document at times that suit each of them.

   Task: make a four-row chart for Source 5 with the headings Factor, Student, Evidence from the case, and Effect on the group's interactions. Fill one row each for a social, a cultural, a gender and an economic factor.

5. Closure5-10 minutes

   Exit ticket: "Pick one of the four factors. Give one example of how it shapes how people treat each other, and one piece of evidence from today's sources."

   Teacher notes. (1) Sources 1-3 are historical and use the language of their time, such as Mead's "primitive" and her subtitle's contrast with "Western Civilisation"; these terms are outdated and treat other societies as lower stages of development, which anthropologists no longer accept. Mead's description of the Samoans' appearance is left out. Sumner wrote about groups at war and listed insulting nicknames, which are left out. (2) Mead's conclusions about Samoa were sharply challenged by the anthropologist Derek Freeman in 1983, and other scholars, such as Paul Shankman, have in turn challenged Freeman; the debate continues. Teach the excerpt as a historical example of method, not as a current account of Samoa. (3) Hollingworth wrote in 1914, when her view of housework was common; her method of separating opportunity from biology is what lasts. (4) Keep discussion of gender and culture to evidence about groups and roles, never claims about what any individual student or family is like. Sources 5 and 6 are invented.

Differentiation Strategies

Assessment Guidance

1. Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   According to Source 1, paragraph 2, what does ethnocentrism lead a people to do with their own folkways?

   AAbandon them in favor of their neighbors' customs BExaggerate whatever sets them apart from others CWrite them down so that outsiders can learn them DKeep them secret from all members of other groups

2. Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In Source 1, paragraph 1, what does Sumner say makes peace inside the we-group?

   AShared religion, which forbids any quarrel among members BTrade with other groups, which makes all members richer CA written law that every member has voted to accept DFear that quarrels would weaken it for war with others

3. Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   According to Source 2, paragraph 1, why did Mead choose to study girls rather than boys?

   AThe Samoan government allowed her to interview only girls BBoys in Samoa were away at sea for most of every year CHer sex gave her access to girls, who were less studied DHer teacher had already studied all of the Samoan boys

4. Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   What reason does Mead give in Source 2, paragraph 3 for generalizing from the girls she studied?

   AShe tested every girl twice to make sure the results matched BOther researchers had studied the same girls before she came CThe girls themselves told her that their lives were all alike DThe girls' lives were so alike that some could stand for all

5. Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   What question does Mead say in Source 2, paragraph 4 sent her to Samoa?

   AWhether Samoan girls learn languages faster than American girls BWhether adolescent troubles come from adolescence or culture CWhether Samoan families are larger than families in Indiana DWhether girls or boys are more troubled in their teenage years

6. Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Source 2, paragraph 4 mentions girls' "brothers with whom a strict taboo forbids them to speak." What kind of influence does this show?

   AAn economic rule about which sibling inherits the family land BA biological limit on how brothers and sisters communicate CA school rule that keeps boys and girls in separate classes DA cultural rule, tied to gender, about how siblings interact

7. Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   According to Source 3, paragraph 1, what must be shown before claiming that one sex is more variable by nature?

   AThat both sexes had exactly equal opportunity and training BThat scientists of both sexes agree with the conclusion reached CThat the trait was measured with the most modern tests DThat the difference appears in every country in the world

8. Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   According to Source 3, paragraph 7, which cause of sex differences in eminence should be exhausted first?

   AHidden differences in emotion and intellect between the sexes BDifferences in how teachers graded boys and girls in school CThe fact that women bear and rear children and keep house DThe small number of women who were allowed to vote

9. Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   What does Hollingworth say in Source 3, paragraph 4 about the data then available on mental variability?

   AThey clearly showed that men vary more than women do in every trait BThey were inadequate and contradictory, if anything favoring women CThey were complete, and they showed no differences of any kind DThey had been collected only from young children under ten

10. Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    In Source 4, paragraph 5, how much more time per day did women than men spend on primary childcare, in minutes?

    A11 minutes B66 minutes C110 minutes D270 minutes

11. Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Source 4, paragraph 4 says average time spent socializing and communicating fell from 41 minutes in 2015 to 35 minutes in 2025. By about what percent did it fall?

    AAbout 6 percent BAbout 8 percent CAbout 15 percent DAbout 17 percent

12. Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which economic factor does Source 4 link to more time on household activities and on caring for children?

    ANot being employed, rather than employed BHaving a bachelor's degree or a higher degree CLiving in a large city instead of a small town DOwning a home instead of renting one

13. Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    In Source 6, how many of Town A's 12 first volunteers offered 5 tokens, an even split?

    A1 of the 12 B6 of the 12 C7 of the 12 D11 of the 12

14. Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Invented case: in a country where most families earn their living from a family farm, teenagers spend more after-school time working beside relatives than with friends their own age. Which pair names the main factor and the outcome?

    AEconomic factor; human interactions BGender factor; human interactions CEconomic factor; physical abilities DSocial factor; physical abilities

15. Question 15 of 20 · Short Answer

    Sumner claims in Source 1, paragraph 1 that loyalty to the group and "hatred and contempt for outsiders" "all grow together." Explain his reasoning, then evaluate the claim with an example from school, sports or fan communities.

    Show model answer

16. Question 16 of 20 · Short Answer

    Mead says she feels justified in generalizing from the girls she studied (Source 2, paragraph 3). Besides the size of her sample, give two weaknesses in her justification, and name one thing she did, according to paragraph 2, that strengthens her evidence.

    Show model answer

17. Question 17 of 20 · Short Answer

    Explain how Hollingworth (Source 3) uses social and economic factors to challenge a biological explanation of sex differences in achievement. Then name one part of her own argument that reads as dated today.

    Show model answer

18. Question 18 of 20 · Short Answer

    Use two bullets from Source 4 to explain how gender and employment each relate to how adults spend time with children. Then explain why survey numbers like these cannot by themselves show what causes the differences.

    Show model answer

19. Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer

    Analyze Source 5. For each of the four kinds of factors, name the student and the detail that shows it, and explain how the factor affected the group's interactions. Then say what the teacher's request for written ideas did.

    Show model answer

20. Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer

    Compare Source 6's invented result with Henrich's 2001 finding described in Direct Instruction. Explain how an economic way of life could shape fairness toward strangers, and why Source 6 alone cannot show that it does.

    Show model answer

These standards connect to D2.Psy.12.9-12: prerequisites to review first, parallel standards at the same level, and next steps that build on it.

Standard text: National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K-12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History (Silver Spring, MD: NCSS, 2013). NCSS was not involved in the production of this lesson and does not endorse it.