Reading for the Real World 2 Second Edition – Test Bank

Unit 11

Cross-Cultural Viewpoints 1
Reading Set 1.1

Differing Conceptions of Time

Culture is a shared system of ideas that a society has about how the world works and how people should act. The culture of our society has a great influence on what we think, feel, and how we act. In fact, some cultural anthropologists even think that culture is a kind of template for our thinking and feelings. It is thought that culture even creates the rhythms of our societies.
According to anthropologist Irving Hallowell, there is no evidence that man has an inborn sense of time. He suggests that peoples’ temporal concepts are a result of their culture. A study showed that by three months of age, children have been fully adapted to their temporal culture. This temporal culture forms the basis for a peoples’ language, music, poetry, and dance. Additionally, a peoples’ rhythm is an attractor for other people who share the same pace of talk, movement, music, or sport—resulting in a stronger cultural bond.
Of course, cultures differ in how daily events are scheduled and in how different parts of the society interact. One type of cultural temporal perception is called polychronic. This kind of perception is often a characteristic of southern cultures, such as in Mediterranean or Arab countries. These cultures emphasize the involvement of people and a variety of processes rather than strictly following a preset schedule. Polychronic people seldom feel that time is wasted or lacking. They tend to do many things at the same time and are easily distracted from the task at hand. They are more committed to people than time schedules. For polychronic people, work time is not clearly separable from personal time, so business meetings will often be a form of socializing. Also, they are inclined toward very close relationships with people and like to build lifetime relationships.