Blogpost 5: It's the Culture Speaking

So we now know that phobia is rooted in fear. Phobia is excessive and morbid fear. As I was wondering if there is a connection between fear and culture, I was amaze when I realized that there is when I searched for articles. But first, I'll share to you what I know about culture. When I was still in high school, I was once told that culture is "the way of living" by my History teacher. Culture starts in the family. Our parents are the ones who influence us the most when it comes to culture. For example, your father trained you and your siblings to never participate in a discussion if your opinion is not needed. Once you leave your home, you'll carry that virtue with you. This means that whatever we learn in our home can be carried out in the real world. 

You see, culture is the collective deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, virtues, values, attitudes, hierarchies, religion, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group hardships. Fear can be related to culture. Culture is like an umbrella, a main plot, and under that umbrella lies many subplots.  As I was reading through a lot of articles, I found out that phobia can be acquired in his/her culture. While I was searching for more information about it, I found an article on About.com, entitled, "Culture-Specific Phobias: Understanding the Phobias of Specific Cultures" by Lisa Fritscher. She said that anxiety disorders are mainstream and it is very evident worldwide. 

"Anxiety disorders are fairly common worldwide, affecting an estimated 16.6% of the world population each year. Many phobias are common across all groups, transcending age, gender and socioeconomic status. Other phobias, however, appear almost exclusively among particular cultural groups." This statements are from Lisa Fritscher.

The said cultural phobias are Ataque de Nervios and Taijin Kyofusho. First, Ataque de Nervios, is a certain condition that is visible almost exclusively among the Hispanic clients. females are more likely to acquire this than males. The symptoms of this condition is the uncontrollable crying and screaming, inability to move, fainting, and loss of memory. This condition shares many symptoms with a panic attack. However, panic attack occurs in a very unreasonable manner and triggers in a situation which is not really that frightening. Moreover, most people who have Ataque de Nervios, are not afraid of encountering such situations in the future. On the other hand, Taijin Kyofusho (also known as a disorder of fear is a condition that appears exclusively among those of the Japanese pedigree, and not that dominant among the other Asian cultures. This condition is the reciprocal of social phobia. Instead of being embarrass by others, it's noted by a fear of one's physical appearance offending others.

I was very hooked in the concept of "Taijin Kyofusho", so I decided to read more about it. And I found out that it can be subdivided in different parts; sekimen-kyofu is the fear of blushing, jikoshisen-kyofu is the fear of eye-to-eye contact, shubo-kyofu:is the fear of a deformed body, jikoshu-kyofu: is the fear of having a foul body odor. I also learned that this condition is more dominant in male rather than females. I was very shocked to discover that Japan has this kind of phobia. I know that Japanese people are very sociable but to think that they are worried that their appearances may affect others? I think it's ironic.

It's truly amazing to know more and more things about phobia. Culture depicts a person. It molds our personalities and attitudes. It also affects are beliefs and life. Knowing that there is a connection between phobia and culture, I discovered that there are many cultural phobias that can be derived from different countries. As a result, some people may suffer from these irrational fear but let us not forget to respect them.

Having read tons of articles, I realized that there is a link between culture and phobia. Knowing these facts only proves that many fields can really be related with phobia and fear. Another thing that I realized is that, some culture-related phobias may be dominant in some countries. I think there are still many things that I need to discover and information to uncover. So, I'll do my best to find articles that will feed by curiosity.