Introduction
African American culture is termed to be the most vibrant form of culture in the United States along with Hispanic cultures, Mexican cultures and also Chinese cultures. African American culture is deemed to be the most influential to American culture as a whole as the country plays host to a large African American community that has its roots in Africa.
This culture has its roots from both sub-Saharan African communities and also Sahelean cultures, which consist of the Senegalese, Malians, Sudanese, northern Nigerians and Ethiopians.
While sociologists such as Gunnar Myrdal have observed that African Americans have lost their cultural background and connection with Africa, other researchers such as Melville Herskovits argues that African traditions and cultural belief systems have continued to be practiced by many African Americans living in the various parts of America (James, 2008).
The period of slavery played a huge part in developing African American culture despite the fact it restricted the ability of slaves to exercise their traditions and beliefs. The result of this was that African American culture was able to develop separately from White American culture where black Americans developed their own cultural practices to reflect what they went through as a minority group in America.
African American culture has, therefore, been able to evolve as a result of slavery making it a significant part of American culture. The aspects of African American culture that mostly stand out are the radical innovations that have taken place in music, art, religion and food, which were mostly affected by the emancipation of slaves during the period of slavery (Nichols, 2006).
The urban and contemporary music in today’s world has mostly been influenced by African Americans and their culture with rap being the most dominant form of music that has influenced the cultures of many young people around the world.
Rap music which is mostly done by young African Americans represents the aggressive side of the Black American society given that it represents the racial discrimination and hate crime that have been committed against this minority group. Rap together with jazz music has created a distinction of the cultural differences that exist between African Americans and the American society.
While jazz music is not as intense and aggressive as rap music, it represents a part of African American culture that embodies their ancestry as well as their continued fight to be recognized as equal members of the westernized society.
African American music has influenced other aspects of this community’s culture such as art, food and religion where the various components if these aspects are heavily influenced by African American music (Nichols, 2006).
Perceptions of Psychological Processes in African American Culture
Psychological processes refer to how human beings behave or act in certain situations and how these actions influence the behavior of other people within society and also their norms, customs and beliefs.
Psychological processes help to explain how culture is shared among various people of the same descent or ethnic community by examining their emotional systems, communication systems and their biological foundations which make up the psychological theories that are used to explain human psychological processes.
The biological foundation theory is made up of two factors/perspectives that are used to explain psychological processes in culture and these are neurological and evolutionary factors (Keller et al., 2002).
The evolutionary perspective of biological foundations deals with how human beings engage in communication activities that are crucial to their survival. The knowledge structures that exist in biological foundations might more than likely reflect the culture of such communities.
The evolutionary perspectives of the African American community are mostly based on their survival from the period of slavery to the period of racial discrimination and segregation in America. Evolution has mostly focused on how the African American society has been able to heal from the psychological trauma their ancestors and forefathers went through for them to achieve freedom in America (Keller et al., 2002).
The neurological perspective, on the other hand, focuses on the psychological and cultural phenomenon that has been used in the co-evolution of the cultural group. The main idea that underlies neurological perspectives is that human beings are evolved to be cultural in nature where they are predisposed to utilize any cultural resources that might exist in their local environments.
The neurological perspective also states that culture is a preprogrammed condition that is mostly built up by the environmental patterns that exist in an individual’s surroundings.
In the case of African Americans the environmental patterns of violence and aggression, which mostly have a basis from their history of slavery have shaped their cultural background today where most African Americans have been associated with aggressive behavior (Keller et al., 2002).
The neurological foundation also deals with sensitive period, which is the ability of a human being to experience certain cultural patterns that will affect their whole belief system. The period of slavery helped to shape their experience as members of the African American society making it difficult to take on any other cultures apart from their own.
These two perspectives of biological foundations have helped to explain the psychological processes that take place amongst members from the African American community. Another psychological process theory that can be used to explain this process is the motivational systems approach which seeks to explain the meaning of culture in life (Keller et al., 2002).
Motivational systems approach are used to provide a meaning to life and their significance in culture is used to explain the reality of life where people make use of the cultural backgrounds and social influence to make sense of life. Motivational systems provide African Americans with a sense of common ground as they are able to maintain interpersonal communications with people seeking the same meaning out of life.
Another theory used to explain psychological processes in culture is the terror management theory, which is based on the premise that culture is used as a psychological buffer to protect against any anxiety that emerges from our own morality issues.
Culture in terror management minimizes the level of anxiety or fear that exists in a certain social group by providing a meaning to life. The theory of terror management uses culture to provide a set of standards required for moral behavior within the society to ensure any immoral acts have been dealt with (Kitayama, 2002).
Morality in the African American society has proven to be a major problem as more and more young people engage in drugs, hard crime and other forms of deviant behavior, which is contrary to their culture. African Americans are known to be very vulgar in their language and speech, which has made outsiders to view this as part of their culture.
The terror management theory in explaining the psychological process of African Americans will therefore focus on such aspects by distinguishing between the acceptable forms of morality and the immoral acts that are against the worldview of culture.
The affective or emotional systems approach explains the psychological processes of cultural members based on their emotions as it is based on the premise that emotions form the foundation of culture (Keller et al., 2002).
The theory explains the affective foundation of culture to be a concept of moods, feelings and other forms of emotions that occur in human beings where human beings acquire emotions in the course of practicing their culture (Kitayama, 2002).
In the case of African Americans, the emotional systems approach can be used to explain how they react to situations of racial discrimination from other members of the American society.
Because this group is immersed in the notion of equality amongst all races around the world, they might respond in an emotional or aggressive way if one of their members was discriminated against by people from societies deemed to be racists or hate crime offenders.
African American emotions have their foundations in the dark past where their ancestors were openly discriminated against because of the color of their skin. This open discrimination and the level of physical abuse they endured brought about a culture that was full of emotions and affective foundations (Nichols, 2006).
The cognitive or communication systems approach explains psychological processes in culture to be influenced by how people communicate with each other within the same cultural setting or background. The type of communication that takes place between the various members of society will determine the influence of culture in their everyday life.
There are three factors that are used to explain the social influence of the communication’s approach with the first being strength which refers to the individual differences that exist in a cultural setting that are used to provide support to the culture of a particular group where for example a rich or influential personality such as American President Barack Obama or Oprah Winfrey, the richest Black American woman in world use their individual strengths to influence other African Americans around them (Kitayama, 2002).
Immediacy refers to the proximity or physical space that is shared by a group of similar cultural standing. In America, most African American societies are found in areas such as Queens in New York, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Philadelphia, Mississippi and New Orleans.
The presence of large groups of African Americans in these areas explains immediacy while numbers refers to how individuals that share similar attitudes are able to effect social impact in their society. Numbers deals with how people with a similar opinion are able to agree on a certain aspect making it difficult for them to change their minds on that aspect (Kitayama, 2002).
Similarities and Differences between African American Culture and White American Culture
According to various intellectuals and scientists, there is believed to be a link or similarity between the African American and White American cultures. This has mostly been evident in the media where most African American productions have incorporated westernized or White American concepts in their storylines.
Sociologist Herman Gray developed typological characteristics that would be used to demonstrate the similarities that existed between the two groups and these characteristics were pluralist, assimilationist and multicultural typological characteristics. In the assimilationist typology, both communities exercised culture by eliminating any social or cultural differences that went against universal similarities (Parks & Kumar, 2003).
Television shows such as Different Strokes and Julia represented very few differences that were used to explain the experiences of African Americans and also White Americans. In the pluralist typology, both groups demonstrate similarities where they accommodate expressions that reflect the cultural differences present in both groups.
The pluralist approach stipulates that the members of each cultural group live their lives different from other cultures, but they all observe their cultural practices and traditions despite the differences (Parks & Kumar, 2003).
In his explanation of the pluralist approach, Gray notes that the social and historical contexts that are used to acknowledge the differences that exist in both groups are used to sustain and explain their cultures which are therefore a similarities shared by African Americans and White Americans.
The multicultural typology, on the other hand, explains how cultural differences represent the beliefs and values systems of members from both these cultural and social groups.
African Americans have their own cultural differences that provide a world view of their culture while White Americans possess their own cultural differences that are used to represent their life in America. The multicultural characteristic, therefore, offers a similarity in both groups where they are able to present their separate cultural differences to the rest of society (Parks & Kumar, 2003).
Another similarity that exists between White Americans and African Americans is the use of language as a connection to culture where a linguistic perspective offers a link to the cultural meanings of each group.
Language in both social groups acts as the connective link to gaining social meanings where members of both groups use interpersonal communication to channel their reasoning and build social consciousness that will be used to develop their culture.
With regards to differences, African Americans are resistant to dominant cultures such as the White American cultures, while the White Americans are resistant to African American culture in their society. Such resistance has been referred to as cultural inversion where certain cultural behaviors, meanings or entities do not signify African American or White American culture (Atweh et al., 2001).
Another difference that exists between both groups is the characteristic of indigenuity where African Americans base their cultural experience as being more culturally indigenous than that of White Americans, which is mostly based on westernized ideologies and belief systems.
African Americans have their culture deeply rooted in traditional African belief systems and religious practices, while White Americans have their culture based on aesthetic values and systems that make up the westernized society.
Another major difference that exists between both groups is that African Americans are bicultural because they derive their culture from the African sub-Saharan countries as well as their ancestors who migrated to America. White Americans, on the other hand, only have one culture which is based on their evolution as Americans in the United States of America (Atweh et al., 2001).
Influence of African American Culture on Psychological Processes
As identified in the preceding paragraphs, psychological processes are made up of several theories that are used to explain the concept of culture and how it affects the psychological processes of several cultural societies. The theories that are used to explain psychological processes with regards to culture include biological foundations, motivational systems, emotional systems and communication systems.
With regards to the biological foundation theory of psychological processes, African Americans influence the biological perspective of this theory where they incorporate various survival tactics sustained by their forefathers in surviving racially discriminative environments as well as slavery.
They have also influenced the psychological process of biological foundations by practicing preprogrammed cultural practices derived from their sub-Saharan and Sahealan roots (Hecht et al., 2003).
The characteristic of pluralism propagated by Gray where ethnic groups exercise their own cultural traditions despite existing in a different cultural society demonstrates how African American culture has been able to exist in a White American culture that is mostly dominant in the US.
Such strong cultural differences can be attributed to the biological foundations with which African Americans have based their cultural practices. With regards to the characteristic of indigenuity, African Americans have biological foundations from Africa and from the period of slavery, which has been able to program their survival as a minority group in the US.
African American culture has also influenced the emotional system of psychological processes that are used to explain the affective foundations that make up culture (Hecht et al., 2003).
The dark history of African Americans during the slavery period has played a great role in developing cultural emotions that are used to differentiate African Americans from other social groups in America. Currently, the emotions or moods that are associated with most African Americans in the US include aggressiveness, anger, sadness and hostility which are usually directed at White Americans believed to be racists.
These emotions have their basis on the racial discrimination and segregation that Black Americans have experienced since they settled in America many decades ago. The segregation of white communities from the blacks spurred a lot of anger amongst the African Americans as they were unable to access services offered to the White Americans such as health care, education and accommodation (Genevieve & O’Meally, 1994).
The communications systems theory of psychological processes as explained earlier deals with how communication influences people within the same cultural mindset. Under this theory, influence in cultural groups usually occurs when people with similar social attributes interact together to influence each other in either a positive or negative way.
As identified earlier, the communication systems approach is made up of three factors which include strength, immediacy and numbers where strength refers to how certain influential figures from the African American community have been able to influence the social group as a whole while immediacy refers to the proximity or social space within which these members exist (Matsumoto & Juang, 2008).
Numbers refers to how members of the cultural group are able to bring about change as a result of their opinions on various social, cultural and political issues. The influence of African Americans on the communications systems approach is based on how the three factors have been used to develop the cultural community in America where the strength of influential people such as Barack Obama, Rev.
Jesse Jackson and the Great Martin Luther King has been able to empower and shape the African American society. Black Americans today are more aware of the democratic rights to freedom in America as a result of such personalities, who used their individual differences to empower other people (Matsumoto & Juang, 2008).
African Americans have been able to influence the immediacy factor of the communication systems approach where they have existed in close social or physical spaces in the United States. Areas such as Mississippi and New Orleans have a high concentration of African Americans, which means that immediacy plays a great part in their cultural development as a society.
Immediacy has made it possible for African Americans to coexist with each other in the various parts of America thereby sharing their religious beliefs and values systems as well as their historic background of slavery.
The factor of numbers has been used to influence the westernized societies to eliminate racial discrimination and hate crimes against people of African descent. African Americans have formed united fronts against racists and white Americans with oppressive tendencies by sharing a single voice of ending discrimination in America (Morgan, 2002).
Conclusion
The discussion has dealt with an assessment of African American culture by examining how psychological processes affect the various members of the minority group as well as the cultural differences that exist amongst black Americans and white Americans.
The discussion has also focused on how African American culture influences the psychological theories that are used to explain psychological processes in human beings where it has been determined that the African roots of their culture as well as the period of slavery influenced the psychological process of African Americans.
References
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