THEM'S THE RULES - Cultural Orientation to Time: Clock-Blocked (Pt. 2)

Cultural Orientation to Time: Clock-Blocked (Pt. 2)

07/20/21 • 64 min

When is it “appropriate” to move out of your parents’ house? Are you “behind” in life if you haven’t gotten married by the time you hit thirty? Why is it so hard to balance career and family, and what does it say about us if we can’t?

In Part 2 of Clock-Blocked, Bronwen continues to examine how social rules are impacted by cultural orientation to time. Tackling a variety of time-related issues, like birthday depression, social clocks, motherhood, and how silence can be a useful “tool” to manipulate time in conversations, Bronwen points out how dangerous certain social rules can be to our collective mental health.

Elicia and Rayan offer further insight into the cultural differences between France and America, how to manage a transatlantic relationship, and what, if not “money,” time is in France.
Key Points From This Episode:

What are the “birthday blues,” and why they are so common in Western society.
What the symptoms of birthday depression are.
How future-orientation takes the fun out of growing older.
Why birthdays have different significance as we grow older, and how our temporal orientations shift by age.
What some important milestones on the American social clock are.
Attitudes toward aging and their impact on health and wellbeing.
The threat to mental health presented by the pressure to conform to social clocks.
Changes in marriage trends across the decades.
Who Edward Hall was.
What the definition of “chronemics” is.
Why the tempo of life is different in industrialized countries.
How the pace of life is determined by economic health, geographical location, and temperature.
What the AAQ is and why it is important for evaluating mental health in older adults.
Why America is afraid of aging.
What the difference is between a birth cohort and a generation.
The different meanings of silence and why it makes us so uncomfortable.
Insight into why and how we “wait.”

LINKS
Envy on Facebook Study

FOLLOW THEM'S THE RULES: || WEBSITE || INSTAGRAM || FACEBOOK || TWITTER ||

What are the “birthday blues,” and why they are so common in Western society.
What the symptoms of birthday depression are.
How future-orientation takes the fun out of growing older.
Why birthdays have different significance as we grow older, and how our temporal orientations shift by age.
What some important milestones on the American social clock are.
Attitudes toward aging and their impact on health and wellbeing.
The threat to mental health presented by the pressure to conform to social clocks.
Changes in marriage trends across the decades.
Who Edward Hall was.
What the definition of “chronemics” is.
Why the tempo of life is different in industrialized countries.
How the pace of life is determined by economic health, geographical location, and temperature.
What the AAQ is and why it is important for evaluating mental health in older adults.
Why America is afraid of aging.
What the difference is between a birth cohort and a generation.
The different meanings of silence and why it makes us so uncomfortable.
Insight into why and how we “wait.”

LINKS
Envy on Facebook Study

FOLLOW THEM'S THE RULES: || WEBSITE || INSTAGRAM || FACEBOOK || TWITTER ||

Previous Episode

Cultural Orientation to Time: Clock-Blocked (Pt. 1)

Are you always working “against the clock?”

Do you prefer to “go with the flow?”
Every society around the world has a unique perception of time — in some, “time is money,” life moves fast, and productivity is given priority over leisure. In others, time has no value beyond the present moment, so you should seize the day and enjoy it!
Cultural orientation to the past, present, or future informs the way a society structures and organizes itself, laying the groundwork for the social rules that individual members follow to maintain order. The differences between cultures can make our transactions — social, economic, political, and personal — A LOT more complicated.
Bronwen is joined by Elicia and Rayan, a married couple from two very different cultures, to examine how the rules of human interaction are impacted by these cross-cultural conundrums of time.

(Part one of two!)

Key Points From This Episode:

How time is perceived differently in every culture around the world.
What social rules are and how they are constructed in any given culture.
What “primary socialization” is and why it is important in our maturation.
Bronwen attempts to conceptualize the abstract notion of time, but leaves the physics to the pros.
There is no global standard for what constitutes a week!
The differences between the three major time orientation: past, present, and future.
The Piraha tribe and how certain native tribes don’t even have a past tense in their language.
How America’s individualism impacts the collective use of time, with attention to how the comparative lack of social protection encourages hustle and bustle.
How the American dream is the perfect example of the future-orientation to time.
Why France is able to relax and “chill’ without worrying as much about the future.
Why transactions across cultures are made difficult
The differences between polychronic and monochronic time systems and the people who utilize them.
The infrastructure of America and how it reflects the need to prioritize productivity.
How the industrial revolution synchronized American culture and turned time into a precious commodity.
Eli shares how the American culture and orientation toward productivity caused a lot of stress and anxiety.
The art of conversation in France.
What the differences are between “clock” and “social” time.
Opposing perceptions (and moral implications) of “idle time” in France and America.
How Sundays in France are sacred, plus how that strengthens the family.
What is really meant by “time is money,” and how it is damaging to our psyche.
The differences between work and leisure balance in America.
What the implications of “the right to disconnect” are in French culture and how it wouldn’t fly in America.
How French legislation works to protect the private life while also promoting worker efficiency.
What the relative importance of punctuality is in France and America.

FOLLOW THEM'S THE RULES: || WEBSITE || INSTAGRAM || FACEBOOK || TWITTER ||

Next Episode

Sheepdogs and Robots: Sheep Thrillz

How will sheepdogs save the world?

In this episode, Bronwen explores the pastoral pastime of sheepdog trials (think Babe ) and inadvertently stumbles into the complicated world of "swarm robotics."
Long baffled by the sheepdog’s amazing ability to herd large flocks of unwilling sheep, scientists have finally discovered the "two rules" the sheepdog follows in this impressive, and age-old, practice of shepherding. Engineers, biologists, and physicists are now utilizing a model of this behavior to create very complex systems of organized robots.
But, don’t worry---these robots aren’t being designed to replace the dynamic duo of dog and shepherd; instead, researchers expect them to play a much larger and more significant role in society!
#robotuprising

Key Points From This Episode:

The ancient roots of shepherding, and why the practice still continues today.
What type of dog makes the best sheepdog.
Why the sheep flock together.
Where in Ireland a tourist can go to see a sheepdog trials demonstration.
What the basic skills of a sheepdog are, and why they aren’t so “basic.”
What makes the Border Collie so unique and effective in herding sheep.
Why science wants to replicate the relationships between sheepdog and shepherd, and how they have failed to do so.
What the differences between sheepdogs and cattle dogs are, and why it matters.
A groundbreaking study that finally identified the two behavioral rules the sheepdog follows.
What those two deceptively simple rules are.
What movement rules the sheep follow, and why neurobiologists are excited.
What an algorithm is.
What “selfish herd theory” is, and how it is relevant to human populations.
The impressive intelligence of the average sheep.
What a biological swarm is, and how engineers are using this to program robots.
How the shepherding algorithm will be used to address the major problems facing us today.
What rules are set by the International Sheep Dog Society, and how they are ready-made for translation to artificial intelligence.
Why human stampedes are one of Bronwen’s top three scariest ways to die.