Ben Baughman

Cross Cultural Psychology

Cultural Self Reflection

Throughout my entire life, I have been exposed to many different experiences and groups

that have shaped me into the person I am today. Each experience and group has molded me in

some different way and has taught me different important lessons that I still carry with me to this

day. While my communal and personal identities have had a large part of making me into the

person I am today, I believe that my social/ relational identities have been the biggest factor. The

groups I have been a part of and the connections I have made from this part of my cultural

identity are some of the most important and impactful that I have experienced. While my

communal and personal identities are important, they did not have as large of an impact on my

life as my social/ relational identities.

From the beginning of my life, I have had opportunities and privileges laid out ahead of

me so that I would be able to pursue any interests that I wanted. I was fortunate enough to be

born into a middle class family where my parents were able to support me and both my brothers

comfortably. We never really had to worry about not being able to afford the things we needed

and were always able to pay for our interests/ hobbies. This has shaped me into the person I am

today because my parents always tried to teach me how to manage money and that working hard

will pay off in the long run. Just as I was fortunate to be born into a middle class family, I was

also fortunate to grow up without having to deal with discrimination. Being born as a white male

has allowed me to do many things without having to worry about being discriminated against. I

grew up in a small town so I was not exposed, first hand, to much discrimination but my parents
always tried to teach me to be cognizant about it so that I knew about it and so that I could avoid

doing it myself.

Because I was born as a white male into a middle class family I did not have a lot of rules

that I typically needed to follow. We had our typical house rules about doing chores, not being

allowed to eat in the living and letting my parents know where/ what I was doing but I had a lot

of freedom growing up. My parents did not have us follow many strict rules because they wanted

to give us a little bit of freedom and because they were trying to show us that they trusted us. Just

like how my family did not have many rules that I needed to follow, we did not have many

rituals that we kept up with. Although my parents know about my ethnicities from my ancestors,

we do not try to keep with traditions or rituals that would typically come from those cultures.

Instead my parents mainly focused on raising us as Americans to where we just celebrate

American holidays and keep up with American rituals because they did not see the importance of

continuing those traditions since they were not raised like that. Even though this part of my

cultural identity is important and has had a significant impact on who I am, my social/ relational

identity has been the main factor on who I have become.

Every group that I have been a part of, has shaped me differently and has taught me

different and important lessons through my life. The first group I was a part of that shaped me

was my family. Growing up my grandparents were living in the same town as me so I was

always able to see them whenever I wanted. Being around my grandparents so much with my

family, taught me that family is very important. Always being there for each other, always

having open communication and being honest with each other were the main lessons that my

family taught me growing up. They taught me these lessons because they knew that family is
important, family will always be there for each other, and because family is one thing that you

can always count on.

When I was growing up, my family would always go to church since they were all

religious and wanted me to be religious too. Going to church every Sunday exposed me to many

different people in my community, and also that everyone is different so I need to treat everyone

the same. Religion also gave something to believe in and to put my faith into, I wanted to know

that there was a better place for my grandparents and for everyone once they passed. I was very

religious when I was younger, following all the teachings I was taught in Sunday school and by

my grandparents because I wanted to be like them and for them to be proud of me. As I got

older, religion stopped being as important for me but I am still religious. I have formulated my

own beliefs that are different from my grandparents but still follow the basic beliefs of my

church.

One reason why as I got older my religion stopped being as important was because I got a

job at 14 and started working a lot, especially on the weekends. I wanted to start working so

young because I wanted to save up for college and a car. Since I got a job so young, I was

exposed to a small portion of how the real world works and that really helped shape me into who

I am. I learned what it means to work hard, I learned how to put my own interests aside for the

better of others, and learned how to not judge anyone no matter what situation they are in.

Working helped teach me the value of a dollar, how to get along with my peers that I was

working with, get things done efficiently, and how to manage time. Having multiple jobs

throughout my life has shaped me by teaching me the importance of proper behavior when I am

working or in public as well as how to communicate properly. Communication is a large part of

any job as well as life.

 The impact my family, religion, and jobs has had on shaping me to who I am today is

significant. But my peers as well as sports/ interest groups have had the most impact on who I

am. Since I grew up in a small town, I grew up around the same people my whole life but getting

involved with sports and clubs really made me who I am. I started playing sports when I was

very young. I played baseball, soccer, football, basketball, wrestled, ran/ threw for track and even

got into cycling. Getting into sports is one of the best things that I have ever done because I

learned many lessons. The lessons I learned were how to be a part of a team, how to work better

with people, and always try my hardest at all times. Sports has molded me into who I am because

sports was my first exposure to working as a team to reach a common goal. It also taught me

communication skills because teammates need to be able to communicate with each other as well

as be able to communicate with the coach. Sports has also changed how I behave because before

I got into sports I was a very quiet person who never wanted to get involved with anything but

ever since I started sports I am different. I behave well around people, I hold myself accountable

for the things I do and I now am able to walk around with some pride. One of the most important

lessons I had learned from sports, that I still believe in and use today, is that everyone should be

treated with respect. I will show respect to anyone and everyone that I meet but if someone's

actions show me that they do not respect me back or do not deserve respect, then they will not

have my respect anymore. Another way sports have had an effect on my social identity is

because whenever someone asks me who I am or what I do, I always mention that I am an athlete

because being an athlete is something that I attribute with who I am as a person.

Sports are not the only social group that has an effect on who I have become. Other

groups such as music groups have had a large impact as well. I have always been around music

because my mother was a musician/ singer and my father was also a singer. Music has always
been a part of my life since I was exposed at such a young age and because I got involved with

concert band and choir very early. Being involved with music helped me because learning how

to perform music gave me another way to express myself as well as helped me learn about how

everyone has a role to play when trying to complete a task. Working together with other people

to make music taught me that everyone is valuable and that every part that a person plays is

needed. Music has done so much for me through my life and been a part of my life for so long

that I see music as being a part of my identity. I always mention that I am a musician when I am

talking about my identity and when I am talking to new people.

Sports and music have had large impacts on who I have become because of the lessons I

learned from them, but they also exposed me to many of my peers. As mentioned before, I grew

up in a small town so I had always known the people who were in my same grade and I would

hangout with most of them as we grew up. But as we got older, social groups started forming and

I got to see what they were like and how they behaved. I also started to get exposed to more and

more of my peers since friend groups would start to incorporate people younger and older. I

hung out with most of these social groups but I was never really drawn to any of them because

most of them were doing things that I was not comfortable with or did not agree with so I started

to move away from them. I eventually found a group of people who were like me and behaved

very similarly to me so they were the ones I hung out with the most. Being able to see what each

social group was doing and how they were acting showed me that I choose to be around those

who believe similar things as me. The friends I am around the most and am the closest with are

ones who have had similar experiences as me rather than the people I am around a lot due to

sports or music.
 Even though I have had many different experiences through different social groups that

have helped shape and form my identity, I have also had many different personal experiences

that have formed and set my identity. One of these experiences came from my struggles of being

an athlete and a musician in school. Since I was involved with both sports and music for all of

my life and since that is not a very common thing I received some backlash from peers,

specifically my sport peers. My peers would tell me how it does not make sense why I would do

that and that it is not cool to be in choir or band and that I should just quit. Because of this

experience, I started to value those who are more open to ideas that are different and are willing

to listen to why I chose to do both. Another personal experience that helped form my identity

would be the exposure I had to politics. My family is more republican and most of my friends

were mainly democrat so I had a lot of exposure to the views of both sides of politics. Because of

this exposure to both sides I was able to figure out my own beliefs and values on which side I

wanted to support. I have had other very personal experiences in my life that have led to personal

struggle and because of these experiences I have learned that you can never judge someone for

things that are going on in their lives. From this I have begun to value when someone opens up

and tells me personal things as well as understanding that there are always things going on in

people's lives that you do not know about, so their perception on life is different from my own.

My journey to developing my own cultural identity has been one filled with many

different experiences through many different situations and groups. Several of these situations

came from family as well as personal experiences, but my social identity has had the largest

impact on who I have become. Every experience I have gone through has molded my identity in

some way but my social experiences have been the most impactful on my life. I do not regret any

experiences I have gone through in my life because each one is a part of who I am and is a
reason why I am who I am today. Because of all of my experiences and the combination of my

communal, social, and personal identities, I am able to identify the way I do. My cultural identity

is a white American male who is an athletic musician.