title: Cultural perspectives on the range of human behavior.
abstract: Traditional societies provide a homogeneous world view for everyone, encouraging people to work towards specific objectives. Lack of flexibility in the culturally defined ways of reaching these objectives creates considerable distress for individuals. In rapidly changing urban settings, unlimited modalities create the anxieties which in turn lead people to search for security in unsuitable patterns of belief and behavior. Others tolerate uncertainty better if the culture assisted them in developing skills for becoming involved in short term immediate objectives without having to mortgage the present for a vague future. In our own society recent reorientation towards a traditional type fatalism and a de-emphasis on the Puritan work ethic reflects a marked value shift which may stultify many, much as it fosters increased individualization among others.
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D003469:Culture; D005190:Family; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D012922:Social Change