When looking at modern perspectives of psychology, one of my favorite ones to study is the idea of sociocultural, or how others influence you and you influence others. While it is somewhat of an obvious perspective, I find it to have such a strong influence on people. Even though I also believe that the other six modern perspectives are all important, I find myself relying on this one most often. Many times after meeting new people or learning things about old friends, I will find myself justifying their actions based off of what I have learned about their social factors and culture. I feel that learning about one’s social factors in their life can help tell you a great deal about their behaviors and why people act the way they do.

One sociocultural factor that I truly believe had an impact on me was my mother and her hatred for all seafood. For the last twenty one years of my life, my mom cooked dinner almost every night and had never made a seafood dinner. She hates to eat any sort of fish, cannot stand the smell, and so she also hates to cook it and actually refuses to. Since I have grown up never trying seafood and never having to smell it’s fishy aroma, I also have adopted this attitude. I cannot stand to smell the stench that seafood produces and any seafood that I have newly and recently tried I hate. To be completely honest though, I think a majority of this notion is in my head as it was what I was raised hearing and what became a part of my culture. Some seafood does not have the fishy taste and I still claim I do not like it but often I wonder to myself if that is actually true or if it is just too unfamiliar for me to say I like it? Fish was never a food served at dinner or social gatherings in my culture, so therefore I have learned to never eat fish for dinner or at social gatherings. I do think everyones social factors and cultures have such a strong impact on their lives and decisions, and now I have evidence to blame my mother for being the sociocultural reason that I will not touch seafood either.