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    Chains of Obligation - Guilt Tripping in Asian Culture

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    Sapiens Homo
    The document discusses guilt tripping in Asian cultures. It argues that Asians are more prone to guilt tripping due to cultural traditions emphasizing family, duties, and social harmony. Confucian ethics require people to help others and maintain relationships. Thus, Asians may comply with guilt tripping to avoid rejection or losing face. However, guilt tripping often has negative effects and is a form of abuse. While Asian traditions are valuable, people should not condone wrongs or be compelled by guilt against their will.

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    Chains of Obligation - Guilt Tripping in Asian Culture

    Uploaded by

    Sapiens Homo
    48 views2 pages
    The document discusses guilt tripping in Asian cultures. It argues that Asians are more prone to guilt tripping due to cultural traditions emphasizing family, duties, and social harmony. Confucian ethics require people to help others and maintain relationships. Thus, Asians may comply with guilt tripping to avoid rejection or losing face. However, guilt tripping often has negative effects and is a form of abuse. While Asian traditions are valuable, people should not condone wrongs or be compelled by guilt against their will.

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    Article on how guilt tripping is embedded in the Asian culture.

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    Chains of Obligation -- Guilt Tripping in Asian Culture

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    The document discusses guilt tripping in Asian cultures. It argues that Asians are more prone to guilt tripping due to cultural traditions emphasizing family, duties, and social harmony. Confucian ethics require people to help others and maintain relationships. Thus, Asians may comply with guilt tripping to avoid rejection or losing face. However, guilt tripping often has negative effects and is a form of abuse. While Asian traditions are valuable, people should not condone wrongs or be compelled by guilt against their will.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    48 views2 pages

    Chains of Obligation - Guilt Tripping in Asian Culture

    Uploaded by

    Sapiens Homo
    The document discusses guilt tripping in Asian cultures. It argues that Asians are more prone to guilt tripping due to cultural traditions emphasizing family, duties, and social harmony. Confucian ethics require people to help others and maintain relationships. Thus, Asians may comply with guilt tripping to avoid rejection or losing face. However, guilt tripping often has negative effects and is a form of abuse. While Asian traditions are valuable, people should not condone wrongs or be compelled by guilt against their will.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 2

    Title: Chains of Obligation: Guilt Tripping in Asian Culture

    Courtesy and manners have always been valued highly and practiced in the Asian culture since
    thousands of years ago when Confucianism was first introduced. This has been deeply grooved as part of
    the Asians’ identity and psychology. In certain cultures, especially Japanese and Chinese, the culture
    demands filial piety, which means youngsters are taught to obey and respect highly of their elders. Yet in
    many cultures, righteousness is also taught to put into practice, so they should seek what benefits both
    the individual and the society. However, has the custom of Asian values been demanding too much from
    the people? Are the people being 'nice' out of their good will, or is it because that was what they are
    'expected' to do? As we dwell in this deeper, we will learn about guilt tripping, reasons why Asians are
    more likely to be victims of it and the implications.
    Guilt trip is never a good experience. Whether is it from your friends, your parents or from a guy
    you don’t know on the street. It is a feeling of guilt or responsibility, especially an unjustified one induced
    by someone else. Unfortunately, guilt tripping is much prevalent in eastern society, and the reason is that
    Asians are prone to become victims of this act. Maybe it could be your parents, urging you to go back
    home from school or work, despite you not finishing your assignment. Before you could refuse them, they
    came up with a powerful comeback: “So you choose to abandon your family?” Or has it been your friend
    who approached you for “a little help” to sign his name on the attendance sheet for a class he chose to
    skip, saying that “Friends should help each other!”. Or you happened to be involved in a crime scene, and
    among the other by-standers, you are the one blamed for not helping the victim: “Young man, you were
    supposed to help her!” The party making such statements may be good-willed, like parents hoping for
    their children to spend time with them. But one could also guilt trip his target into fulfilling a task that
    benefits only himself, just by emphasizing the fact that “this is your responsibility” to his target. In this
    case, “loyalty” is just an excuse for utilising a friend, and “righteousness” is just a disguise to unrightfully
    blame others and make yourself feel morally correct.

    Why are Asians more likely to compel to guilt tripping? The reason is simply because they are
    likely to be bombarded by feelings of shame. This can be linked to how identity and morality of a person
    is defined in an Asian society. Confucian culture emphasizes family as the “great self” (da wo), and the
    boundaries of self would extend to family members and significant others. Moreover, Confucian ethics
    are based on concepts of personal duties and social goals, which requires everyone to practice positive
    duties such as “practice charity”, or “help the needy”. In contrast, westerners believe that human beings
    are created equal and one’s interests are best served by permitting maximum freedom and responsibility
    for choosing objectives and the means for obtaining them. Western ethics on the other hand emphasizes
    personal rights. As long as one’s actions are not in conflict with others’ rights, he is free to do what he
    wants. It can be concluded that in the case of western society, moral guidance has to come from inside
    the individual and not the group. On the other hand, in a system where maintaining harmony in
    relationships is important, one will judge oneself a failure when having failed to fulfil a group requirement.
    Therefore, when it comes to making decisions, what takes count is the rejection by the group and loss of
    personhood, severe enough to discourage antisocial acts. Thus in the face of guilt tripping, Asians are
    more likely to compel to the act, although unwillingly, as they see this the way to gain acceptance from
    them.
    Guilt tripping, no matter good-willed or ill-willed, the outcome is only negative. Certain Asian
    parents are known to use guilt and shame as behavioural control on their children since young. It is a form
    of emotional or psychological abuse, that leaves hidden scars on their offspring including insecurity, poor
    self-esteem, destructive behaviour, withdrawal and the list goes on. Victims of guilt trip from their parents,
    might even see it was effective in that they did what their parents guilt-tripped them into doing eventually.
    Hence the cycle of guilt trip continues to the next generation. Between friends, guilt tripping would lead
    to tense relationships, you might get satisfaction in the short term – getting a friend to back down and do
    what you asked for, but you will lose a good friend forever.

    All in all, Asian tradition is a beautiful culture and hence it deserves to be preserved until this day.
    However, we should cherry-pick the values that could be applied in our social interactions with wisdom.
    We should not condone the wrong-doings of others just because they are our significant ones, or resort
    to be guilt-tripped because we do not want to lose our “face”. Try to put ourselves in one’s shoe, before
    judging and giving harmful comments to one who may be innocent. In the end, we do not want ourselves
    to be victims nor do we want to be the culprit of it.

    References

    1. What Is a Guilt Trip and How to Recognize If Someone Is Using It on You. 2018.
    Learning Mind [database online].
    2. Triandis, H.C., Bontempo, R., Villareal, M.J., Asai, M., and Lucca, N. (1988).
    Individualism and collectivism: Cross-culture perspectives on self-in-group
    relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 353–338.
    3. Understanding Guilt and its Effects on Children. 2018. More4Kids [database online].

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