The Heartbeat Of Culture Summary

Time may seem the same anywhere a person travels but different cultures understand time in different ways. Robert Levine with Ellen Wolf in their article, The Heartbeat of Culture, published in the March 1986 issue of Psychology Today. They argue that in spite of clock similarities in terms of telling time globally, social aspects of time such as being early, late and very late are more of a cultural variable rather than a time accuracy concept. Therefore, in the article, the two writers argue of the existent differences among various nations and cultures regarding the telling of social time aspects. In the first paragraph, the writers attribute the existent differences in “early” and “late” to an evident lack of a universal definition of these …show more content…
Levine and Wolff’s article seeks to show the existent differences in various cultures with America being a nation that considers time in terms of a specific point in time. For instance, the writer goes on of how on the first day he learnt that Brazilians’ “timepieces are consistently inaccurate. And nobody minds.” Albeit scheduled to teach in a different setting and culture where time measurements are not undertaken on a specific point in time, he goes ahead to judgmentally conclude such. It is vivid that cultural differences between American’s and other cultures show the bias that exists in terms of time measurements and delineation. I feel that time is what you make of it. Back in Saudi Arabia, I would arrive to an unofficial appointments a half hour later since I am more concerned with the results rather than the specific time I get there. When I was a child, I insisted to my father that we should arrived on time to my uncle’s house. It was a lack of understanding the meaning of being late in my community. I thought that if you came five minutes after the arrive time you are