Implementation of Power in Intimate Relationships between
Iranian Immigrants VS Native Americans
Dr. Alireza Abedin a bay area pshychologist and socialogist will present the topic of power struggle in intimate relationships among Iranian immigrants based on his scientific research.
As many of you remember Dr. Afari and Dr. Chavoshian held a similar discussion in doreh last year. The difference is that Dr.Abedin believes that historical factors,i.e, the ruling and forign governments have had a great impact on the formation of Iranian behaviors. He thinks that historical and cultural background of the Iranian immigrants have formed certain "personality attributes", "psychological make-ups", and "behavioral patters". That is to say Iranian men and women are quiet distinct from their American counterpartners in that respect. some of these distinct factors will be analysed and described based on his research.
Shideh Ghajar the newest doreh member has kindly offered her place for this session. Thank you Shideh and welcome to the bay area :-) We need a rough headcount, so please send your RSVP's to me. Try to be on time as our guest speaker will be coming from Santa Rosa and wishes to start sharp at 8:00. Plus you'll get the better seats if you're early!
Regards,
As a punishment for my sin (oh lord forgive me, for I was the one who took the bathroom key) I am to write down a few words about doreh according to CEO Foroozan . So here is my take (critique?):
"Implementation of Power in Intimate Relationships between Iranian Immigrants VS Native Americans*"
The talk started off with the exchange of a few definitions: "relationship", "power" "friendship", etc. I had the feeling for the good portion of the first part of the talk (before cookies and stuff were served) that the talk was quiet unstructured. The main theme as the speaker was trying to get across was: "Iranian, men and women exhibit common set of behavior/attitude in relationships that can be better explained in terms of cultural/social up bringing unique to Iranians, than the accepted western reliance on individual/self therapy. The speakers talk was based on a "scientific research"** which included giving questioners to about 400 Iranians. At times, the talk sounded out right like a stereo type of all Iranians lumped together as the "authoritative/forceful men" and the "sneaky/sly women". Some plausible and interesting questions raised by the speaker:
Could it be that rather than therapy, we need to understand the culture and the social setting that leads to these behavior much further before coming up with remedies? Is there a need for remedy? (who sets the standards) What's the role of economy social structure on these behavior .........
Overall, although the talk drifted from the topic quiet a bit it, with audience participation and the speakers unorthodox view on some of these subject we had an interesting night. (apologies if I butchered some of the ideas beyound recognition).
* I think something got lost in the translation here :-)
**Since the speker did not have a chart or more explanation about the nature of the questions, how the group was selected except that they ranged in age between 18-45 I chose to use the term scientific with caution in this statement.
Thank you for those kind words Hamid joon.
Just to give the new members a background, Ali Abedin distributed his questionair among doreh members as well. A number of us completed the survey. I clearly remember there was a section where you had to put a check mark by any of the attributes that described you, i.e, forceful, funny, cautious, sensitive, ... etc. (there was over 500 I would say)
Please note that the 400 people were both Iranians AND Americans. The research simply says: among this particular sample the Iranian men seemed more forceful than the Americans! Of course one could argue that it's some kind of stereotype. What if the sample was 1000 people all around the US? What if the sample was taken from some Iranian Suburb and a US big city? This sample was chosen from the people of bay area for the most part.
ok, let me add my 2 cents worth on this as well. the talk seemed very unstructured and wondered around on many topics. at times it seemed philosophical.
he could've explained at the beginning where he was heading, what his point was, etc. but i think he (perhaps intentionally) brought in many different topics and subject areas perhaps to get us thinking and raising new questions.
a few main points that i got out of the talk:
(1) iranian men are generally power-hungry, controller, narsistic types. 'ghodrat-talab' [i don't think forceful is the right word for this. few months ago sip had a speaker who talked about 'solteh-jooi' and 'solteh-talabi'. it was closely related to this.]
(2) the root of this should be sought in historical, cultural and sociological factors instead of individuality, personality, childhood, etc. he generally holds an anti western-psychology view.
(3) based on the study that he has conducted, he has come up with two set of characterizations and personality traits for iranian men and women who have immigrated to u.s. in a certain age range, in comparison to their north american counterparts. (these chracterizations were true and common sense for the most part to me. i.e. there were no big surprizes.)
(4) reportedly, these characterizations are also the same ones that have showed up in several studies on iranians living in iran.
hey, i think all this was worth more than 2 cents! :)
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