CAC 11

Human perceptions of time

What is ‘time’? What do human beings around the world think about time? Do we all agree on how time works?
Also a brief look at ‘Chronemics’ and Hall’s ideas of ‘monochronic’ and ‘polychronic’ attitudes. Time related language and gestures.

TASKS

• Read the reading (ignore the first abstract, it’s in French.)
• Look through the slides

I’ve put some links to related BBC radio podcasts at the bottom of the page, they’re generally pretty interesting, so if you have a free 45 minutes, why not give one a try 📻

Annotated Bibliography deadline soon

Don’t forget to submit your ‘Annotated Bibliography’! Just as a reminder, this is the prompt:

Choose three or four sources that you intend to use when writing your essay, Write a brief description of why they are each useful for your writing and how you will use each of them (ie. does the source provide concepts you intend to use, a useful theory, or data?)

You may use ONE of the weekly class readings, the rest you need to look for yourself.

Please make sure you include a properly formatted APA-style reference for each of the sources.

Aim to write about 200-300 words for each source you choose. The important thing is to think about how each of the resources contributes to helping you write your final essay.

Check the manaba assignments tab for details.

Slides

Download slides - PDF

Reading

Brislin, R. W. and Kim, E. S. (2003) Cultural diversity in people’s understanding and uses of time. Applied Psychology, 52(3):363–382

Download PDF

Other material

BBC “Thinking Allowed” podcast episode on post-war time usage.

BBC “In Our Time” podcasts on the origins of the Gregorian calendar, the measurement of time, and on the subjective feeling of ‘time passing’

Gregorian Calendar:

Measurement of Time:

Philosopher Henri Bergson on ‘feeling time passing’:

Philosophical outlook on the perception of time: