The Culture Within Us. . .

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The Culture Within Us. . .
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Pre-test Question

• While the meaning of symbols varies greatly
  across cultures, the meanings attached to
  gestures are virtually universal in all cultures.
• True
• False

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Pre-Test Question

• Culture is passed from generation to generation
  through a process of heredity and instinct.
• True
• False

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Pre-Test Question

• Which of the following statements is correct?
• A. It is natural for Americans to wear jeans and
  Arabs to wear robes.
• B. It is natural for Americans to eat rice and
  Chinese to eat hot dogs.
• C. It is natural for Mexicans to speak English.
• D. There is nothing natural about human behavior.

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Culture The lens we use to perceive evaluate
things around us

• Material Culture
• Things you can see or feel objects (e.g.
  toilets, utensils, etc).
• Nonmaterial Culture (symbolic culture)
• - A groups ways of thinking its beliefs,
  values, and assumptions about the world. Have no
  physical existence.

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Symbolic Culture

• Symbols
• Gestures
• Language
• Values
• Norms
• Sanctions
• Folkways
• Mores

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Pre-test Question

• A system of symbols that can be strung together
  in an infinite number of ways for the purpose of
  communicating abstract thought is
• A. Technology
• B. Raw materials
• C. Language
• D. Ethnocentrism

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Language

• The primary way people communicate
• Language allows culture to exist

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Pre-Test Question

• The Saphir-Whorf Hypothesis addresses how
  material culture is adopted by one society when
  it comes into contact with another.
• True
• False

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Saphir-Whorf Hypothesis

• Language determines consciousness
• Thinking and perception are not only expressed
  through language but also shaped by language.

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Pre-test Question

• Sociologist use the term_______ to indicate the
  standards by which people define their ideas
  about what is desirable in life.
• A. Norms
• B. Mores
• C. Values
• D. Sanctions

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Values

• The standards by which people define good and
  bad, beautiful and ugly
• Underlie our preferences guide choices

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Pre-test Question

• Sociologists use this term to describe the
  expectations, or rules of behavior that develop
  out of values
• A. Mores
• B. Folkways
• C. Norms
• D. Sanctions

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Mores Folkways

• Mores
• Essential to core values
• Strictly enforced

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Folkways

• Norms that are not strictly enforced

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Pre-Test Question

• Mark and Sally went walking in the park. Both of
  them were wearing nothing on the upper half of
  their bodies. Mark would be violating a
  _________, Sally would be violating a _________.
• A. more folkway
• B. more taboo
• C. folkway more
• D. folkway taboo

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Ethnocentrism Cultural Relativism
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Ethnocentrism

• Ethnocentrism leads us to make false assumptions
  about other peoples. We are ethnocentric when we
  use our cultural norms to make generalizations
  about other peoples culture and customs. Such
  generalizations are often made without a
  conscious awareness that weve used our culture
  as a universal yardstick.

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Positive Negative Consequences of Ethnocentrism

• Positive
• the point of view that ones own life is be
  preferred to all others. (Herskovits, 1973)
• Gives people their sense of people-hood, group
  identity, and place in history

• Negative
• ones own group becomes the center of
  everything. (Herskovits, 1973)
• May lead to discrimination of those perceived as
  different (e.g. racial segregation holocaust
  genocide)

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Four Types of Biases in Ethnocentrism

• 1. Subjective bias-- When experiences of the
  observer, or their point of view, influence their
  outlook on culture
• 2. Evaluative biasWhen the observer judges what
  is good or bad, right or wrong, based on own
  cultural beliefs, not those of the host culture.
• 3. Cognitive bias When the observer does not
  recognize that different words, acts, or symbols
  have a different meaning than what they do in
  their own culture
• 4. Conceptual bias--When the observer does not
  recognize that the host culture has different
  world views than their own.

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Cultural Relativism

• The idea that all cultures are equally worthy of
  respect and that in studying another culture we
  need to suspend judgment, empathize and try to
  understand the way that particular culture sees
  the world.

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Subcultures and Countercultures

• Subcultures
• A group within a culture that shares some of the
  beliefs, values, and norms of the larger culture
  but also has some that are distinctly its own.

• Counterculture
• Holds values in opposition to those of the
  dominant culture

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American ValuesPre-Test Question

• Most high schools routinely schedule ceremonies
  to recognize the most talented student athletes
  and scholars. Such activities illustrate the
  importance Americans place on the value of. . .
• A. Efficiency
• B. Achievement
• C. School Attendance
• E. Freedom

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Other American Values include. . .

• Sociologist Robin Williams identified 12 core
  American Values. (Name eight core values.)

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What we say vs. What we doPre-test Question

• Ralph is attending classes at the University. He
  believes in the idea of success, but he doesnt
  spend as much time as he could studying to
  achieve As in all his classes. His behavior is
  an example of. . .
• A. ideal culture
• B. nonmaterial culture
• C. real culture
• D. material culture