Culture

1
Chapter 3

• Culture

2
Chapter Outline

• Dimensions of Culture
• Language and Culture
• Cultural Diversity
• Cultural Similarity
• Ethnocentrism Versus Cultural Relativism
• Culture, Society, and Heredity

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Culture and Society

• Culture consists of material objects, patterns of
  thinking, feeling, and behaving passed from
  generation to generation. A peoples way of life
  that is passed on generationally.
• A society is a group of people living within
  defined territorial borders who share a culture.
• Culture provides the blueprints for guiding
  people in their relationships within a society.

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Questions for Consideration

• What are the dimensions of culture discussed in
  this video? Are they similar or different from
  what Shepard identifies?
• How has change impacted our culture?
• How is material culture different than
  nonmaterial culture?

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Three Dimensions of Culture

• Normative - composed of norms, sanctions, and
  values.
• Cognitive - language, beliefs
• Material - concrete, tangible aspects of a
  culture

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Norms

• Rules defining appropriate and inappropriate ways
  of behaving.
• Rules that guide behavior.
• Change throughout time and from culture to
  culture.
• Help explain why people in a society or group
  behave similarly in similar circumstances.

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Premarital Sexual Experience Among Teen Women in
the U.S.
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Questions for Consideration

• The previous slide shows the change in the
  reported premarital experience among teenage
  women in the U.S. What questions might you pose
  as you apply information from the previous
  chapter to this table?
• From a cultural context, what might explain
  the rise and fall of this trend?

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Types of Norms

1. Folkways rules that cover customary ways of
   thinking, feeling, and behaving. Norms that have
   little or no moral significance. If they are not
   followed, the sanctions are very minor (e.g., use
   of a cell phone in a restaurant, or in class).
2. Mores (MOR-ays) norms/rules with great moral
   significance. Seen as vital to the well-being of
   society. Violation will evoke strong disapproval.

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Types of Norms Cont.

• Taboos are a type of more that is extremely
  serious incest taboo, canibalism, etc. These are
  actions where the mere thought of them disgusts
  people in that society.
• Laws norms that are formally defined and
  enforced by officials. They are consciously
  created and enforced. Mores are an important
  source of laws.

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Enforcement of Norms

• Sanctionsrewards and punishments used to
  encourage conformity to norms (informal and
  formal).
• Formal sanctions given only by officially
  designated persons (e.g., an A for academic
  performance time in jail/prison for committing
  fraud)
• Informal sanctions can be applied by most
  members of society (e.g., thanking someone for
  helping you change a tire)

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What are Values?

• Values broad cultural principles that most
  people in a society consider desirable.
• They do not specify precisely what to think,
  feel, or behave. Rather, they are ideas about
  what a group of people believe is good/bad,
  acceptable/unacceptable, etc.
• They are important because they have a tremendous
  influence on social behavior.
• Norms are based on a cultures values.

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American Values

• Achievement and success
• Activity and work
• Efficiency and practicality
• Equality
• Democracy
• Group Superiority (racial, ethnic, religious)

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Cognitive Dimension

• The cognitive dimension of culture refers to a
  cultures construction of ideas and knowledge.
• Material culture concrete tangible objects
  within a culture (e.g., automobiles, basketballs,
  jewelry). Artifacts that have no meaning or use
  apart from the meanings people give them.
• Physical objects do not have the same meanings
  and uses in all societies.

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Ideal and Real Culture

• Ideal culture cultural guidelines publicly
  embraced by members of a society (those we claim
  to accept)
• Real culture actual behavior patterns exhibited
  by members of a society

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Language and Culture

• The creation and transmission of culture depends
  heavily on the capacity to develop symbols.
• Symbols signs with meaning things that stand
  for, or represent, something else. Can also
  include gestures (e.g., a hand wave).
• Language a system of interrelated symbols
  through which a group of people are able to
  communicate and pass down information.

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Questions for Consideration

• Why are both columns called symbols?
• How easy is it to learn these emoticons?
• What thoughts and feelings are elicited when you
  receive communication with an emoticon and you do
  not know what it stands for?

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Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

• This hypothesis is known as the hypothesis of
  linguistic relativity.
• Our perception of reality is at the mercy of the
  words and grammatical rules of our language.
• Language shapes our reality.
• Studies demonstrate that language significantly
  shapes thought.

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Questions for Consideration

• How does learning a new language shape ones view
  of the world?
• What is meant by the statement that people are
  forever prisoners of their language?
• What are some ways that you can apply the
  Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?

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Cultural Diversity

• Because humans are basically the same
  biologically, cultural diversity must be
  explained by nongenetic factors.
• Cultural diversity within societies is promoted
  by social categories, subcultures, and
  countercultures.

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Subcultures

• Subcultures a group that is part of the
  dominant culture but differs from it in some
  important respects.
• By tradition, Americans like to see themselves as
  part of a large, single culture. Yet there are
  many subgroups with cultural uniqueness.
• What are examples of subcultures in the U.S.?

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Subcultures Southern Appalachia

• According to sociologists in the 1960s
• Southern Appalachians are fatalistic, present
  oriented, unambitious, and nonparticipative.
• This subculture is a cultural adaptation to
  living a long-standing deprived and frustrating
  existence.

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Countercultures

• A subculture that is deliberately and consciously
  opposed to aspects of the dominant culture.
• Openly defies norms, values, and/or beliefs of
  the dominant culture.
• Rebelling against the dominant culture is central
  to their members.
• Examples
• militia movement, skinheads, hippies

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Ethnocentrism

• The tendency to judge other individuals or
  cultures based on ones own cultural standards.
• This moves beyond race and ethnicity.
• Taken to an extreme end, can result in
  feelings of superiority of ones group over
  others.
• A belief that your groups way is the best and
  normal way to do things, see the world, etc.

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Culture Shock

• Defined as the psychological and social stress we
  may experience when confronted with a radically
  different cultural environment.
• This can be experienced when going to a different
  country that one has never experienced, but also
  when moving from one familiar cultural group
  (grade school) to an unfamiliar group (high
  school).

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Questions for Consideration

• How does culture shock affect individuals?
• What are some instances where you have
  experienced culture shock?

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Cultural Relativism

• Evaluating another persons or groups behaviors,
  thoughts, etc. based on that cultures standards,
  not ones own.
• This perspective also states values, norms,
  beliefs, and attitudes are not in themselves
  correct or incorrect they simply exist within
  the total cultural framework of a people and
  should be evaluated in relation to their place
  within the larger cultural context of which they
  are a part.

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Application of Cultural Relativism

• Consider the novel excerpt provided in your text
  regarding Rueschs novel about an Eskimos rage
  that caused him to accidentally kill a guest who
  refused to have sexual relations with his wife.
• How does this norm fit with Eskimo culture?
• By applying cultural relativism in this case,
  does that require that you accept another
  cultures norms and practices?

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Cultural Similarity

• Although there are many differences between
  groups throughout the world, sociologists and
  anthropologists have identified many behaviors
  that are shared by all cultures.
• All cultures have families, schools, houses of
  worship, economies, governments, and systems of
  prestige.

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Questions for Consideration

• Do you think that the data support the existence
  of cultural diversity or cultural similarity?
  Explain.
• Are you surprised by any of these rankings? Which
  ones and why?

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Cultural Universals

• General cultural traits that exist in all known
  societies.
• Although found in all societies, their expression
  varies among societies.
• Reasons for cultural universals
• Biological similarity of humans
• Common limitations of the physical environment
• Common problems of sustaining social life

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Cultural Universals
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Culture and Heredity

• Humans do not have instincts human behavior is
  learned.
• Genetically inherited drives do not determine how
  humans behave, because people are heavily
  influenced by culture.
• If we were controlled by instincts, we would
  pretty much all behave the same way (e.g., if
  women had an instinct for mothering, then all
  women would want children).

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Sociobiology

• Sociobiology is the study of the biological basis
  of human behavior.
• Sociobiologists argue that physical
  characteristics, human social behavior is shaped
  through the evolutionary process.
• The application of Darwinian natural selection to
  human social behavior.

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Questions for Consideration

• How might functionalists and conflict theorists
  have different views of countercultures? Which
  view do you prefer and why?
• What can be done to minimize our tendencies of
  ethnocentrism?