Culture

1
Culture

• What do people mean when they say
• You are cultured?

2
Culture

• All the shared products of a human group.
• Includes physical objects, beliefs, values, and
  behaviors.
• Methods by which collections of people deal with
  their environment.

• Material Culture the physical objects that
  people create.
• Nonmaterial Culture abstract human creations.
• Society group of mutually interdependent people
  who have organized in a way to share a common
  culture.

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Components of Culture

• Culture is learned and shared.
• Specific components vary among societies and
  changes occur over time.
• Culture Lag when nonmaterial culture cant keep
  up with material culture.

• Symbols stands for something else - shared
  meaning attached to it.
• Language organization of written or spoken
  symbols into a standardized system.

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Components continued

• Values shared beliefs about what is good or bad,
  right or wrong, desirable or undesirable,
  beautiful or ugly.
• Norms the shared rules of conduct that tell
  people how to act in specific situations
  (expectations) based on a communitys shared
  values.
• Based on who and where the individual is.

5
American Value System

• Certain values are shared by the majority of
  Americans.
• Value systems change due to various social
  factors, which leads to value conflicts as some
  values change over time.

Value Cluster values that fit together to form a
larger whole. Value Contradiction to follow one,
means you must given up another
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Some American Values

• Certain values are shared by the majority of
  Americans
• Personal Achievement/Success
• Work
• Morality
• Humanitarianism
• Efficiency
• Practicality
• Material Comfort
• Equity
• Democracy
• Freedom
• Self-Fulfillment
• Leisure
• Physical Fitness
• Youthfulness
• Environmental Concerns
• Individualism
• Science/Technology
• Education

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Norms more in depth

• One who breaks the norms deviant.
• Some people are expected to behave in certain
  ways based on their specific role.

• Folkways norms that do not have great moral
  significance attached to them (the etiquette and
  customs of a people that are not of critical
  importance to the society).

• Mores have great moral significance attached to
  them (violation of them endangers the well-being
  and stability of society).

• Taboo a norm so strong that it often brings
  revulsion if violated.

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What makes people in society conform to norms?

• Social Control means by which social norms are
  upheld and enforced.
• Internalization belief that the norm is good,
  useful or appropriate - becomes part of an
  individuals personality.
• Sanctions rewards or punishments that a society
  sets up to enforce the norms.

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Sanctions continued

• Positive reward or positive reaction
• Negative expression of disapproval for breaking
  a norm
• Physical or Psychological
• Formal vs. Informal

• Psychological address the feelings and emotions
  of a person.
• Informal unwritten and based on personal
  relations and public opinion.

Moral Holiday specified times when people are
allowed to break a norm Moral Holiday Place
locations where norms are expected to be broken
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Urinal Behavior Quiz
Number the Urinals from left to right
1-5. Following the scenario given, describe the
proper etiquette and why boys only on this
one. Girls, think about our bathrooms
1
2
3
4
5
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Elevator Rules

• List the expected etiquette/rules you have
  learned/follow when using an elevator.
• Be sure to explain why that is proper behvior

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Variation among and within Society

• Culture Shock disorientation experienced when we
  cannot make sense of the world when our
  nonmaterial culture fails us.
• Ethnocentrism the tendency to view ones own
  culture and group as superior to others.
• Cultural Relativism cultures should be judged by
  their own standards of their own culture - viewed
  from the point of view of the members of that
  society.
• Is there such thing as normal and abnormal
  when looking at differences in culture?

• Subculture a group in society that shares
  values, norms, and behaviors that are not shared
  by the entire population.
• Contra culture subcultures whose values (outlaw
  motorcyclists) or activities and goals
  (terrorists) conflict with mainstream culture.
• Counterculture a group that rejects the values,
  norms, and practices of the larger society and
  replaces them with a new set of cultural
  patterns/practices.

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Cultural Diversity and Universals

• Cultural Diversity

• Cultural Universals

• If humans all have the same basic needs, how can
  cultures be so different?
• Cultural Diffusion the spread of cultural
  characteristics from one group to another.
• Cultural Leveling process by which cultures
  become similar to one another.

• Some needs are so basic that all societies must
  develop ways to ensure their fulfillment.
• However human beings have the ability to meet
  these needs in a vast number of ways.
• Example - survival gt need to care for young gt
  families.
• But are all families the same?

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Symbolic Culture

• Things people attach meaning to (usually
  nonmaterial) that they use to communicate.
• Gestures using ones body to communicate
  (meanings might change from one culture to the
  other)
• Some gestures are biological.

• Language organization of written or spoken
  symbols into a standardized system.
• Provide deeper understanding of what we are
  communicating
• Represents objects and abstract thought.
• Emoticons written gestures for expressing
  yourself online
• http//pc.net/emoticons/

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Language Continued

• Allows culture to develop move beyond immediate
  experiences.
• Provides a social or shared past and future
  understand past events (times, dates, places).
• Allows for shared perspectives form a shared
  understanding that forms the basis of social life
• Not sharing a language while living alongside one
  another, invites miscommunication and suspicion.
• Allows complex, shared, and goal-directed
  behaviors establish purpose.

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Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

• Language creates ways of thinking and perceiving
  (rather than objects)
• In the United States we have learned to classify
  people (with given titles) jocks, goths,
  stoners, skaters, preps, etc.
• Because of that we will perceive people in an
  entirely different way from someone who does not
  know these classifications.

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Gesture Quiz