Culture

1
Chapter 3

• Culture

2
Chapter Outline

• The Challenge of Defining Culture
• Material and Nonmaterial Components
• The Role of Geographic and Historical Forces
• The Transmission of Culture

3
Chapter Outline

• Culture as a Tool for the Problems of Living
• Cultural Diffusion
• The Home Culture as the Standard
• Subcultures

4
Culture

• The way of life especially the general customs
  and beliefs of a particular group of people at a
  particular time.

5
Material and Nonmaterial Culture

• Material culture is all physical objects that
  people have borrowed, discovered, or invented and
  to which they have attached meaning.
• Nonmaterial culture is intangible human creations
  that we cannot identify directly through the
  senses.

6
Nonmaterial Culture

• Nonmaterial culture consists of nonphysical
  creations.
• A person cannot hold or see nonmaterial culture.
• Three of the most important of these creations
  are beliefs, values, and norms.

7
Beliefs and Values

• Beliefs are conceptions that people accept as
  true, concerning how the world operates and where
  the individual fits in relationship to others.
• Values are general, shared conceptions of what is
  good, right, appropriate, worthwhile, and
  important with regard to conduct, appearance, and
  states of being.

8
Norms

• Norms are written and unwritten rules that
  specify behaviors appropriate and inappropriate
  to a particular social situation.
• Folkways are norms that apply to the mundane
  aspects or details of daily life.

9
Mores

• Mores are norms that people define as critical to
  the wellbeing of a group. Violation of mores
  results in severe forms of punishment.

10
Geographic and Historical Forces

• Culture acts as a buffer between people and their
  habitat.

11
U.S. Military Bases Worldwide
12
U.S. Military Bases in S. Korea
13
Transmission of Culture

• Culture is learned.
• Language is a tool for transmitting culture.

14
Language and Culture

• Language conveys important messages above and
  beyond the actual meaning of words.
• Words mirror cultural values.
• Common expressions embody the preoccupations of
  the culture.

15
Shades of Meaning

• Denotation is a words literal definition.
• Connotation is the set of associations and
  meanings that a word evokes in addition to its
  literal definition.
• Idiom is a group of words that, when taken
  together, have a meaning different from the
  literal meaning of each word understood on its
  own.

16
Individual Experiences

• People are products of cultural experiences but
  are not cultural replicas of one another.

17
Culture as a Tool

• Culture is the tool that enables the individual
  to adjust to the problems of living.
• All cultures have developed formulas to help
  their members respond to biological
  inevitabilities.

18
Formulas

• Formulas exist for caring for children
  satisfying the need for food, drink, and sex
  channeling and displaying emotions and
  eventually departing this world.

19
Social Emotions

• Social emotions are internal bodily sensations
  that we experience in relationships with other
  people.
• Feeling rules are norms that specify appropriate
  ways to express social emotions.

20
Cultural Diffusion

• People borrow material and nonmaterial culture
  from other societies.
• Diffusion is the process by which an idea, an
  invention, or some other cultural item is
  borrowed from a foreign source.

21
Cultural Diffusion Between Americans and S.
Koreans
22
Top 20 Lands with Most Jehovahs Witnesses 1998
23
Polling Question

• With which cultural background do you identify
  with the most? Choose only one.
• A.) Anglo (white, non-Hispanic)
• B.) Hispanic
• C.) African American, black
• D.) Native American (American Indian)
• E.) Asian
• F.) Other

24
Polling Question

• Do you favor or oppose an amendment to the U.S.
  Constitution that would make English the official
  language of the United States?
• A.) Favor
• B.) Oppose
• C.) No opinion

25
Home Culture as the Standard

• The home culture is usually the standard that
  people use to make judgments about the material
  and nonmaterial cultures of another society.
• Most people come to learn and accept the ways of
  their culture as natural.

26
Culture Shock

• Culture shock is the strain that people from one
  culture experience when they must reorient
  themselves to the ways of a new culture.
• When encountering foreign cultures, one can
  experience mental and physical strain.

27
Intensity of Culture Shock

• Factors influencing the intensity of culture
  shock
• The extent to which the home and foreign cultures
  differ.
• The level of the persons preparation or
  knowledge about the new culture.
• The circumstances (vacation, job transfer, or
  war) surrounding the encounter.

28
Reentry Shock

• Reentry shock is culture shock in reverse it is
  experienced upon returning home after living in
  another culture.

29
Gallons of Oil Consumed per Day in 3 Countries
30
Cultural Bias

• Ethnocentrism is a viewpoint that uses one
  culture, usually the home culture, as the
  standard for judging the worth of foreign ways.
• Cultural genocide is a form of ethnocentrism in
  which the people of one society define the
  culture of another society not as merely
  offensive, but as so intolerable that they seek
  to destroy it.

31
Reverse Ethnocentrism

• Reverse ethnocentrism is a type of ethnocentrism
  in which the home culture is regarded as inferior
  to a foreign culture.

32
Cultural Relativism

• Cultural relativism is the perspective that a
  foreign culture should not be judged by the
  standards of a home culture and that a behavior
  or way of thinking must be examined in its
  cultural context.

33
Subcultures

• In every society some groups possess distinctive
  traits that set them apart from the main culture.
  
• Subcultures are groups that share in some parts
  of the dominant culture but have their own
  distinctive values, norms, language, and/or
  material culture.

34
Institutionally Complete Subcultures

• Subcultures whose members do not interact with
  anyone outside their subculture to shop for food,
  attend school, receive medical care, or find
  companionship because the subculture satisfies
  these needs.

35
Quick Quiz
36
1. When the home culture is regarded as inferior
to a foreign culture?

• ethnocentrism
• culture shock
• reverse culture shock
• reverse ethnocentrism

37
Answer d

• Reverse ethnocentrism is when the home culture is
  regarded as inferior to a foreign culture.

38
2. The strain experienced when trying to orient
to a new culture is

• ethnocentrism
• culture shock
• reverse culture shock
• none of these

39
Answer b

• Culture shock is the strain experienced when
  trying to orient to a new culture.

40
3. Groups that possess distinctive traits that
set them apart from the dominant culture

• subcultures
• ethnocentrists
• small groups
• populations

41
Answer a

• Subcultures are groups that possess distinctive
  traits that set them apart from the dominant
  culture.