I. Culture
A. Dfn. – is all that human beings learn to do, to use, to produce, to
know, and to believe as they grow to maturity and live out their lives in
the social group to which they belong.
B. Society – is a group of interdependent people who have organized in
such a way as to share a common culture and feeling of unity. All
groups have this, culture is the how
C. Blueprint for living
1. Acculturation
a. Born into, internalized
b. Expected to follow
2. Characteristics of Culture
(Tell me how the following fit)
a. Satisfies human needs
b. Renewed and recreated
c. Generational conflict
d. Acquired through learning
e. Based on symbols
f. Patterns and rituals
3. Varies from group to group
4. Glue
D. Culture and Biology
1. Animals have instincts – inborn impulse or unconscious skill.
(reflex, is an involuntary and nearly instantaneous movement in
response to a stimulus.)
2. Humans???
3. Basic Human Activities Needed to Survive (Biological & Not Biological) All
Societies do these.
a. Produce, Exchange, Distribute
b. Transportation
c. Communication - #1
d. Protect and Conserve
e. Provide Education
f. Make Tools
g. Provide Recreation
h. Organize and Govern
i. Moral, Ethical, & Religious
j. Aesthetic Needs
II. Components of Culture
A. Material Culture – Material,
Non-Material (Cognitive Culture)
1. Material Culture – Human technology
a. All that humans …
b. Buffer zone
c. Most visible
d. Flexibility
B. Non-Material Culture – the totality
of knowledge, beliefs, values, and
rules for appropriate behavior.
1. Associate with material culture
ex. Religion, Family, School,
Economy, Gov’t
2. Appropriate and inappropriate
uses
C. Cognitive Culture – The thinking component of culture, which
consists of shared beliefs and knowledge of what the world is
like, what is real, what is not, what is important, and what is
trivial.
1. Values – a culture’s general orientation toward life. What is
good/bad, desirable/undesirable, important/trivial.
2. Memetics – the theoretical and empirical science that studies
the replication, spread, and evolution of memes.
a. Memes – an information pattern held in an individuals
memory, which is capable of being copied to another
individual’s memory.
b. Carrier – replication – carrier – replication …
D. Symbol - anything that represents something else and carries a
particular meaning recognized by members of a culture.
1. Culture is revealed and communicated most clearly through
symbols
2. Carry powerful intellectual and emotional images; they speak to
the mind & heart.
3. Geart Hofstede - symbols are the collective programming of the
mind that distinguishes the members of one human group from
another.
4. Basic building blocks of culture 5. What is important is not what happens, but what it means
6. All culture, material and nonmaterial are symbols
7. A symbol may not share any quality with whatever they represent.
8. Sign - a mark having a conventional meaning and used in place of
words or to represent a complex notion - do have something to do
with what represent - symbols may not.
E. Language and Culture
1. #1 connector of a culture. Main way to transmit information
2. Allows us to over come environment
3. Never start over - add to previous generations accomplishments - animals
start over - language allows us to transcend time, allows us to go back in
time
4. Language main shaper - selectivity - process by which some aspects of
the world are viewed as important while others are neglected
5. Saphir - Whorf Hypothesis - language a person uses determines is/her
perception of reality –
6. Problem with language - it is not exact – Abbott video, test
Swearing
How does swearing relate to selectivity and the SaphirWhorf hypothesis?
Evaluate the proliferation of swearing as a normative shift.
Is this good or bad? Keep in mind manners, respect, and
humanness. Is this shift good or bad? What does this
say about us as a culture?
Also keep in mind that the words we use reflect who we
are. (As one old Sociologist said “Everything matters”.)
You need to appropriately incorporate words such as
selectivity, Saphir-whorf hypothesis, value, and symbol
into your typed one page paper. Introduction and
conclusions are mandatory. Beginning of the year writing
requirements are in play. Check slang
F. Norms – Rules of behavior that are
agreed upon and shared with in a culture
and that prescribe limits of acceptable
behavior. (Women video)
1. supported by the idea that a particular
behavior is correct and proper
2. Norms help society run smoothly
3. Can change from time and place
4. Good news / Bad news
As a group answer the following questions.
• How has dating norms changed from the 40’s, 50’s,
60’s, 70’s, 80’s & 90’s to today? Explain
• Good or bad? Explain
• Do teenagers still date? Describe typical date
• Ideal Date
As a group 2 - 4 people – List information about –
Dance, love token, hot couples, love songs, date
movie, date dilemma, the “and remember”, dating do’s
and don’ts.
•
Make a page for “today” for Friday – bring everything you need to be successful!!! (ex. Pictures) You will not be able to go to the computer lab. Type up things that will be pasted to your 81/2
X 11 paper. It should cover all the same things that are on a seventeen magazine page.
5. Two Categories of Norms – (Normative Order)
a. Folkways – norms that permit a wide degree of individual interpretation as
long as certain limits are not overstepped.
1) Can change over time
2) Vary from culture to culture
3) Ex.
4) What if we did not follow folkways???
(video)
b. Mores – are strongly held norms that permit
small/no degree of individual interpretation.
1) Can’t be overstepped
2) strongly sanctioned, + or –
3) Vital for the
4) Ex.
5) Laws – norms that are formal rules adopted
by society’s pol. authority/ gov’t
6) Taboos – violate a sense of humanness
7) Can change over time
6. Ideal Norms – Expectations of what people should
do under perfect conditions.
7. Real Norms – are norms that are expressed with
qualifications and allowances for differences in
individual behavior. (Alive)
III. Culture and Adaptation
A. Culture as an Adaptive Mechanism
1. Physically we are weak compared to animals
2. Culture allows us to overcome and change quickly
a. animals evolve over millions of years,
b. Do cultures adjust to climate and weather??
3. No culture - society ends as we know it - we need it to survive
B. Adaptation - process by which people adjust to changes in their
environment. 2 Kinds
1. Specialization - involves developing ways of doing things that work
extremely well in a particular environment or set of circumstances
2. Generalized adaptability - involves developing more complicated yet
more flexible ways of doing things.
C. Mechanisms of Cultural Change
1. Cultural Change takes place at many different levels
2. The number of items in a culture has a direct relationship to the amount of
change
3. Two Mechanisms responsible for Cultural Evolution
a. Innovation - any new practice or tool that becomes widely accepted in a
society. (Technology)
- invention - two or more old ideas put together in a new way.
b. Diffusion - is the movement of cultural traits from on e culture to another.
- Reformulation - in which the trait is modified in some way so that it fits
better in its new context.
4. Cultural Lag - phenomenon through which new patterns of behavior may
emerge, even though they conflict with traditional values
a. Technology always ahead of culture and values
IV. Subcultures
A. Dfn. - the distinctive lifestyles values, norms, and beliefs of certain
segments of population with in a society.
B. Types of Subcultures
1. Ethnic Subculture 2. Occupational Subculture 3. Religious Subculture 4. Political –
5. Geographical 6. Social class 7. Deviant subculture -
C. Counterculture – a group rejects the major
values, norms, and practices of the larger
society and replaces them with a new set of
cultural patterns.
V. Cultural Variations A. Culture Shock 1. the difficulty people have adjusting to a new culture that differs markedly
from their own. (China?) (Phil.)
B. Ethnocentrism – people make judgments about other cultures according to
the customs and values of their own. (video, Canada)
1. Racism – physical personification of ethnocentrism
2. Cultural Relativism – recognition that social groups and cultures must be
studied and understood on their own terms before valid comparison can be
made.
C. Cultural Universals – common features
that are found in all human cultures.
1. Ex. – adornment, cooking, dancing,
family, feasting, forms of greeting, funeral
ceremonies, gift giving, housing, language,
medicine, music, myths, and folklore,
religion, sports, and tool making.