Understanding Culture: Language, Values, and Norms

1. Chapter 3 CULTURE

2. Chapter Overview • What is Culture? • Components of Symbolic Culture • Many Cultural Worlds: Subcultures and Countercultures • Values in U.S. Society • Technology in the Global Village • Cultural Lag, Diffusion, and Labeling

3. Culture is: The language, beliefs, values, norms, and behaviors passed on from one generation to the next How is this accomplished? Two components Nonmaterial culture Material culture What is Culture?

4. Belief system, values, behavior, social interactions, language, gestures, and assumptions about the world Cultural artifacts and objects people create and assign meanings to. What is Culture? Material Nonmaterial

5. Culture Within Us • Our speech, gestures, beliefs, customs are usually taken for granted • We assume that they are normal and natural • Cultural lens • Perception of reality • Guides our behavior and helps us make decisions

6. Cultural Consequences • Sometimes our assumptions are challenged • Culture Shock • Ethnocentrism • Practicing Cultural Relativism

7. What is Normal, Natural, or Usual? We believe our ways are “Normal” Culture Shock- cominginto contact with a culture that is different from what we know Cultures are in conflict Ethnocentrism-the belief that our culture is the “best” or superior to all others Tendency to evaluate other groups according to one’s own standards Negative consequences Positive consequences Ethnocentrism and Culture Shock

8. Attempt to understand another culture’s perspective and not based on one’s own perspective Refocus our lens so we can appreciate other ways of life instead of asserting “our way is right and the only way” Examples Hindu diet and US diet Bull fighting Values Cultural Relativism

9. When Cultural Relativism Does Not Apply • Cultural values result in exploitation • Involuntary • Inhumane • Oppressive • Examples • Honor Killing • Female Circumcision

10. Symbols Something people attach meaning and then use to communicate with others. Nonmaterial culture Material culture Components of Symbolic Culture

11. Components of Symbolic Culture Gestures • Using the body to communicate with others to send messages without using words • Universal, but meaning changes completely from one culture to another • Can lead to misunderstandings, embarrassment, or conflict • Some universal gestures

12. Components of Symbolic Culture Language • System of symbols that can be put together in infinite number of ways to communicate abstract thought. • Five Purposes of Languages • Allows Human Experience to Be Cumulative • Provides a Social or Shared Past • Provides a Social or Shared Future • Allows Shared Perspectives • Allows Complex, Shared, Goal-Directed Behavior

13. Components of Symbolic Culture Language & Perceptions • Language has embedded within it ways of looking at the world • Part of language is not only to learn it, but also ways of thinking and perceiving. • Sapir-Whorf hypothesis • The language of each culture does not merely influence how people understand the world it shapes ways of thinking and perceiving • Meaning beyond words • EXAMPLES • Welfare • Stupid • Labeling or Stereotyping • EXAMPLES • Racial profiling • Resumes

14. Components of Symbolic Culture Values • Standards by which people define what is desirable or undesirable, good or bad, beautiful or ugly. • Guide our choices or preferences in life • In modern pluralistic societies, such as the U.S., value orientations are complex.

15. Values in U.S. Society Achievement and Success Progress Equality Individualism Material Comfort Racism and Group Superiority Activity and Work Humanitarianism Education Efficiency and Practicality Freedom Religiosity Science and Technology Democracy Romantic Love

16. Values in U.S. Society Value Cluster • Values together form a larger whole • Values do not exist alone • Examples Value Clash • When core values change causing conflict between social groups • Change is viewed as a threat to their life, an undermining of both their present and their future. Ideal Culture • Values that society views as important and worth aspiring up to • What people "should do“ • Real Culture • The values and norms and people actually follow • What people "actually do"

17. Values in U.S. Society Emerging Values • A value cluster of 4 interrelated core values • Leisure • self fulfillment • Physical fitness • Youthfulness • Environmental consciousness

18. Norms - Expectations or rules for behavior Informal and Formal Norms Norms will change as cultures change Sanctions - Reaction to following or breaking norms Positive Sanctions Negative Sanctions Moral holidays Components of Symbolic Culture Norms

19. Folkways - Norms that are not strictly enforced Weak social norms Not a threat to society Examples Mores - Norms, when broken, go against a society’s basic core values Strictly enforced norms Norms are viewed as essential and everyone must follow Examples Taboos - Norms, when broken, are considered repulsive People who violate these norms are viewed as unfit for society Examples Components of Symbolic Culture Types of Norms

20. Subculture: A world within the dominant culture Groups that share many elements of mainstream culture but maintain their own distinctive customs, values, norms, and lifestyles. The norms and values do not clash with those of the dominant culture Countercultures: A world within the dominant culture Groups whose values, lifestyles, norms, attitudes, and other behaviors are in opposition to the broader society The norms and values clash with those of the dominant culture Many Cultural Worlds

21. Cultural Diffusion: The spreading of cultural characteristics from one culture to another Why is this happening so rapidly? Cultural Leveling: When cultures start to become similar to each other Cultural Diffusion and Cultural Leveling

22. Perspectives on Culture Functionalist Perspective • All cultures are in part practical responses to environmental conditions • Cultural ecological approach • Examines the relationship between a culture and its total environment • Example: Hindu culture • Prevents ethnocentrism • Cultural integration approach • Show how the cultural practices of groups tend to “fit together” • Changes in one element may have broad repercussions for the culture of any group. • Example: Technological changes

23. Perspectives on Culture Conflict Perspective • The values, beliefs, and traditions of a nation or society are not necessarily a product of consensus and “social need” • Culture is highly complex with many strains and contradictions between conflicting group interests and needs. • Groups with power and wealth have the resources to control and influence national culture • Examples: slave era, corporate capitalism • Cultural hegemony • The domination of cultural industries by elite groups

24. Perspectives on Culture Symbolic Interaction Perspective • Focuses on how individuals and groups use symbols to define and interpret reality. • People everywhere live in “symbolic worlds” that are created and reproduced by diverse social groups • Our daily lives are structured by the symbols and meanings of many groups • If groups define something as real, whether or not they truly exist, “they are real in their consequences”